[The following is excerpted from a talk I gave at the Faith for Thought conference in State College, PA, on 10/31/09]
What is Christian Innovation?
At first “Christian innovation” may seem like an oxymoron. Because as Ecclesiastes says,
“All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of saying,
Nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
What has been done will be done again;
There is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
‘Look! This is something new’?
It was here already, long ago;
It was here before our time.” Ecclesiastes 1:8-10
So if the Bible teaches that there is nothing new, is it even accurate to talk about innovation?
The answer is Yes. We find this to be loud and clear as we seek to build a theology of innovation. And as with most everything, we begin with Genesis 1-2.
Creation: As we see in Genesis 1-2, God is a creative God. He IS the Creator. He takes great delight in it. He calls it “good.” It’s part of being created in the Imago Dei, the image of God, to be creative. It is part of how we reflect him. Our ability to create was created. Everyone has the capacity to be creative, though many do not tap into that.
The way to reconcile Ecclesiastes 1 with christian innovation is to recognize that God is the Creator. He is the only one who has created everything ex nihilo, from nothing. All our other creative work is inherently derivative, because it derives from the Creator. So nothing is completely novel, though it may be a new expression. While cars, TVs, and the Internet are relatively new inventions, people have always had ways of getting around, things to look at for amusement, and methods for communicating with one another.
Fall: However, the world is broken and fallen. Sin infects and works itself into everything, including our intellect and our creative impulses. All innovation is NOT good.
We only have to go a few chapters in Genesis to see the creative impulse gone awry. In Genesis 6, before the Flood, it says “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5). The were inventing ways to do evil.
Moving on to Genesis 11, we see the Tower of Babel. What’s their stated purpose in building this tower? “Let’s make a name for ourselves” (Genesis 11:4). This innovation was in direct defiance of God. God dispersed them—not because he’s petty and insecure, but because he knew the self-aggrandizing impulse can do great damage. Making a name for ourselves has been used to justify all kinds of terrible evil and injustice, like the Holocaust. Humanity has proven that we are most innovative when we’re inventing new ways of killing each other. Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done.
Redemption: In response to evil innovation, God does something surprising. He doesn’t squash all innovation/imagination altogether. In fact, he does something new to deal with the problem. His innovation is to bring redemption through a man, working within the system instead of outside of it. Think about how innovative God’s plan is: Jesus Christ, the God-man. Born of a virgin. Countless miracles. And the most outside-the-box idea of all: vicarious, atoning death on a cross. We couldn’t have thought of it if God didn’t think of it first!
Jesus talks about his work using innovation language. He says in Revelation 21:5 that “I am making everything new!” We believe that Jesus is making all things new. What does he mean by “new”? The “new” that Jesus is speaking of is not so much “novel,” but new in the sense of renewal. Restoring things to the way God intended, to conform with God’s design. Redemption.
In that sense, then, innovation is the art of joining Jesus in his redemptive work of making all things new. Instead of squashing our creative impulses, God wants to renew them, and equip us in doing new things that lead to redemption. Therefore, we can say that all good and true innovation is redemptive.
Christians believe that we are caught up in the “Big Story,” the story of God doing new things to make all things new. This story, this life, is going somewhere—the redemption of all things! Now that’s a “bottom line” worth striving for!
With this bottom line, with this metanarrative in view, we have a new perspective on our purpose and work. Doing things the same old, same old way is not redemptive. This has always been true; it is more true than ever. So we need a holy imagination. We need innovative, redemptive solutions to the problems we see. How do we recognize redemptive innovation when we see it? I’ve listed six marks.
Marks of Redemptive Innovation:
1. It makes us more human, not less
Much innovation dehumanizes us. At its worst, methods of war and extermination.
2. It’s useful, not useless
Do you really need all the crap they sell? Do we really need the “Egg Genie” and the “Magic Bullet” and the combination hot dog cooker/bun warmer? (This is why all those personal storage places exist)
3. It’s the product of a sanctified imagination & creative impulse, not a depraved one
4. It doesn’t exploit—it edifies
5. It meets a real and pressing need, instead of creating a false one
How about all the constant ads for penis and breast enlargement? Creates a sense of inferiority.
6. It’s not about making a name for ourselves—even better, it’s about making God’s name great!
Take technology for example. It’s a powerful tool, period. It can connect us in amazing ways, but like anything else, it will have fallen, sinful applications. The internet allows us to share information and resources like never before, but it is also connecting more people to more porn than ever.
Because technology has sinful applications, some Christians will say what we need to do is unplug and retreat to simpler times. Dismiss all tech as sinful. This would be a mistake.
Technology, like anything else, can and must be redeemed. And it has powerful redemptive potential/capability. It’s our job to discover what that is. Technology part of the problem, but in Christ, it can be redeemed to be part of the solution. We won’t find those solutions by sitting out, but by engaging and innovating from within.
Innovation for Redemption through Churches and Ministry
It may be hard for us to grasp, but the Church throughout history and in many parts of the world today has been extremely innovative.
We see this in the Early church. The church adapts to rapid growth, change, and persecution by innovating new ways to spread the Kingdom: They create deacons. They bring in Gentiles. They figure out how they church should be expressed in new places in the diaspora. Paul constantly adapts his missionary methods for his different contexts.
Through the centuries, the Church continued to innovate, nearly always on the cutting edge of mission to new, unreached lands. The modern era of foreign missions in the 17th-18th century saw an explosion of new strategies to reach new people in new places. Even denominations, which to many people are the epitome of stodgy, institutional Christianity, were originally an innovative strategy for figuring out how state churches should organize and work together in the “New Land.”
Campus ministry, especially in the 1950s-1970s, was a hotbed of innovation in ministry. Campus Crusade, Intervarsity, and others paved the way not just for engaging college students, but engaging society as a whole. Bill Bright of Crusade was a legendary leader and pacesetter for an entire generation of Christians.
And finally, the American church has awoken again to the importance of starting new churches through church planting. It’s widely known that church planting is a high risk endeavor (but that’s what entrepreneurship is all about). It’s high risk, but also high reward. The vast majority of church plants fail. But one study found that 80% of new converts came from churches less than 2 years old!
Jesus is into making all things new by starting new things. We should be too.
I haven’t had the chance to process yesterday’s content, but fortunately other people have.
