discipleship | mission | practical theology

I have recently re-read Gordon Lynch’s Losing my Religion [I'll be reviewing this else where] in which he describes his own move away from evangelicalism.  There is a huge implicit assumption throughout the book that everyone involved in evangelicalism will want to move away and continue their journey elsewhere: whether that be within a Christian context or not.  There are a number of issues I want to engage with from this book but it is the idea of journeys, spiritual journeys, that I want to start with here.  But first, what are Zombie Categories?

Ulrich Beck, a professor of Sociology teaching in Munich and London, has this idea of Zombie Categories: categories that are dead and still alive.  Ulrich believes that “because of individualisation we are living with a lot of zombie categories…”  His ready example is ‘family’.

Ask yourself what actually is a family nowadays?  What does it mean?  Of course there are your children, my children, our children.  But even parenthood, the core of family life, is beginning to disintegrate under conditions of divorce.  Families can be constellations of very different relationships.  Take, for example, the way grandmothers and grandfathers are being multiplied by divorce and remarriage.  They get included and excluded without any means of participating themselves in the decisions of their sons and daughters.  From the point of view of the grandchildren the meaning of grandparents has to be determined by individual decisions and choices.  Individuals must choose who is my main father, my main mother and who is my grandma and grandpa.  We are getting into optional relationships inside families which are very difficult to identify in an objective, empirical way because they are a matter of subjective perspectives and decisions.  And these can change between life phases.

So a zombie category is a social concept which is still in use but which has lost the content, or substance, of its original or intended use.  It is still in use because we have romantic ideas about restoring or getting back to a place of substance, or because we actually have not noticed this change has taken place.  I don’t think Ulrich is saying that we should be performing resuscitation on these categories, it is not necessarily about trying to restore these categories to former glory.  Instead, it is more about facing the reality that we no longer mean what we think we mean when we reference these categories.  We therefore have the option of redefining our category, or recognising that we do in fact work with a redefined category, or stop using it for what it is not.

I would like to suggest that journeys, discipleship journeys, spiritual journeys are a zombie category.  It is not at all that spiritual things don’t happen in our lives, or that we don’t grow as a disciple.  My point is that the category ‘journey’ is not helpful.

Most of our physical journeys today are over very quickly.  We could be the other side of the world, in a different culture with a different language, climate and landscape within 24 hours.  Even our very short journeys, into town or to a friend’s place, are generally over in minutes rather than hours.  Personally I have very little patience for these everyday journeys: I leave at the last minute and I drive too fast.  And I have too little patience for my spiritual disciplines!

When the category of ‘journey’ was used in relation to discipleship the actual physical journeys that people undertook where much more gruelling.  Walking to the next town, although a common occurrence, would nevertheless be measured in hours not minutes and in pain not comfort.  Travelling to a different part of the country would not have been undertaken lightly by ordinary folk like you and I.  A short look at some writing like Pilgrims Progress by John Bynam, will bring these categories of spiritual and journey together.

Again I need to point out that I am not saying that our spiritual life, our following Jesus, is not at time gruelling, difficult and drawn-out.  My own testimony will stand as an example of that.  I am saying that maybe the category of journey is not as helpful as it used to be.  We still use this category prolifically; it is still alive, but also somewhat dead.

If our category of journey has been empty of its substance and it is indeed a zombie, then continuing to use it as a framing concept for our discipleship might have adverse affects on that discipleship: our discipleship.  Today journeys are all about A-to-B and little about the path.  Journeys are about the ‘fastest route’ selected on the sat-nav.  Journeys are about air-conditioned cocoons removed from the elements, isolated from encounters with the environment through which one passes.  Journeys are to and not via, they are uninterrupted movements without the space for another.  Journeys need drive-through tactics for fuel and convenience only.  Journeys are too long and so need a thick layer of headset entertainment to ensure that it is not wasted time.

Discipleship, following Jesus, is all about the path and little about destination, choosing the narrow route along which we notice and listen, seeking encounters with others as we travel via their lives, willing turning aside for their convenience ensuring that each moment is not wasted but is filled with Presence.

The idea and concept of journey offers little substance for us when thinking about our discipleship and spirituality.  It is nevertheless used both casually in conversation, from pulpits and platforms in church services and by reflective and academic minded writers as a framing metaphor for containing and understanding our call to follow Jesus.  I wonder whether the time has come to put it out of its misery and shoot it dead.