I tried to like this book. It’s the kind of book I generally enjoy reading. It is youthful, edgy, and provocative. Yet, it is riddled with problems – too many problems for me to recommend it to others.

This is unfortunate, because I agree with most, if not all, of Burke’s theology. I value his desire to be philosophically and culturally relevant. I consider myself postmodern. I am sympathetic to the emergent church, and I value fresh and creative expressions of the ancient faith.

However, Burke’s analysis of the church and his prescription for change is hardly fresh, creative, or even postmodern. Sadly, his analysis of the church represents the ugliest side of the emergent church movement, consisting primarily of infantile complaints that reveal more about his past than about the present church in its multi-faceted expression. Even worse, his prescription for change is the complete elimination of organized religion.

A Disappearing Ecclesiology

Burke, while appearing to appeal to the church has, for all practical purposes, given up on the institutional church, which he seems to define as any faith-based community which possesses any degree of organization.

Burke’s disappearing ecclesiology is not grounded in biblical studies, church history, or religious tradition. Instead, his conclusions seem to arise from his narrow experience of fundamentalism. The book is riddled with complaints against fundamentalism – both from his past and present experiences. Though Burke’s complaints are obviously irrelevant to Mainline, Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox churches, this does not preclude him from painting all organized religion with one broad brushstroke. Burke must realize that he is preaching to the choir – to the same bunch of former fundamentalists who share his sordid past and are still scarred by it. About halfway through the book, I found myself responding to Burke’s tirades with, “Just move on and get over it! Sure your past experience in church was negative, but don’t hold that against everybody. The church is bigger (and better) than your experience!”

Because of his disinterest in organized Christianity, Burke fashions himself a “heretic.” He argues that every age needs heretics – “people who will push past and beyond the accepted conventional wisdom of the dominant group and pull us across sacred fences that hold us back and keep us tied to perceived orthodoxies” (xxiii). He defines a heretic as a “spiritual insurgent, one who rises up against the established order from the inside” (xxiii). Quoting business guru Art Kleiner, a “‘heretic is someone who sees a truth that contradicts the conventional wisdom of the institution – and remains loyal to both entities.’ This is how I see myself as I begin this endeavor.” (xxiv). He has no interest in “a new spin on old beliefs” (xxiv). He argues that “[t]he message of Jesus needs to evolve for our times” (16). He does not advocate a makeover or a reformation. He will settle for no less than a complete transformation of the church (97). Though he claims the title, heretic, he believes that “dissent is not disloyalty” (xxiv).

I find his definitions not only troublesome, but dishonest. Burke is not critiquing “from the inside.” The words Burke uses to describe the institutional church leave no doubt that his proclaimed “loyalty” is empty of meaning. He labels any church that possesses a modicum of organization as a “religious institution” and decries those who find solace in the “false security of institutions” (xxvi). He admits that he has completely given up on the institutional church. “In 1998, I gave up being a pastor, and a few years later, I gave up membership in an institutional church altogether” (97). For Burke, institutions are evil, deceptive, and godless. He supports the “deconstruction of institution-based faith expressions” (xxv). This can hardly be considered as remaining “loyal to both entities.” I would have been far more pleased if Burke had been honest and owned up to the fact that he has nothing but disdain for the institutional church.

A Religionless Faith

Institutions and religion are practically synonymous to Burke. Both are worthless and deserve to be discarded altogether. It is his negative experiences of religion in an institutional setting that are the reason for his rejection: “To be honest, religion doesn’t really work for me anymore. Being aligned with an institutional church or a particular system of worship seems increasingly irrelevant to my ongoing journey with God. In my experience, the customs, traditions, and even language of religion often seem to get in the way of honest dialogue about God” (6).

His frustrations with the Church have prompted Burke to seek a religionless faith. “Throughout this book, I want to explore what it means to move beyond religion – particularly Christianity” (21). His accusations against religion are damning. He views religion as completely irrelevant to contemporary needs: “Despite the changing needs of humanity, religion seems unwilling to change and address the issues of the spirit” (57). Religion consists of nothing more than “old stories, lovingly preserved but frightfully disconnected from the realities of life” (20). He considers religion to be an obstacle to God’s grace: “the restraints of religion inhibit the flow of God’s grace into the world” (99). He argues that “religion can become a barrier that separates people from God” (40).

His alternative: Spirituality. For Burke, spirituality is countercultural while religion is tied to the establishment (59). Curiously enough, Burke’s style of spirituality is hardly countercultural – in fact, it appeals to the worst modern individualistic tendencies imaginable.

This is nowhere more evident than in his comments concerning salvation: “Salvation is something that happens between God and people individually and has communal implications” (40). Burke has this completely backwards. God’s salvation creates a new humanity – a new community that intentionally seeks to embody God’s will through the Spirit. Jesus said, “I will build my church.” The reality of God’s new community has personal implications. The communal implications are not simply a nice “perk”. Burke’s statement sounds a lot like the modern presentations of the past that emphasized getting an individual to pray a sinner’s prayer and than “suggesting” that he or she find a Bible-believing church to aid in personal growth (the assumption being that the community exists for the individual, rather than vice versa).

Later in the book, Burke makes another statement that comes straight out of Enlightenment individualism: “First-person living is characterized by a heightened sense of personal autonomy. It’s the feeling that you are ‘your own person,’ fully able to take responsibility and make choices apart from the authority of any institution” (56). Sadly, Burke’s hatred of organized religion prompts him to renounce the importance of community at any level. How is it possible to embrace the traditional apostolic witness to the Christian faith, preserved through the ancient Church, without in some way accepting the testimony of others? Faith is never an individual or isolated experience. We receive the apostolic witness, deem it trustworthy, and seek to live in light of it. We do not invent the faith – we receive it!

Burke’s problem is that he has it half-right: “At the end of the day, I see religion as a human construct” (32). Religion is a human attempt to worship and serve God in the context of community. By default, this involves some level of organization and a mutual center (in this case, creeds, rituals, traditions, liturgy, and so on). But the fact that it is a human construct does not detract from its being empowered by God’s Spirit as a channel of God’s grace. The incarnation is proof that God uses our mere humanity as a means through which his grace is mediated and received. God does this in particular places, times, and cultures. Thus, the expression is unique, particular, and localized. It bears the marks of the humanity through which it is expressed.

The fact that religion is a human construct does not automatically negate the fact that God is present and active within human communities. Healthy Christian congregations realize that they do not hold a corner on God. But they do recognize that they are responsible to corporately embody the love of God among themselves through faithful worship, service, fellowship, and formation. The result will be culturally-limited. It will certainly not be the “whole truth,” but it will be faithful and true.

Though he claims to be postmodern, Burke’s desire for absolute unhindered individual expression of his faith reeks of modernity. It is the ultimate in Enlightenment individualism. After Burke left his paid pastoral position in 1998 he began attending an innovative and creative emergent church in Costa Mesa. He quickly abandoned it when he realized that only “20 percent of the institution [was] up for discussion” (99). In other words, since he could not completely design the church community to fully satisfy his own needs, he abandoned it. What would our congregations look like if everyone assumed they should have complete control over the shape, style, emphasis, and even content of the Church’s message?

Burke is right: “Our religions are practiced within our cultural horizons, not outside of them. There is no such thing as a religion that exists outside of culture” (43). But it is the same with spirituality, and the spirituality he suggests completely accords with our culture’s tastes – it is individualistic, non-committal, comfortable (in that you don’t have to seek unity with diverse people), and completely free of any doctrinal boundaries. He doesn’t seem to realize that the same criticisms he brings to the church also apply to even the most extreme expressions of individual spirituality.

And very few would argue against the following comments he makes in which he attempts to demonstrate the inadequacy of the Church and the supremacy of spirituality:

• “The economics of grace the economics of religion have little in common. This is why I contend that grace is bigger than religion.” (114)
• “I think God leads to God, and God is always bigger than our feeble attempts to contain God within the confines of our structures and systems.” (127)
• “I believe that Jesus was full of grace and truth, and he is greater than the Christian religion that claims him.” (215)

I agree with every statement above. Grace is bigger than religion. God is bigger than our systems. Jesus is greater than the Christian religion. But this does not negate the fact that grace is experienced through religion. In other words, Burke has not made his case. He has merely proved that God is bigger than any human construct we can devise – whether corporate or personal. And this includes the human construct of spirituality.

Burke’s Confused Universalism

I assume that many people will disregard the ecclesiastical flaws of Burke’s book and focus on his so-called “universalism.” Like many other areas of the book, it is Burke’s sloppy definitions that create controversy. He is not really a universalist. He does not believe that all people will be saved regardless of their response to God. Instead, his universalism consists of the acknowledgement that no religion is completely devoid of truth: “I’m attracted to universalism insofar as it acknowledges that many of the world’s religions contain true and valuable insights” (196).

Ultimately, for Burke, everyone is already “in” with God. Everybody is fully accepted, but individuals can “opt out” of God’s grace. “Somehow or another, it seems that God allows people the freedom to reject grace and ‘opt out’” (200).

Church as a Picnic

The problems are simple: Burke views organized religion as unhelpful, unredeemable, and ultimately, unspiritual. He has no place for any event-driven component of corporate worship. One of the reasons he rejected the emergent church he was part of was that “it was always going to be an event-driven institution” (99).

His alternative: a small group of friends who spontaneously meet in the park to eat together. No offense intended, but I call this a picnic, not church. I understand that Christians can experience close-knit experiences with other believers in smaller settings. No one disagrees with this. What I do reject is holding this forward as the only place where real community is experienced. Joe Myers’ The Search to Belong has effectively demonstrated that community has diverse expressions and is genuinely experienced in large events as well as in small groups and one-on-one encounters.

My problem is not with Burke’s desire to know God above and beyond ecclesiastical rituals and customs – I desire this as well. My problem is that he cannot fathom knowing God in and through ecclesiastical rituals or customs. As a result, he casts off historical precedent, established tradition, and cultural customs with little thought of the consequences. In the process, without any place to stand but his own “spiritual” preferences, he is forced to create something completely new, personal, and contemporary. Ultimately, this means faddish, individualistic, and soon-to-be-irrelevant.

I love Burke’s description of God’s corporate call to salvation: “Jesus called together a group of people in the gospels and invited them to join him in spreading the word to the world… Jesus saw a new kind of unity, a communion of people from all kinds of backgrounds coming together in a relational network based on love. Embracing this love sanctifies them, holding them together by a common experience of God’s grace that causes them to respond to the world in a new way” (139). This is a beautiful description. Why can’t it be true of the church? Why must this only be limited to small groups of picnickers?

I find it curious that Burke spends the whole book bashing organized religion and then offers this comment at the end of his book: “We may have evolved beyond religion on many levels, but we still need social networks” (227-228). No duh! It’s called the Church, and in spite of its many faults and failings, it is still relevant and important. Burke’s rampant individualism must be curbed by the reality that every community needs organization. And, though it is a human endeavor, God’s grace can freely move in and through it. I wonder if Burke is as opposed to organized hospitals as he is to organized religion.

Burke’s entire book can be dismissed if one learns from the balanced wisdom of Ira Groff from his book, The Soul of Tomorrow’s Church:

If the twentieth century’s major church mistake was to focus on structures while ignoring spirituality, then much of what is happening now seems to be focusing on spirituality while ignoring structures. To split the two misses the miracle of Incarnation. While structures that ignore spirituality are lifeless, spirituality that disregards structures is disembodied. (38)

Quotes excerpted from A Heretic's Guide to Eternity by Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor
© Richard J. Vincent, 2006