Life on the Vine

I've just begun reading Philip Kenneson's Life on the Vine. Here's a worthy observation from the introductory chapter, titled "Dying on the Vine?"

Theological reflection that is of service to the church must be bilingual, speaking of both theological truths and cultural realities. To be able to speak only one language is to rob the church of the perspective it needs in order to sustain a faithful witness to the world. The church must always be prepared to make critical discernments about itself and about the wider culture in which it participates. Such discernments, when exercised under the guidance of the Spirit, help to prune the unproductive growth from our lives. Without good pruning, trees or vines use all of their available resources simply to sustain their expanding network of branches. For this reason, the farther the branches grow from the main trunk or vine, the less likely they are to bear good fruit. Furthermore, as Jesus remarks in the Gospel, even the branch that is already bearing fruit remains a candidate for pruning, since such activity may spur the production of even more and better fruit.

Kenneson's use of the metaphor of language is powerful. Conservative (i.e. non-institutional) churches of Christ often miss this very important point. We have been quite strong in speaking the language of pure doctrine about the work of the church, MDR, etc., but we have failed (sometimes spectacularly so) to learn the language of the culture that we live in, i.e. in making our message comprehensible to anyone other than ourselves. For all of the recent zeal among our brethren to explore new media of communication, such as the Internet (and this is a good thing), we have neglected to frame our message in ways that are understandable to those who may encounter it.
Our engagement with the culture in which we are embedded has been ambivalent at best. Those who do most of our thinking along these lines (e.g. the writers for Truth Magazine) have virtually refused to address the intellectual currents of our day (e.g. postmodernism, biblical scholarship) in any serious way other than to dismiss them out of hand. This only serves to spread irrational fear among members in local assemblies and to stifle discussion within our own ranks. This has to change, if we are to survive.