According to Wikipedia “Parkour (sometimes also abbreviated to PK) or l’art du déplacement [1] (English: the art of moving) is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment.” You’ve seen these guys jumping around like monkeys/Spiderman and in case you still don’t know what I’m talking about, have a look at this:

Parkour – Simple Truths from Danny Pack on Vimeo.

I particularly like this one since it’s a bit more raw, but I could watch them for hours. So now that you’ve seen it, what’s the point of Parkour? For those that don’t know, the philosophy of parkour is as follows:

Parkour is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one’s path by adapting one’s movements to the environment.

• Parkour requires… consistent, disciplined training with an emphasis on functional strength, physical conditioning, balance, creativity, fluidity, control, precision, spatial awareness, and looking beyond the traditional use of objects.
• Parkour movements typically include… running, jumping, vaulting, climbing, balancing, and quadrupedal movement. Movements from other physical disciplines are often incorporated, but acrobatics or tricking alone do not constitute parkour.
• Parkour training focuses on… safety, longevity, personal responsibility, and self-improvement. It discourages reckless behavior, showing off, and dangerous stunts.
• Parkour practitioners value… community, humility, positive collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and the importance of play in human life, while demonstrating respect for all people, places, and spaces.

—American Parkour Community Definition [2]

So what does this have to do with Christianity? Well I’m reading this book called Stealing Jesus and while I plan on dealing with that in what will probably be a series of posts, watching this old video and chatting with a buddy made me think that there’s something in common with the way Christianity is looked at in Bawer’s book and how a traceur (one who practices parkour) looks at obstacles in his path.

When Fundamentalists are presented with an obstacle, such as evolution, they would would tend to either ignore the issue outright as long as possible, or fabricate some elaborate solution to get over/under/around it. Neither ignorance about it, nor building bridges or tunnels in the form of “creation science” seems like a particularly good solution to me. While they are certainly “solutions” of a sort, their use of avoidance techniques looks unhealthy. I understand the notion that the paths we have followed for generations are “good enough for me” as the song goes. I know the argument that says that engaging with the culture can lead to tainting our beliefs or harming us spiritually. Why climb a wall when we can go around it? Why swim through a river when we can dam it or build a bridge? Those are common questions and I think we can learn a thing or two from the traceur.

“Modernist” Christians, a term in vogue in the ’30s, took a different tack. They embraced the things some Christians look at as obstacles. The knowledge that science brought was (rightly so) looked at as a good thing. Instead of reacting to it or treating it as adversarial to God’s word, they tried to understand how to move through a life of faith with that new understanding as a part of it. It lead them to ask questions about their understanding of the creation accounts in the Bible and to ask if they were intended to be literally true or if there was another purpose for their being there. The “gymnastics” that modernists or emergent brethren are accused of going through may look a lot like the things that traceurs do, but just as the above points say, they aren’t doing it to show off. Science and culture aren’t things to be avoided or blown off. We need to deal with them. But again, why? Where’s the benefit in this?

In short I believe that engaging with the world around you can give you a more robust faith. Too many Christians I see every day have their heads down and accept what they are fed without asking questions. They live the life they are told to live and only seek out experiences that are approved of by their pastor/church/friends. The take the safe, clear route rather than the more direct and interesting one. Will that get you want to go? Sure. Ultimately I do believe that both the avoider and the engager will end up in the same place, but what sort of life are we called to?

Now there are dangers if you take the path less traveled. As it is with parkour, discipline is required as is a fair amount of flexibility. We need to be aware of the challenges around us and face them, looking beyond the “traditions” for ways to understand the world we live in. There’s definitely something to be said for examining the ways others do things, whether we agree with them or not, and using those ways to improve ourselves. Regardless of which way you choose to go though, that last bullet point is something that we could all benefit from, Christians or not. Whatever path we choose, we must value “community, humility, positive collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and the importance of play in human life, while demonstrating respect for all people, places, and spaces”.