BLOG 10/2/13. PIONEERS OR SETTLERS?

BLOG 10/2/13. PIONEERS OR SETTLERS?

Some thirty years ago, an Episcopalian priest in Texas (Wes Seeliger) wrote a wonderfully irreverent and hilariously funny book entitled: Western Theology. In it he does a colorful caricature of two kinds of Christians, and he does it in the context (which you might expect of a Texan) of the wild west, of small towns, of gunslingers, wagon trains, lives committed either to security or to adventure. Unfortunately the book is long since out of print, but there are (expensive) copies on the second-hand market. Happily, there is a great digest of the book in the late Brennan Manning’s book: The Lion and the Lamb (chapter three).

It is so apropos to the quest I pursue in these Blogs. As Brennan Mannning summarizes it: “There are two visions of life, two kinds of people. The first see life as a possession to be carefully guarded. They are called settlers. The second see life as a wild, fantastic, explosive gift. They are called pioneers. These give rise to two kinds of theology: Settler Theology and Pioneer Theology … the first kind, Settler Theology, is an attempt to answer all the questions, define and housebreak some sort of Supreme Being, establish the status quo on golden tablets of cinemascope. Pioneer Theology is an attempt to talk about what it means to receive the strange gift of life. The wild west is the setting for both theologies.”

In Settler Theology, the church is the courthouse, the center of town life where records are kept, the mayor has an office on the top floor to keep an eye on town life, and where they have an ice-cream social every Sunday.  God is the mayor who keeps order in the town. Peace and quiet are the mayor’s main concerns. No one sees or sees or hears him directly. In Pioneer Theology God is the trail boss. He is rough and rugged, full of life. He chews tobacco, drinks straight whiskey. He lives, eats, sleeps, and fights along side of his people. Their well-being is his concern. Without him the wagons wouldn’t move.

(This is so inadequate, but you catch the drift). In Settler Theology, Jesus is the sheriff, sent by the mayor to enforce the rules, wears a white hat, drinks milk, outdraws the bad guys, etc. In Pioneer Theology Jesus is the scout. He rides out ahead to find out which way the pioneers should go. He lives all the dangers of the trail … by looking at the scout, those on the trail learn what it means to be a pioneer. And so Seeliger proceeds with scandalous irreverence, but searching caricature to the work of the Holy Spirit who in Settler Theology is the saloon girl to whom the settlers go for comfort, etc. But to the pioneers the Spirit is the buffalo hunter who furnishes fresh meat for the pioneers without which they would die. He is a strange character—sort of a wild man and the pioneers can never tell what he will do next.

In the Settler Theology the Christian is a Settler who fears the open, unknown frontier … but in Pioneer Theology the Christian is a pioneer.

And so it goes in Seeliger’s fun book. I rehearse this because for fourteen years I passed out a three page digest of this to every person who came through our church’s new member’s class, and they all chuckled at it, but most ultimately identified with the Settlers and wanted a church that reflected that security. And therein lies a big part of our problem. The New Testament describes a Pioneer Church!

But with over half the world’s population under twenty-five years of age, who have no special affinity for Settler churches, we may need to come up with a fresh expressions of true Pioneer communities if we are to meet the hungerings of the emerging generation.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge