Christopraxis at Camp

Many Christians today, particularly in so-called “mainline denominations” (like Lutheran, Catholic, and Methodist), abdicate the work of pastoral care and pastoral theology to the ministry professionals. We attend church to be preached a sermon and to receive care, and we leave the theology to the professionals. The notion is that pastoral theology is safe when it is in the hands of professionals. Leaders can agree on doctrine, which can then be taught to the masses. This system is designed to guard against heresy and prevent abuses, and it assumes a hierarchical structure of authority. The irony is that this very system results in abuse, most clearly in the silencing of the powerless. Dissenting voices irrupt the Western, patriarchic claim to a universally applicable truth by attending to the voices of women, liberation theologians, Asian theologians, and others around the world who have suffered oppression in the name of protecting universal truth claims. This oppression makes clear that pastoral theology is far from safe in the hands of professionals and must include intentional dialogue with the diverse community of believers.

From a Western, hierarchical standpoint, Christian summer camp is a profoundly unsafe environment for pastoral theology because the professionals are not in control. Pastoral care is placed in the hands of young, unqualified people who are engaging in unchecked psuedo-theological reflection. In my years of serving at Christian camps across the country, I have repeatedly heard this concern from clergy members, who are afraid their young congregants will be exposed to heresy at camp and return theologically damaged. My response has changed over time as a result of new experiences and lived realities. Starting with my first camp experience in eighth grade and progressing through a career of Christian camping ministry, I have discovered camp to be a theological playground in which rigid doctrine becomes suddenly malleable. The untouchable truth claims that are safely protected behind the display case of the church building and curated by the professional minister are suddenly accessible to young people, who have little training in their care or proper use. In carefree, youthful exuberance, they smell them, shake them, rub their faces in them, and do all manner of unspeakable things to them. The professional ministers with the stomach to endure this defilement stoop to pick up the detritus only to realize that the truth claim has not been destroyed but rather made alive again. The truth of Jesus Christ does not need protection, and those who seek to guard it may inadvertently destroy it. Christ is alive and at work in the world in the lived experiences of Christian community.

Life at camp is normed in a way that takes seriously the ongoing work of Christ’s ministry, as camp guides (or “counselors”) and campers learn together to identify God’s action in the world through the mundane and the extraordinary. For young people accustomed to compartmentalizing their experience of God at church as separate from their everyday lives, the camp experience offers a radical re-centering of their lives as caught up in and dependent upon the activity of Christ. The Christian camping model assumes that Christ is active in the world and looks for where the Holy Spirit is moving in and among the community of practice. There is a sort of hyperawareness at camp as participants notice the inbreaking of God in concrete, unexpected ways and participate in God’s ongoing work in the world. In his book The Shape of Practical Theology, Ray Anderson describes this activity as “Christopraxis,” which he defines as “the continuing ministry of Christ through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit” (p. 29).

My first camp experience in eighth grade was irruptive in my life because I discovered that I was an active participant in God’s work in the world. There in a tent on a small island in the middle of the Mississippi River, I engaged in theological discussion with young people my own age and, for the first time in my life, dared to consider the question, “Do I really believe this stuff?” That discussion was precipitated by days of living in intentional Christian community when we participated in Christian practices in the midst of daily living. It is illustrative that I do not remember what specific theological ideas we came up with in the tent that evening. I am reasonably certain that any professional minister eavesdropping on our conversation would have cringed at what was probably our desecration of theological doctrine. We were engaged in a theological playground. We were assembling theological ideas, toying with them, and then knocking them down. Our counselor or a visiting pastor could have come barging into our tent and given us theologically sound doctrine, but I probably would not remember what he said any better than I remember the specifics of our actual conversation. However, I would have remembered that he corrected us, which would have reenforced my incoming assumption that I am a passive recipient of theology. Instead, I remember that I engaged in a theological discussion of my own volition with people my own age. I remember that they valued my thoughts as much as I valued theirs. The playing itself is what matters in communities of Christopraxis because Christ is an active, powerful presence, not a doctrine to be kept safe.

Ministry professionals and Christian educators tend to focus on right belief (orthodoxy) in a way that does not account for bodily wisdom (habitus). Their initial response in an environment like the Christian camp community is to correct problematic theology. As Anderson and other practical theologians note, theology is constructed through the presence of the Holy Spirit in lived, bodily reality. What matters is not that the nineteen year-old camp counselor misinterpreted the biblical passage but rather that the Bible is open and accessible for reflection on real life circumstances and the individual camper’s understanding of the biblical passage is valued. If my transformative camp experience is any indication, the misinterpretation will not stick as much as the bodily wisdom of participating in interpretation. When theological reflection, particularly in the trusted small group setting, is combined with action, the campers are engaging in practical theology through communities of Christopraxis. The conviction that Christ is active and up to something in the lives of these young people is itself right belief (orthodoxy).

For a new interpretation of Anderson's Christopraxis, see: Andrew Root's new book

My Camp Story

We rounded the first corner of the island and felt the wind buffet the side of the canoe. We had to concentrate on the paddling in order to keep from going off course. I chanced a look around and saw the disaster that was befalling our group. We were only a few hundred yards from the beach, but the dozen canoes were scattered in disarray. We were supposed to stay close together. That was the plan. Stay close together. Stay close to the shore. Paddle around the island. It will be fun, they assured us. Ben and I were determined to stay on course and complete the circuit. We were, after all, the most capable young canoeists in the group. That is why Steve chose to ride with us. He was the lifeguard, and he sat in the middle of our canoe with a rescue tube across his lap. He never said aloud that we were the best canoeists because he did not want the others to feel bad, but everyone knew that the lifeguard had to be in the fastest canoe.

“Hey, are they supposed to be going that way?” Ben asked.

I looked around and spotted the wayward canoe. It was drifting farther and farther away from shore. The two girls were fumbling awkwardly with their paddles, and they were laughing. Laughing! They evidently did not understand their peril. We were on the Mighty Mississippi River, and the current might draw them far downstream, capsize them, or deposit them in the mythical land known as Iowa.

“Let’s go get them,” Steve said.

Ben and I gave each other a meaningful look. It was up to us. This is where our forty-five minute canoe orientation would pay off. We pulled with all our might, straining our developing eighth-grade muscles to the max, and set an arrow straight course to the floundering vessel. We both saw the river buoy as we passed it, knowing that we had just crossed into the main channel of the Mississippi River. As we approached the other canoe, Steve calmly gave instructions to the girls. They tried to obey, and they managed to get their canoe turning in circles, laughing the whole time.

“Barge!” we heard someone yell from shore. “BARGE!”

I looked up and saw it rounding the nearest bend in the river, heading downstream straight towards us. Our camp counselors had warned us about river barges. They were enormous and churned up a huge wake that would capsize canoes and create a tremendous undertow. They could not stop or swerve to avoid you. If we encountered a barge while canoeing, we were to quickly get to shore. That is why we were supposed to stay close to shore in our trip around the island that morning.

Steve acted quickly. He reached out and pulled the girls’ canoe towards ours, clamping them together with his powerful hands. He looked at me with utmost confidence. “Okay, let’s get to shore.”

Upstream, into the wind, pulling two canoes with five people, with certain death churning inexorably nearer, Ben and I paddled for shore. We reached a rocky outcropping and disembarked into knee-deep water, exhausted but exhilarated.

“Good job, guys,” Steve said to us meaningfully, as the giant river barge slipped past at a safe distance.

The girls were no longer laughing. “You saved our lives,” they said in awe.

Ben and I looked at each other and nodded. We had just met three days ago and become fast friends. Now we were brothers. We waded through the water in dramatic slow motion. The rest of our beleaguered group came into view as we rounded a bend in the island, and a cheer broke out. We were heroes.

We never made it around the island that day. After the morning’s excitement, our counselors opted for a more relaxed day of games, Bible study, and conversation on the beach. Our evening campfire that night was emotional and powerful. Our four counselors led an interactive worship service that included a skit about Jesus’ teachings and some of our favorite songs from the week. During the prayers, one of the girls from the rescued canoe thanked God for keeping her safe that day by sending Ben and me to save her. I went to the tent that night wide awake with thoughts from the day’s events. It was our second and final night on the island. In the morning, we would pack up and canoe the short distance to the mainland before being driven back to camp. There, we would rejoin the rest of the camper groups for some unnamed large group activities.

Ben and I shared a tent with Jon, another eighth grade boy we had befriended that week. None of us were tired, so we talked. After our harrowing experience on the river, our conversation quickly turned to the topic of death and specifically what happens when you die. The next question came up naturally, as if it were a topic we discussed all the time. The truth is that in thirteen years of church and Sunday school, nobody had ever asked me that question. Ben asked it:

“Do you really believe in God?”

The funny thing is that I have almost no recollection of the conversation beyond that point. What I remember is that we talked about God, faith, and doubt into the wee hours of the morning. There in a small tent on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River, three cocky eighth grade boys shared their faith and fears with one another. For the first time in my life, I had an open and honest conversation about who I am in relation to God.

Steve was in the tent next to ours. It occurred to me years later that he must have been listening. He knew that we were awake past curfew. In fact, we were probably keeping other people awake. But he did not tell us to be quiet or speak up to correct our juvenile theology, which was probably well into the realm of heresy. He was our guide that week. He did not orchestrate the damsels in distress that day or call the barge to appear at the precise moment. He merely guided us along the way, giving us space to succeed or fail and helping us interpret our lives’ events with theological and biblical lenses.

Looking back twenty years later, I consider that night’s conversation to be a turning point in my life that directed me on a path of discipleship and professional ministry. It was in the middle of my first camp experience. That specific community in that specific context provided space for the Holy Spirit to move in a way that I was able to recognize and articulate. I am not sure how that evening’s conversation affected Jon or Ben, neither of whom I have seen since our camp experience ended two days later. I do not even know what Steve is up to or if he continued in ministry after his summer of working as a camp counselor. My story does not prove the power of the camp experience, but it changed my life. What’s your story?

Noah: Is Humanity Worth Saving?

The Noah movie came out this week after much controversy and publicity, most of the latter inadvertently provided by conservative Christians who judged the movie long before its actual release. As a Christian camp guy who happens to have a deep love for creation and the Bible, the idea of a new interpretation of the Noah story intrigued me, so I decided to see the movie for myself. I went in with pretty low expectations and was surprised at how much I actually liked the movie. I found it to be a creative and fairly faithful interpretation of the biblical text with some compelling points about human nature, humanity’s place in creation, and the tension between God’s justice and mercy.

Before we jump into some specifics, we need to get some things clear up front. First of all, it is true that the word “God” is not spoken a single time in this movie. Now that you’ve gasped, I’m going to encourage you to move past this detail by considering that the Bible has many names for God, and any specific names (Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Jesus, etc.) are not revealed to humanity until much later in the Bible. In the movie, the two names used for God are “Creator” and “Father,” both of which are biblical and highlight the relationship of God to the world. Secondly, I want to emphasize the importance of biblical interpretation, which is what this movie is. As Christians, we believe that the Bible is the “living and active” (Hebrews 4:12) word of God. The Holy Spirit has a way of speaking through scripture in new ways to different groups of people at different times. You know this because you have heard pastors preach sermons and because Bible passages have meant different things to you at different points in your life. “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8) takes on a different meaning at a wedding versus near the death bed of a loved one.

All of the great biblical blockbusters take liberties with the biblical texts and add interpretation. Remember the overly dramatic love-affair between Moses and Pharaoh’s wife in The Ten Commandments? Remember the creepy female devil hanging out with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane in The Passion of the Christ (not to mention when Jesus invented the table)? This movie adds some things, as well. The Watchers are the most obvious inclusion. While not really depicted in the Bible (the mysterious Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 don’t quite qualify), the Watchers are part of the ancient Jewish tradition dating back at least to the book of 1 Enoch (while not biblical, 1 Enoch is mentioned in the biblical book of Jude). Honestly, I thought the inclusion of the Watchers was fairly bizarre in the movie, but I got over it because there were more important things to focus on. The one Watcher scene I thought was interesting (and a foreshadowing of things to come for humanity) was when the Creator forgave them and freed them from their earthly captivity. When considering these bizarre aspects of the movie, remember that it is trying to depict the world before the flood. This is before the creation was redone, so I am okay with things looking different in the pre-flood world. Were there glaring omissions? Yes, there were two that concerned me. First was the omission of the animal sacrifice at the end of the flood story (Genesis 8:20-22), which would have complexified the environmentalist perspective of the movie. Second was the omission of the cursing of Canaan, which has been a historically important motif in the enslavement of other people (Genesis 9:24-27). I understand why the movie wants to shy away from these very difficult topics to focus on other very difficult topics, but they are major omissions.

Like it or not, this is the biblical flood story (with some Hollywood flare). It has everything you want in a movie about Noah: grief over the wickedness of humankind, several epic shots straight out of my children’s picture Bible of the animals entering the ark, plenty of rain, a dove with an olive branch, and a spectacular closing shot of the rainbow. It also has a rather beautiful telling of the creation stories from Genesis 1 and 2. It depicts the fall of Genesis 3 and spends a good deal of time on the Cain and Able story of Genesis 4. In these regards, it is very faithful to the biblical story. Here is the thing: you know that the flood story ends with a rainbow. The thing about rainbows is that they are so pretty that we have a tendency to depict them in a very cutesy sort of way that may gloss over the real grit of the story. I think the flood story begs a question that becomes the central conundrum of the movie: “Is humanity actually worth saving?” In other words, would this world be better off if God had finished the job?

I love that the Creator does not speak with words in this movie. Too many people assume that God is not speaking in the world today because there is no booming voice from heaven. People of faith profess that God is active and constantly speaking in this world and to us as individuals. In the movie, the Creator reveals the plan to Noah through a couple of strange dreams that he struggles to interpret. He is not totally sure about what God is up to until God acts, and he sometimes misinterprets these signs, even when the meaning seems obvious to the viewer. I think this is remarkably true to real life. God is constantly at work, and yet we don’t always see it. Sometimes, we misinterpret what God is trying to tell us, and we need others to guide us.

The key theme in this movie is justice. Noah is a just man, and that is why God chooses him. Genesis 6:9 says that Noah is “righteous” but never that he is “good.” The pronouncement of “good” is attributed to all of creation in Genesis 1. Righteousness is different. It has to do with following commands and being just. The movie picks up on this very pointedly when Noah says that God didn’t choose him because he was good but rather because he would obey. He is constantly trying to do what is right, but he is often unclear about what that is. As a viewer, you want to use Noah as your moral compass, but you quickly discover that you simply can’t do it. You might even find yourself, like me, rooting for the bad guy to kill Noah since he is (at the time) the lesser of two evils. Many viewers have a problem with this because Noah is supposed to be the good guy. This is where the movie is pretty compelling. Noah isn’t the “good guy.” In fact, there is no such thing. Noah, like all of us, is human. As a righteous man, Noah understands that the only truly just thing to do is to wipe humanity out from the face of the earth. In that way, the world can finally be cleansed of injustice. If Christians truly believe that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), justice would mean condemnation and death. The entire Bible is testament to a just God who is gracious and merciful, and the movie highlights these themes in a pretty poignant way. After insisting on justice throughout the film, Noah ends by speaking of “mercy” and “love” as gifts from the Creator.

Sin in the movie is primarily depicted as destruction of creation. The landscape of the movie is almost entirely barren. There are almost no animals or plants because the humans (the decedents of Cain) have exploited the natural world. In the movie, this exploitation is most clearly identified through the killing of animals, though it also includes the killing of other human beings and violence against women. Noah sees the animals as innocent and the ones that must be saved in the ark. Tubal-Cain (see Genesis 4:22) is the arch nemesis of Noah in the movie and archetype of the wicked human. We often see him eating animals raw. He represents the view that humanity is created in the image of God in order to dominate and subdue creation. He seeks power over other people and especially the desire to exploit things for his own gain. In these ways, he is remarkably human. There is a moving scene in which Tubal-Cain cries out to the Creator for an answer. He recognizes that humanity is made in the image of the Creator, and he demands to know why the Creator is now absent from a needy world. Tubal-Cain ends up stowing away on the ark in order to give us some heightened drama and to show us symbolically what it means for humanity to survive. When the very conflicted Ham (second son of Noah) finally kills him, Tubal-Cain tells him that he is now truly a man. That line actually struck me pretty hard because it speaks the truth about the destructive nature of humankind.

The survival of humankind means that there will be violence and death in the world. Noah, the self-righteous vegetarian (who, by the way, has killed numerous people in his quest for justice), recognizes this dark truth and wants to put a stop to it by eradicating humanity. He thinks this is what God wants him to do. The ultimate survival of humanity means that violence will continue. It means that people will eat meat. In fact, this is part of the biblical narrative. It is only after the flood that God gives permission for humanity to eat meat (Genesis 9:3). 

In the movie, it is ultimately Noah who gets to decide whether or not humanity survives the flood. This idea of humanity being co-creators with God is a biblical theme. The movie is challenging us to see our integral role in the created order and make us take a long look at ourselves to determine whether or not we are worth saving. In the movie, Noah thinks it is God’s will that humanity end with the people on the ark, and this conviction is unexpectedly challenged when his barren daughter-in-law miraculously becomes pregnant (another biblical motif) with twin girls: potential wives for his other two sons. Noah is the only one who does not see these girls as precious gifts from the Creator, and he is ready to kill them in order to complete God’s just condemnation of humanity. This is a brilliant way to depict the drama of the flood story, which depicts a God who is in anguish over the wickedness of humankind, and yet he loves us. Ultimately, Noah’s mercy and love win out over justice. He cries out to the Creator in anguish that he is unable to complete his task. Justice turns to mercy. Wrath turns to love. And the storm clouds turn into a rainbow.

Before concluding, I want to give props to the movie for its portrayal of the women. In the Bible, the women are little more than props. The text might as well say that the ark contained Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, and four baby machines. In the movie, the women are real characters that help answer the question of whether humanity is worth saving. In the climactic scene, we have Noah on the deck of the ark with the four women. The combined violence of Shem, Ham, and Tubal-Cain has not stopped his mindless wrath. There, on the deck of the ark, it is love that overcomes him. It is the love of his wife, his daughter-in-law, and his two granddaughters. As his wife points out, this love is a gift of the Creator.

Humans emerge from the ark as conflicted souls, at the same time sinners and saints. Though we are violent and wicked, our just God is gracious and merciful. The creature continues to rebel against the Creator and exploit the creation for personal gain. Are we able to see ourselves as integral parts of this creation, with an honored place as co-creators with God? Are we able to be reconciled to God? Is humanity even worth saving? I think the new Noah movie asks some of these questions in a very fresh and relevant way.