What do you think of as weird? It’s not a universal. Wearing multiple layers of clothing every time you go outside and heating your home to 20+ degrees is weird if you live at the equator, not so much if you live in Sweden.

In a recent post reflecting on the growth of Catholicism and Orthodox Churches on the one hand and Pentecostalism on the other, John Stevens, tries to make a case for the right sort of weirdness. I don’t think he succeeds. But first his case, made by him. Here is the wrong kind of weirdness:

However, I think we need to avoid making weirdness a virtue in itself. There is no doubt an attraction at the moment in society, especially amongst younger people, to the apparently spiritual, mysterious and transcendent. It is unsurprising that Catholicism, with its liturgical pomp, and Pentecostalism, with its experientialism, offer this in abundance. In some ways, they offer a tangible experience rooted in different physical manifestations. This kind of weirdness can be produced artificially. It is often a product of a carefully curated atmosphere, including dress, building, ambience, language, liturgy, actions, and music. Whether it is a grand organ in a Cathedral or a smoke machine in a dark worship space, weirdness and a sense of the transcendent can be manufactured.

And here is the right kind of weirdness:

We need to be weird, but we ought to be weird in a way that reflects the apostolic pattern. A church that is truly faithful to the apostolic gospel will be weird in every culture, though how it is weird will vary because of the context. Some elements of the gospel and the church’s life may seem normal to the culture, but others will seem thoroughly odd. For example, in the West, it is the orthodox sexual ethic of the church that seems weird, especially on sexuality. In more traditional cultures, it may be the opposition of the church to polygamy, patriarchy and homophobia that seems equally odd. What is weird will vary because it is inherently defined by what is regarded as normal and natural.

He then lays out a fairly standard description of some beliefs within evangelicalism which depending on how they’re actually practised is all well and good. He concludes by saying, “So we need to stay weird. But let’s ensure that we are weird in the way of the word. We do not need a manufactured weirdness or a false transcendence. The gospel is quite odd enough in itself if we will believe it, preach it and live it out.”

Let’s start by agreeing with John’s basic point that yes the gospel is odd enough and we aren’t to be ashamed of the parts that go against the grain of the culture and time wherever we may be. To be a Christian is to be weird.

But ‘spiritual, mysterious and transcendence’ are not necessarily enemies to be fought or dangers to be avoided and John seems to be concerned that because experiences can be created, or to use John’s words artificial and manufactured, they must therefore be false. But is that right? Does seeing something as constructed help us in discerning whether it is true transcendence or not? The answer is, ‘no not really’.

I know John believes in the power of the preached word and he, along with most of the FIEC pastors he represents, work hard at their sermons. Is the sermon manufactured? It is certainly crafted. It is worked at. It is written, edited, devised, sharpened, and honed. I assume it is hoped that it will have an impact on the hearers and will move heart and soul. To put that much work and hope it will not is really weird. If someone were to fall to their knees crying, weeping and repenting, would we say it was a false experience because the sermon had been worked on for ten hours or more? I doubt it.

Are we supposed to feel nothing during songs of worship to God? Because any hymn, any psalm whether you have a full band or are just going for it acapella can be profoundly moving. Would we say it is false because it too was manufactured and therefore artificial? It is disingenuous to suggest that any experience you might have is entirely unintended by those of us planning this activity. We are supposed to feel joy, gladness, delight, love, hope, peace, comfort in the presence of the Lord and in the fellowship of the saints. We want those things and you cannot divorce them entirely from activities that may encourage you to feel precisely those things.

In other words John’s church and every church has a ‘carefully curated atmosphere, including dress, building, ambience, language, liturgy, actions, and music.’ It’s just that some are more moving or interesting than others. It doesn’t matter if your building is a school, the ambience is muted, the dress code chinos and checked shirts, the songs by Graham Kendrick or hymns by Charles Wesley it is all curated, chosen, planned and therefore manufactured. That’s culture. It’s everywhere and in everything.

Not only this but everyone experiences everything bodily, through the five senses. There is no other way to do it. It’s a weird badge of honour to say we’ve intentionally designed our worship services to be the least interesting as possible. We’ve dialled everything down not up to 11 but down to 1 and then if something happens, which we’ve tried to ensure it won’t, then maybe we’ll say it was God. I suppose if you don’t want anything transcendent because you’re inherently suspicious of the numinous then the strategy of designing non-experiential worship services that don’t move or impact the attenders is an appropriate strategy. If you do hope that what you have planned will impact those that come, then you my friend are a manufacturer.

So the idea that Catholics and Pentecostals manufacture experience while evangelicals don’t is false and it doesn’t help us in discerning whether anything true and transcendent is happening.

Some reformers whitewashed over the paintings, stripped their churches of icons, smashed the stained glass windows and in rejecting visual beauty and gave the eye nothing to behold. They stopped the use of incense and rejected the sense of smell. They took the mystery out of the bread and gave the people nothing to taste. They fought to keep feet still, hands down, and smiles locked away. The body was not to respond in any way. The only way God could now speak to us was through our ears. As if words aren’t the most manipulative of all created things.

It is by and large not the forms but the content that we are to discern. Sometimes we sing a song that feels moving but is theologically vacuous. There is more than one way to solve that problem. You can have a theologically rich but dull song or you can also have a theologically rich song that is musically rich too.

But there were a few other points where John tries to rein in the weirdness when really he shouldn’t. For example he says:

I think we need to pay attention to the ways that the New Testament expects us to be weird. Paul urged the church not to seek weirdness for its own sake, for example, when he commanded the Corinthians not to allow the use of the gift of tongues without interpretation in church.

John is right that we need to pay attention to the New Testament but I think he ends up with a selective list. For starters he’s right about tongues without interpretation but he doesn’t note that Paul did encourage the use of gift of tongues with interpretation (1 Cor 14:13). That only reduces the weirdness of it by a smidgeon.

Prophesying, eating bread and drinking wine and calling it body and blood or worse having a love feast, praying for healing and anointing with oil, baptism in water (however you do it), singing spiritual songs, and even prayers, laying on of hands, are all deeply weird activities. And they are all activities not just beliefs or conduct.

At the end of the day it’s all weird. As Tim Suffield says, “I would like us to stop being embarrassed about the weird bits of the faith. We think God became a man and walked out the back of death, it’s all weird.”