I like the city of New Orleans. Since we have relocated to Louisiana we have made six trips there – four of the six were as pure tourist. We discovered Restoration Hall, where the purist will fine Dixieland Jazz performed nightly. This is not my favorite form of jazz music but any kind of music is a delight when it is done well and done live. If, in the midst of a Dixieland performance, a player would move into another style of music, say, the Model Jazz of Miles Davis or John Coultrane, the listener would notice immediately. If it were done with a high level of finesse and for a reasonable artistic end, it might be received well. But, to change of conceptual styles can be disconcerting and confusing.
In all expressions of art (music, food, literature, and architecture) there is a fusion movement. The artist experiments with different genres to express some mood or idea. You may hear a piece begin with a driving beat of rap, then over or under it, a vocalist will sing a soul styled love song, blended in to that you can hear the rapper influence by Reggae. When it works, there is a true innovation in music. When it doesn’t the listener is confused, amused or mildly annoyed.
Evangelicals, of a type, fuse various theological traditions into a single theology. Take the notion of worship. A Fusion Evangelical might begin with the romanticism of the neo-Pentecostals to justify the place of a set of praise choruses, then a liturgical prayer with certain classic responses, like the Kyria, and appeal to Covenant Theology to support the high view of baptism in worship. To honor the Revivalist tradition would require some point of decision at the end of a Gospel presentation.
While in planning worship, as an artistic expression, such eclecticism might be called for, but what of theology? If the role of theology is to guard the integrity of the Gospel message so that the faith “once delivered” might be faithfully passed on to a new generation, then is a fusion of doctrines useful?
Ask any liberal or evangelical Presbyterian (USA) member if they are “Reformed” in their theology and they will quote from three documents – the Shorter Catechism, “What is the chief man? – love God and enjoy him forever;” then, from the Heidelberg Catechism, “What is our only comfort in life and in death?” Answer: “To belong to Jesus Christ.” Then, if they are truly well read, they quote from Calvin’s Institute of the Christian Religion, where Calvin begins his first book with the assertion that all knowledge ought to focus on our knowledge of ourselves in light of our knowledge of God. One Presbyterian Gay Rights group borrows a phrase from a Puritan where he says that “more light” is to be expected from God’s word, the Bible. So, homosexual advocates sit among the Puritans. Maybe not.
Reformed theology for many consists in three aims, 1. Enjoy God, 2. Take Comfort in knowing that you belong to God, and, 3.to learn more and more about your beautiful self. All the niceties of God’s eternal decrees, God’s unilateral covenants and the very order of God’s saving work – not to mention the authority and nature of holy Scripture, the call to personal righteousness and the mortification of the flesh are utterly ignored.
To find the answers for all the parts of the Reformed theology that are left out most turn to pop psychology, new age spirituality, cutting edge political theologies such as Feminism and other forms of Marxists based Liberation theology. Among evangelicals it seems all the rage is perfecting the world. They are into mission trips to find really, really poor people groups and help them “better their lives.”
Our theology is a fusion theology – a little of orthodoxy (ie; some form of the trinity), a little pop psychology, a little pop spirituality, a little missionolgy, and a little liturgical novelty. What is missing is coherency. Nothing holds it together but an idiosyncratic interpretation of the Bible. Our very book of confession is a Fusion of nearly a dozen confessional statement that do not agree with each other on many points.
If the role of theology is to guard the integrity of the Gospel message so that the faith “once delivered” might be faithfully passed on to a new generation, then is a fusion of doctrines useful?
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