The Diagnosis

The Problem of Narrowing

Narrowing occurs when God’s self-disclosure is not recognized as authoritative so that we live according to incomplete stories that claim to be complete. This narrowing is exacerbated by three forces (assimilation, fragmentation, and transaction) and two conditions (inversion and amplification).

In brief

The Problem of Narrowing

The forces shaping the church promote a narrowing of the sacred-social order that hinders God’s people from seeing the full breadth of the goodness, truth, and beauty given to us by God. This narrowing is accomplished as the church learns and adopts constraints beyond those God has established.

The narrowing is driven by (1) three forces that capture the church within a story that claims to be more complete than it actually is, narrowing what the church can see and how the church can respond; and (2) two conditions that make those forces harder to see, harder to resist, and harder to avoid.

The problem isn’t that we have too many constraints, but that we have constraints that are limiting us rather than enabling us to live into the kingdom’s sacred-social order.

“Constraints, therefore, do not function just by closing off possibilities; contextual constraints are also the mechanism whereby the creation of a new level of organization with greater degrees of freedom, takes place.”Alicia Juarrero, “Causality As Constraint”

Three Forces

Assimilation

Assimilation involves the church’s commitment to a culture’s stories or ideologies that claim to represent cosmic reality more completely than they do. They dull the senses of God’s people so that recognizing the surplus goodness, truth, and beauty in different cultures and in God’s creation as a whole becomes inconvenient or taboo.

Fragmentation

Fragmentation involves narrowing by exclusion, cultivating division within the body of Christ as sects develop around specific beliefs, personalities, and institutions. Fragmentation refuses as foreign what are, in fact, faithful expressions of the gospel in another idiom.

Transaction

Transaction collapses the horizon of an institution or individual by making preservation under cultural and market pressures paramount. It assumes there is no reality larger than the institution, platform, or personality genuinely at stake.

Two Conditions

Inversion

Inversion occurs when human leaders and communities close interpretive questions prematurely. They allow those conclusions to govern their reading of Scripture so that the community’s positions displace Scripture’s authority. What presents itself as fidelity to the text is often fidelity to an interpretive grid or system that has been elevated above the text so that the text is never permitted to correct it.

Amplification

Amplification is the acceleration of the three forces through technology. The amplification problem is not primarily misinformation but misformation. Technological engagement shapes habits and dispositions at a pace that bypasses the communal practices by which theological instincts are tested and corrected.

Canonical Definitions

These concise definitions are the approved descriptions used throughout the Framework.

Assimilation: Assuming that incomplete stories are more complete than they actually are.
Fragmentation: Actively or passively cultivating disunity in the church through the development of sectarian loyalty.
Transaction: Defining faithfulness in terms of institutional preservation and continuance.
Inversion: Making a given interpretive system more authoritative than Scripture.
Amplification: Intensifying cultural forces so that they become more difficult to resist.

For reflection

Discussion and Reflection Questions

Questions written for discussion of this movement.

01
Which constraints in your church make life together faithful and fruitful, and which constraints have begun to limit that life?
02
Where might an incomplete cultural story be presenting itself as a complete account of reality?
03
What communal rhythms could help your church notice and resist forces that usually operate beneath conscious belief?