Jesus is THE way, THE truth, and THE life. Sounds like an ANSWER to me!

Dialogue. Questions. Definitive answers. Mystery. Faith. What if? What if not? Authority. Thought, thinking. Ideas. Conclusions. Rabbit trails. Dead ends.

I remember the words of Mr. Miyagi in that oh so awesome 80s movie "The Karate Kid." He said "Remember Danielson, balance is key."

What i find so amazing about those who criticize Tony and Brian is that Jesus didn't always give straight answers. If it was all about the answer, why did Jesus often speak in parables? And why did Jesus at times refuse to respond or answer questions? Maybe because jesus is trying to teach us that truth is not a propisitional statement to hold on to but a question that keeps us looking and searching for more of God.

This would all be fine if we were talking about gardening or politics or who's the greatest baseball player ever. The problem is that this subject has eternal ramifications.

If you are right and it's all just an unknowable mystery, a conversation to be forever discussed but never concluded, then your evangelical critics have lost nothing because there was really nothing to lose.

If you are wrong, then you and those who follow you have lost the only thing worth having.

before the comments begin rolling on "What about doctrine? What about tradition?" I just want to say that I think there is a great deal that can be learned if perhaps we would indulge in the indescribable parts of God, allowing spiritual formation to take place through what we CAN'T know, rather than through the avenue of what we CAN know/describe.

Kudos for a good article--a God of the living and not of the dead, and that is a mystery in itself.

Yes, but we do have to distinguish between mystery and that vacuous empty space of dread which breeds confusion, deception and demoralization. Justice draws a faith-line.

I do love these questions God asks in scripture: like in Genesis, "Where are you?" and John, "What do you want?"

I think it was Donald McCollough in his book "The Trivialization of God" who said it is ok to be a reverent agnostic.

Maybe what qualifies us to enter deeper and deeper into the kingdom is what we don't know rather than what we do know.

More humility. More interdependance. More saying, "I don't know... and I'm ok with that."

Who has known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his counsellor? Maybe the way to a transformed mind (Rom 12) is attempting to answer those two questions at the end of Romans 11.

"Religion may be attractive on one level, but it always strives to remove all the mystery that congests life. It has answers for everything, because questions are way too untidy. “Jesus is the answer.” Right? But what if Jesus isn’t the answer? What if He is the question?"

Oh come, Mr. Gungor, let's not bandy words, say what is really on your heart: Religion is meaningless, liturgy is reptitious word mongering, and Temples are morgues occupied by zombies.
The idea of the Church has always been to organize around a central figure, Jesus. As absurd as that may sound, that was Christ's intent 2000 years ago. A community of people who would be as different to the world, as Jesus was. And what was to set that community apart so that it didn't look like a free-sex commune? Love, and "obedience" to the Jesus's commandments.
Now, the unfortunate thing is that men being men, and women are not excused either, is that we'll twist everything to our advantage, somehow. Hence, Religion.
Religion can be dead, and yes it can be "old-school," but it doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater in the attempt to improve, or in this case rehabilitate faith.
What concerns me with this whole "conversation" thing is that I see a blurring of Jesus, either his diety, or his life, and then I see the "conversation" slipping towards other areas of scripture where once held precendent is reviewed and discussed into obscurity. Followed by the "discussion" winding down to actual belief, and then the participants have lost all bearing on where they're going.
I'll tell you what happens then...the long sleep.

"In the inbetween, where sleep beckons, a twilight dreaming, sun and moon find no hold, and nothing wakes the sleeper, let the mind go, let the cares flee, and let the inbetween take you nowhere, for nowhere is where the twilight lies."

I'm seeing the whole Emergent Christianity "conversation" as little more than putting the church to sleep.
Why go through all that work, just pull out a gun and shoot it..the end result is the same.

Religion does not require life, but a conversation does. Through conversation, serving together, and serving one another (behavioral conversation), a practical theology can emerge that surpasses in authenticity and relevance anything that the eternal hunt for "the right way" has to offer.

Religion might want to know how the heart beats whereas Jesus used the beat of His heart to serve, bless, heal, and story people into a convincing experience of his reign and rule.

The question is mystery or mastery. Is our goal to enter a mystery, something bigger than ourselves, or is it to master something so that we can control it. Motivation is key, and unfortunately we're all guilty of trying to master whatever we can get our hands on.

Maybe you should have taken x-rays of the frog, or given it an MRI. Learn, discover, but don't kill.

Great thoughts here! Thanks for sharing them. It is with great caution we must digest these words, not because they are wrong but because they contain so much truth. I hope we understand it is a "both and" not an "either or” The mystery of Christ is strengthened by what we know for sure not weakened by it. God has given us a faith that can be reasoned, studied and discerned yet not exhausted. Most of the mystery of our faith is wrapped in the gap between God’s perfection and our sinfulness. In that religion uses human means to close the gap it is insufficient to keep a healthy tension of mystery and knowable truth.

It is much like a kid cutting open a frog out of curiosity but lacking the ability to discern what they see because they are untrained. With some training they might even be able to discern without death. However a mature person with understanding about a frog’s insides might gain appreciation for what he sees when he cuts the frog open. Our faith can withstand the mysterious only when we are confident of the knowable, namely God’s character. Loved the post!

I like this post.

The thing is, dissection--and reason and logic and scientific inquiry--aren't really the nemesis of mystery. (Rodney Stark has some great things to say about this in his new book The Victory of Reason.)

Good science, good dissection seeks the truth about the natural world in the same way that good theology seeks the truth about God. Mystery will always be part of the truth about God and His creation. Inquiry will always lead to further inquiry. I guess that's what Ed Gungor means when he asks, "What if Jesus is the question?"

By that logic, neither good science nor good theology can provide definitive answers. They both provide theories that prove useful for a time.

Scientists test their theories in the laboratory. For better or worse, pastors are testing the new theological theories in their congregations.

Amen.

It seems to me that we are a culture that wants to explain and understand everything. We attempt to explain everything from our origins to belief in God, from love to just about anything else you can name. Somehow so many of us think there is some sort of scientific explanation for everything. However, some things are simply not explanable or even open to recognition by scientific process, and I think an approach that demands uber-rationality for everything leaves us impoverished, and in truth, understanding nothing.

In my mind, not only is Christianity the “unreligion”, it is also the death knell of ALL religion.

Faith- embracing things that are unseen as being ultimately real, is by definition, the opposite of predictability. And yet so often we want to turn our faith into something utterly quantifiable, verifiable, categorizable, etc...

That tendency is a "scientific approach" that is unique to the West and the modern era. We are still only beginning to unpack that particular idol.

I have a great fondness for Eastern Orthodoxy because of the fact that mystery has always been front and center. When Roman Catholics felt forced to name and quantify the sacraments, the Eastern Orthodox responded by saying, "but how can one quantify a sacrament? It is by definition a mystery."

Let me leave you with a profound thought penned by M. Scott Peck,

""There are two reasons people become religious: to escape mystery, to approach mystery."

I certainly signed up for the second of the two options.

I love the biblical concept of mystery, and in particular, the 'unsearchable riches' of the God who created us. There is certainly something to recover of the wonder and awe-inspiring glory of God that no man can truly grasp.

However, I would be very troubled if this godly idea was to be used as an excuse for justifying relativistic, liberal or woolly unbiblical thought. Paul's letters overflow with wonder and marvel at the divine , yet they are also filled with direct and practical truth. He never let dialogue become a substitute for doctrinal clarity - especially where Christian character and behaviour were in the spotlight.

The whole point of revelation is to disclose truth and bring to light the meaning of God's word. I too dislike dead religion, but I also dislike the fluffy lack of biblical convictions that is often mistaken for dialogue. The kingdom of God in this generation needs more leaders and prophets - this is very different from just an increase in po-mo liberals and philosphers.

Why can't we just seek Jesus only? The discourse about religion and religiosity is time wasting. Let us focus on a true realtionship with Jesus Christ as the savior and Lord of our lives. We shall certainly not find peace by provoking scriptural doctrines. Let Jesus point the way - that is what faith is about. Spend time in thanksgiving and praise for the Lord requires that much from us!

"Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great ..."
- 1 Timothy 3:16.

On the other hand, to His disciples Jesus explained the mysteries. So where does that take us?

It doesn't sound as if Ed is saying we must abandon doctrine, liturgy, structure or Biblical study, he seems to be replacing mystery back into our faith. Good for him. Mystery seems to have been a casualty of enlightenment run amuck. We have no question as the Jesus being the way, the truth and the life. But we have tons of mystery when it comes to living that life and trying to follow that way. Liturgy, when done well, leads us to a place of mystery and awe. The Church, when it really is following the way, is a beautiful mysterious life of surprising calls, unexpected challenges, and miraculous displays of God's presence and power. So I'm with Ed. Let's enjoy the mysterious nature of God and our faith some more.

Proverbs 25:2 says, "It is the glory of God to keep a thing secret: but the glory of kings is to have it searched out." That seems to imply that answers are knowable. It seems the EV would rather it have said, "It is the glory of God to keep a thing secret: and the glory of the Village is to keep it that way."

My first question for Ed is what religion is he talking about? Catholic, Episcopal, Mormon, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Assembly of God, Saddleback, Amish, Buddhist, Islam, Taoism, New Age? Or is his criticizism totally non-specific so you can apply his condemnation to the church of your choice?

My second question is how do you make the connection between killing a frog to see how it LIVES to seeking to better know the LIVING God?

You state, "Religion too, is all about dissecting. It is the nemesis of mystery." Yet dissecting long understood Biblical truth is what emergent is all about. I've never heard socially inconvenient verses more re-thought, chewed up, spit out and gagged on than by Brian and Tony. If you don't want religion, don't have any. Jesus never tried to cram the truth down anyone's throat. When a person has a real, personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ you must marvel at the mystery of their joy through tribulations, peace in the midst of the storm, and unquenchable hope for tomorrow. (Some of them even wear stylish clothes.)

Science, logic, and rationality are only a tool for discovering answers. Art, creativity, and mystery are also important tools for discovering answers.

Religion isn't meaningless. Liturgy isn't reptitious word mongering. Our church buildings aren't morgues occupied by zombies. . . unless we start to think the way we find an answer is the answer itself.

I'm puzzled by some of the comments here. They seem anti-intellectual. Now I've seen some pretty priggish intellectuals in my day, but that doesn't mean all logical thought is bad. That doesn't mean we don't try our best to find answers with the brain God gave us.

I'm not saying we should all be like Spock, but can we at least get away from the esoteric church jargon? It sounds good to say, "Jesus is the answer." But when I am hurting, when I am wondering what to do about some particular pain in my life, when I feel empty inside, I need something bigger than a platitude. When I visit a church that repeats platitudes like a bunch of clones, I have to wonder if is dead.

Please don't misunderstand. I have a strong relationship with Jesus. I love him. I understand what we mean by the phrase, "Jesus is the answer." But I don't think that phrase is terribly specific. So much of the way we Christians talk is coded like that. We use our language as a litmus test to see who is with us and who is against us.

Why can't we make it more personal? (And I'm not talking about just another platitude of having a personal relationship with Jesus!) Instead of keeping step and shouting out phrases in unison, let's share what Jesus did in our lives this morning, this week, this month.

I don't mean this as a personal attack on anyone. We can be honest here, right? We are free to get frustrated here, right?

The gist of the author's post is that 'dissection' of faith is the cause of dead religion. The faulty assumption here is that our society overanalyzes everything to death, thus taking out the mystery.

I submit to you the exact opposite: religion is dead, feel good, cheap, and impersonal precisely because American Christians have stopped being 'discerning and analytical' about their religion and relationship with God.

I'm convinced, the more you learn, the more you truly search, then the more you love God. Being a good student is not the problem. It is the heart that approaches that is the problem.

Doctrine is not the enemy... the problem is still that people are approaching doctrine with the intent of 'how can i get to heaven' and 'how can I justify my behavior'. We need to approach doctrine as 'how do I know God better and learn about him'. Doctrine is actually the perfect tool to combat this 'have it my way' mentality. Doctrine should not be used as a billy club or a way to justify.

Psalm 119
97 Oh, how I love your law!
I meditate on it all day long.
98 Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,
for they are ever with me.

A few things:

First, an argument from analogy does not prove anything.

Second, arguments from analogy are especially susceptible to refutation if the analogy is faulty. This analogy is faulty: to compare the life of a frog with the eternal life of God is ridiculous, as though somehow God will die if we examine Him too closely.

Also, whereas a thorough examination of a frog might come close to eliminating the mystery - although it would not explain life itself - the study of God produces more questions and more mystery, not fewer. Only those who have not delved deeply would think that the mystery would be diminished by more intimate knowledge.

Finally, you might have learned a great deal about the life of the frog if you had had eyes to see or sufficient knowledge to comprehend (at least in part) what was before you. Lacking both, you saw nothing.

I think there might be a parable in there somewhere.

Hmmmm....where's the mystery?? Seems to me the Bible is right up front about everything!!

Lots of interesting comments here - I think that some of the problem is that within the evangelical tradition the "transcendence" or mystery of God has been forgotten in the desire to preach the gospel and show that God is interested in us - i.e. he is "immanent". Religion can be about dead works - however I'm concerned that this "dialogue" in emergent means that everything is up for grabs and that we need to question every doctrinal position - the truth is if you don't stand for something you will fall for anything. There's nothing new in some of these arguments - read church/christian history - greater minds have wrestled with these questions and consensus has been arrived at and have provided the church with solid foundations for centuries. What makes 21st century Christians think that they are the only ones to ask such questions? There are good lessons to be learned from the past. The essential problem is that God is beyond finding out - we can only understand in part - "my thoughts are not your thoughts" it says in Isaiah. We have problems when we think we have God figured out and that He only operates the way we think He does.

Everyone seems to be debating what Gungor meant or what Gungor said. Gungor's piece has enough "Mystery" to be considered a collection of thoughts about nothing. I can't apply his premise, don't feel motivated about our faith, and have been left with a "what if" scenario on whether Jesus is the answer or the question. Geez, we sound so high brow sometimes! Succint Clarity would go along way, but then many of these authors/thinkers wouldn't have a publisher/forum.

The conversation has inspired a poem...

Mystery

A tree stands before
A man stares at tree –
Dissects the molecular,
Never seeing the forest
Of cell upon cell.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I really don't want to sound rude, or dismissive, and I know the article is an extract from a book, which may provide detalied argument.
BUT
we can't have a conversation until
1) We define what we all mean by religion.
2) We explain exactly how reaching the conclusion of an argument - any argument - is like torturing and killing a defenceless frog.
3) We explain how reaching a conclusion can never be exciting.
4) We explain how reaching a conclusion - any conclusion - is necessarily arrogant.
5) We explain how justified true beliefs - any justified true belief it seems - can keep us from God.
6) We explain how Ed Gungor can reach the conclusion that we really shouldn't reach conclusions.
7) Finally, how do you answer the question - Jesus?

I ran across this prayer yesterday after reading this post about religion versus mystery. Perhaps it's the balance some here are desiring to see more of:

"O God, you withdraw from our sight that you may be known by our love. Help us to enter the cloud where you are hidden and surrender all our certainty to the darkness of faith in Jesus Christ." (Mennonite Hymnal, prayer #676)

In this prayer there is an obvious knowing of God, some certainties: that He exists, that loving disciples represent Him accurately in His physical absence, that the way to Him is faith in Jesus as the Christ.

But there is admitted "darkness" as well. There is a perceived distance between God and man: mystery, unknowables, uncertainties, even confusion. These act as a cloudy layer around the God we love and long to know. This layer is penetrated by faith, wandered into with feeling hands outstretched, groping in the darkness for substance and more definition. The darkness, the mystery, sustains the need for faith so that faith is not a one time only exercise earning us heaven instead of hell but an ongoing necessity keeping us alive and believing through the dark clouds of God's mystery. As someone once said, "Continue as you began." Faith gains us entrance into the darkness of God and continues - if not increases - our need for faith. Does it not?

Balance seems to be what's lacking. It's as if we're scared in the West of paradox - unable to admit the necessity of both certainty and mystery in our religion/relationship with God.

Oh, for pities sake, read Augustine, Aquinas, and Anselm. Or the Capadocian fathers. They were all prepared to investigate doctrine, using extremely rigorous arguments. They felt such investiagtions informed their faith, and brought them closer to God. And they all acknowledged that our rationality has limits - nature transcends it on many occassions, never mind an infinite God.
If this post is taken at face value, then Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie missed a trick when they had their heroes solve mysteries. And Galileo and Crick and Watson and Einstein and Newton all made the world an infinitely duller place. After all, everyone hates to see a mystery solved.

This was a great perspective! I think though, that religion is not so much about dissecting as defining. Yes, one of the ways to define is to dissect, but it is not the exploration that limits, it is the "definitive" deductions made at the end of the exploration ... the use of the end result to classify with subsequent elimination of other possibilities. It is at this point that religion becomes static and exclusive, and as such, fallible. For if we discontinue the exploration, we have not found God. God is in the search (not the religion). The point of the article is that the questioning or exploring continues, as it is meant to.

God is dynamic and eternal and infinite. Do we really expect to fully "know" God at some point? Or is the objective of our journey the search? Of course, it is the latter and that is why Jesus is the question. Jesus is the fountain of encouragement along the road. THINK. For as you THINK, you grow (closer to God). When you allow religion (doctrine) to define and limit your thinking, your search will be over, but you will not have found God. You will have found security and complacency and God is neither of these!

Peggy,
I have found God and He IS security. It is those who do not wish to find the truth at the end of the search who do not have it. God said, "you shall search for me AND you shall find Me, IF you search for me with all your heart". This is not to say that God can be fully known in this life, but knowing God is a relationship pictured for us in the scriptures as a marital relationship. After 25 years of marriage I can say with assurance that I KNOW my husband. There are still many things about him for me to learn, but I still know him. If your goal is to never find truth, you are certain to achieve it.