Comments on Organic Community by Joseph Myers

“Our focus should be on the journey, not the destination” (Myers, Organic Community, 32).

Is Myers correct? Should our focus be on the journey? The invitation to journey with Jesus is found in many emerging church writings and even evangelical churches often invite people to begin the journey. All Christians who accept Christ’s call to follow Him are called undertake the journey along the narrow path. Even so, are Christians to focus on this journey or the destination to which they are journeying?

The author of Hebrews states, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2 NIV). Notice, the writer of Hebrews does not say to fix your eyes on the path; rather, he says to look toward the destination, i.e. Jesus. While New Age teaching may be about self-improvement (journeying), the Bible teaches self-surrender to the person of Christ whose Life and Example are ever before us. Myers may want to reconsider his choice of words (and perhaps his meaning).

At another point, Myers writes, “And maybe we would stop expecting God, or the words written about him (the Bible), to be ‘the answer.’ God as noun can become answer. God as verb can become a relational experience. 
Phrases like ‘objective truth’ and ‘absolute truth’ are comfortable in a noun-centric culture and language. They are less comfortable in a verb-centric culture, perhaps because we who are ever-changing recognize that our understanding is ever-changing as well” (153).

Let me unpack this and offer a critical response. Myers understanding of the postmodern culture is superb. Postmodern people certainly hunger for a spiritual experience. This can be readily seen in their hunger for spirituality of all kinds—New Age, Buddhism, Wiccan, etc. Given this observation, Myers seeks a more experiential approach to God, one that will be more palatable for his audience. One should remember how the Israelites, upon their exodus from Egypt, quickly turned to idolatry. This idoltrous behavior remained a common component of Hebraic culture throughout their history. What does this mean? It means that humanity has desired an experience with God since way before the postmodern culture of the West rose to prominence. Myers offers and suggests experience, but God wants obedience. The relational experience, to which Myers speaks, can only flow out of an obedient heart. People should not be directed or motivated to pursue God out of some desire for a self-fulfilling experience; rather, they should love God enough to obey Him and through their obedience experience His relational presence.

Myers argues that “Language shapes the way we behave and believe” (155).

Um, no it does not. Our thoughts shape our words. Our capacity to think allows us to order words to communicate our thoughts. It also allows us to discover new ways to communicate as we learn new words. Stop and say something to yourself. Do your words represent your thoughts or is it the other way around? If your thoughts shape your words, then your words represent your thoughts and your ability to think apart from your choice of words. Before one decides to believe something, a healthy independent thinker will think about it first. Another way to see the fallacy of Myers’ viewpoint is to consider the impact of globalization on Western culture, particularly American culture. Our language has changed some over the last two centuries, but look how much change has occurred on the religious scene in that same time. If language encapsulates belief, one should expect more variance in language.