A concept, a culture,
a way of conversing…
The story so far, as told by Matthias…
Estuaries are among the most diverse, productive, and interesting biotopes and are very important for biodiversity. And as with anywhere else in the natural world, life in the estuary is dangerous. For there, in the untamed riverbed, with no protective levees or floodwalls, we find ourselves in the midst of the chaos of life-giving waters that hold unimagined depths.
Matthias’ excellent Come join us in the estuary – Katakombenkultur is excerpted here
with permission – full article is recommended – available in both German and English.
Paul VanderKlay, a pastor of the Christian Reformed Church in Sacramento, was there when a new estuary was forming out in the wilds of YouTube. He was there when thousands of young people were drifting, disoriented, asking big questions and not knowing who to talk to about them…
For VanderKlay, the church was often a walled garden that hardly allowed fresh water to flow out into the world. He saw that people often self-censored in small groups and Bible studies. They only told the pastor what they thought he wanted to hear. In Paul’s observation, church seemed to be the last place many people wanted to go to have a free, open-ended conversation where they could say heretical things, share their thoughts openly, and really explore subjects in depth. And pastors were the last people anyone was coming to for conversations like that…
Another aspect of this phenomenon is that in VanderKlay’s estuary, heretics and orthodox believers are granted equal respect. So are agnostics, atheists, and people from all kinds of backgrounds. Sometimes it even seems that the more heretical their views are, the more they are esteemed. So a Unitarian can make high-level arguments against the Trinity, while a Jew declares his love for Jesus of Nazareth but excoriates the apostle Paul in lengthy texts and videos. Against this backdrop, the fact that the founder and administrator of the discord server is a staunch atheist may seem absurd. In the estuary, however, this new diversity has become normality.
And so it could be said that a new form of dialogue is becoming possible in the estuary. This also goes for Christians of different denominations: the discord server cultivates an interdenominational, international exchange between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants from all corners of the world – from Iceland to South Africa, from Australia and the Philippines to Europe and the USA. And when Paul, a Calvinist in an iconoclastic tradition, talks for hours with Orthodox icon carver Jonathan Pageau, they are striking out into new territory. Through his regular exchanges with Pageau, Paul has also regained a better understanding of the need for the church to be a walled garden…
Through his videos and meet-ups, Paul then realized that as a pastor, he could use the church space in a different way to have deep conversations with people. And from Paul’s perspective, that way is much more effective than the things churches usually do, which hardly manage to bring anyone anywhere near a meaningful conversation about the most important things in life
Much like the early Christians, Paul wants to make genuine connections with the culture of society…
The fruitful exchange between all these creatures makes Paul VanderKlay’s estuary one of the most interesting, diverse and productive cultural phenomena of our time.
Written by Matthias – Translated by Laura Freeburn
Click here for full Come join us in the estuary article.
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