Is there still a need for church - true, deep or otherwise?
The Pope recently reconfirmed the Roman Catholic’s church position that only churches with apostolic succession are true churches, for those of us in the protestant tradition we are ‘ecclesiological communities.’ This may lead some to wonder whether we as protestants/evangelicals can have any truck with our Catholic brothers and sisters and perhaps deep church is at best a sticking plaster for ecumenicalism or at worst some sort of consipiracy/cover up/hush up/suck up?
In these revolutionary post-church/pathological-church times I wonder if we need to move beyond arguements of legitimising our existence as gathering of Christians and instead address the question facing us in the west of why we should bother gathering at all?
Do we still resonate with the thoughts of Ignatius, from the 2nd century, that ‘where Jesus Christ is, there is the universal church’ or Irenaeus, ”where the Spirit of God is, there is the church and all grace’ or does that church now only consist of an audience of one - namely me (as pope, priest and parishioner).
Is chosing to be an independent/individual Christian a contradiction in terms? What can the deep church/deep ecclesiology response be to the question of not just defining “church” but addressing the questions of church: “so what?” and “then what?”
Whilst acknowleding the dangers of blueprint church and the romantic quest in vain for the perfect church - I think we also need to critique our own western ecclesiological lens and inparticular the underlying theme of individualisation/self-determination. My own suggested sketch for this critique for me would be for a Trinitarian lens - one informed by a 2/3 world view [where they have the opposite dilema an emphasis on the many but not so much on the individual].
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this but also like to hear any “lens” recommendations of your own, rose tinted or otherwise…
1. God who is one and three, individual and communal:We can see the salvation as being reconcilled to the Father, through Jesus by the Spirit. As Christians we have a fundamental belief in a tri-une God but how does that belief affect our ecclesiology? We have a God who exists in harmony with the tension between the individual and the community, who is both one and three. Indeed we have Jesus praying to the Father that we would be “one as we are one” and yet sees no contradiction in us created with unique individual love such that the Father knows the number of hairs (or lack of them) on our heads.
Maybe in our individual focused western world we need to hear more from the theologians of the 2/3 world to help us explore this more. Archbishop Tutu for instance has contrasted the western with the African notion of being human by setting Descartes “I think, therefore I am”against Sotho and Nguni phrases “I am because you are; you are because we are,” or “a person is a person through other people.”
For Tutu, the African worldview is one in which “none of us come into the world fully formed. We would not know how to think, or walk, or speak, or behave as human beings unless we learned it from other human beings… the solitary, isolated human being is a contridiction in terms.”
Is the solitary, isolated christian through choice also a contradiction in terms? To paraphrase Fee-Nordling, as Jesus points out in the story of the lost sheep/coin/son we have a God who loves us and searches us out as individuals but that is not how the tales end. The sheep is returned to the flock, the coin goes back in the purse and the son retakes his place in his family – in other words God is not about just us reconciling us with himself but also with each other, of creating us as image bearers who will bear his name and nature across all lines of division, distrust and destruction.
2. God of reconcilition and a community/people of reconciliation: Paul writes in Colossiansthat it is in/through/by Jesus that all of creation is reconcilled to God. And perhaps one of the most amazing things about the NT is how this story continues to grow, the little community established by Jesus spreads like yeast through dough, breaking out from national/religious/sociological/class/gender/race and any other barrier.
This breaking through is not with out tensions, arguments, misunderstandings, mistakes, prejudices, fears etc but the kingdom of God seems to be larger than any of these. Indeed the miracle is not that people are wildly in love with each other but that that can love each other and stay together in a community despite these tensions. That their belief in Jesus as Lord and reconciler of all things, allows them, through the work of the Spirit, to learn to be reconciled with each other such that Paul can write on several occasions that in Christ Jesus there can be no jostling for position/power/status on any other grounds.
As followers/image beares of a God of grace we are a people of grace: we love because we are loved, we forgive because we are forgiven, we bless because we are blessed and we reconcile because are reconciled. As much as our own humanity is being restored we seek to restore the humanity of the poor and oppressed as well as the oppressor.
3. ubuntu Jesus - (re)creation and (humanity) restoration: in the african language of Nguni the word ubuntu can be translated as humaneness but this fails to convey the African world view which is more that this is the esential quality that distinguishes us from the animals - the quality of being human and also humane.
The person who has ubuntu is known for being compassionate and gentle, who uses their strength on behalf of the weak, who does not take advantage of others - in short someone who cares, treating others as they are human beings. We could say that a full demonstration of ubuntu is shown by Jesus - God made flesh to show us what our humanity can be like when are reconciled to him, the transforming power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives cultivating ubuntu within us.
The spirit of ubuntu, restoration justice not retribution, was what underpinned the vision of Archbishop Tutu for the Truth and Reconcilliation Committee in South Africa. In his own words:
“the central concern is not retribution or punishment but the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships. This kind of justice seeks to rehabilitate both the victim and the perpetrator, who should be given the opportunity he or she has injured by his or her offense.”
I wonder how such a view shapes your own understanding of Christ, his cross, the justice of God and heaven/hell?
4. God is Love and love is the higher law– God is defined by John as love and the revelation of his love for creation/the world is made manifest in the sending of Jesus into the world. Jesus prayer was that even though he would go, the Father would send another, the Holy Spirit, to continue to both the means of loving reconciliation and the way of making known the source of reconciliation.
If love and the making known of love/reconcilation/shalom is both the raison d’etre and modus operandi of the trinity then it may help us to see around another tension of church/God/world? We can often focus on one set of relationships Church to God in worship or church to the world in mission but struggle to be able to do both.
If we are being made as imager bearers of God we see can see that in Jesus we have the example of full humanity who is reliant fully on the Holy Spirit in order to live out a life of obedience to the Father. We struggle in our own nature, particularly with submission/suffering /servanthood to/for/behalf others. It runs counter to our core of self-determination and our desire to maintain quasi-independent self governed territories within the kingdom of God – as a friend of mine once remarked, servant leadership is alright until you start getting treated like a servant.
Again the worldview of the 2/3 world maybe helps us follow the Spirit rather than Plato. An African world view would be that of an omnipresent spiritual world, in which the ancestors and saints are as much part of one’s experience as people now living. I find this helpful in breaking down the barriers of modern christianity, between the sacred and the profane, the spirtual and the secular, the church and the world.
For example, Tutu’s biographer notes that for him, “elderly women in his congregation, even if they were treated as non-enities by their white employers, were people created in God’s image, to be held in awe and reverence as if they were God. To allow such people to suffer was not simply wrong; it was blasphemous, for it is to spit in the face of God.
Mission and church, worship and justice, to me then would seem not to be such opposites afterall but the product of us, to paraphrase Eugene Peterson’s version of Romans 12:1-2, submitting/sacrificing our everyday eating, drinking, working and walking around lives to God, which we can only do with the Spirit helping us.
To answer my own question then I would say yes, and deep church is not just a way of replicating western heritage but opening us up to critique across history and continents. But what say you?
14 comments
7.22 am on 7.13.2007
[…] Mayers has a great new post on the Deep Church […]
8.13 am on 7.13.2007
One of my favourite Colin Gunton quotes is ‘individualism is a non-relational creed, because it teaches that I do not need my neighbour to be myself.’ We need a more relational understanding of what it means to be a person. Again, one of my favourite John Zizioulas quotes, as he writes about the Cappadocian understanding of the Trinity is that the word ‘person’ comes to mean that ‘to be and to be in relation becomes identical’. Baptism is a means of which we are no longer individuals, but persons, who exist in and for the Other (God) and others (other persons). My response to the questions is to say, ‘yes and to keep reading the likes of Gunton and Zizioulas, who so helpfully read the church tradition, and so discover a deeper ecclesiology.
8.37 am on 7.15.2007
thanks andy, that is a great quote - it makes me think about how being in relationship allows me to find out both the best and worst of me, so i discover more of who I am and am also drawn deeper into relationally living.
christianity as a relational transforming community, where we recognise our individuality but offer that individuality back to each other - inspired by how father, son, and holy spirit are distinct but mutually submit/give glory to each other?
1.52 am on 7.14.2007
There is just so much potential in a discusion on the image of God and the Triune Identity. It drives the subject on the meaning of being human or what some would call the theology of anthropology. Over the last couple of years the book by William Stacy Johnson, The Mystery of God, Karl Barth the Postmodern Foundation of Theology, has been a read that I have read and re-read as well as underlined. It has helped me to use terms like creation, reconciliation, redemption and compare them to faith, hope and love. In summary form this rich book shows how Barth in his 14,000 pages of Chruch Dogmatics allowed the scriptures to enrich these terms to amplify the meaning of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is so well written it sweeps me into the presense of God. As a result of the very bright and articulate W.S. Johnson I have been moved over and over again as to what I was created to be in the image of God. Secondly, world perspective is sure interesting and gives me perspective on my own identity as a Westerner. The recent book, The Trinity, Global Perspectives, written by Veli-Matti Karkkainen will gives the reader not only a perspective on Africa but also Asian and South American first generation Trinitarian theologians as well as the North American and European Traditions. Karkkainen keeps the conversations open at every turn and helps us to see the context in which these new scholars are writting and how they shed light on the identity of God and his relationship to humankind. And that is what helps us to know what it is to be human. Thanks for a great post.
8.39 am on 7.15.2007
hi Dan, great comment and some awesome book suggestions, i’ll have to get hod of the Karkkainen book! thank you :)
1.52 am on 7.16.2007
I like your emphasis on a communal church perpsective. I think in a post enlightenment-church we need to be more about the local gathering and less about denominational structures (easier said than done).
The local gathering is important because it is a means of worship and community service. It also serves as a central (de-centralized) aspect of missional outreach which is far more effective, as evidenced in the NT with St. Paul’s missions and his relationship with the localized gatherings. in contrast, denominational structures are more about ‘right beliefs’ rather than believing right (as Peter Rollins would say).
vapor
6.57 pm on 7.17.2007
thanks sacred vapor. I think the local gathering is important for the context of doing life together and encouraging each other to, with God’s help, to keep laying down our ordinary lives as sacrifices.
I’m not sure whether any gathering of people is immune from ‘right beliefs’ rather than believing right but would be interested in hearing how you are avoiding this trap in your own context?h
1.32 am on 7.18.2007
yea, I agree with you on right beliefs… my point really is that there is less emphasis on some of the doctrinal concerns in a local church setting than perhaps a denominational leadership council.
so, for example, if you attend a Reformed conference, you will hear all the buzz about TULIP, Atonement models, Sola scriptura, etc… but in the local church gathering, the emphasis is more attuned to a ‘mere’ christianity… a ‘Jesus saved me’ narrative approach.
At first I must admit I viewed the local church perspective as rather simplistic, but now I embrace it as the unifying principle… a trans-denominational approach which I’ve come to love.
vapor
8.49 am on 7.16.2007
The question was “Is there still a need for church?”
If you mean is there still a need for Christians to meet together to worship, pray, have fellowship and serve, bless and support each other practically and prayerfully then I would say a most resounding yes. In fact, I’d go so far as to say its vital to our Christian experience.
The church is the body of Christ, bottom line. It happens whenever Christian communities meet together. All are linked in through their Christian roots to the orginial church. Whatever the Pope says.
In terms of a denominational structure, well that gets more complex. “The church” is not denominations or the establishment. That’s how the world has percieved it and still does. Real church is nothing of the kind in my opinion, and there is a real & desperate need for it.
7.00 pm on 7.17.2007
Thanks James, personally I think you’re right. I’d be interested to hear more on how you find church being vital to your christian experience?
9.54 am on 7.19.2007
I think there is this misconception that the Church is an institution. Its not in its truest sense. That’s compeletely wrong. That’s what its become and is known as, but that’s not what Church was originally or Biblically intended to be.
The Bible says that the Church is Christ’s body, not an institution. Each body part has a different role and that metaphor is a very apt description of what church should be. Church in its truest sense is a family, a support network who look after, practically help, pray, love and support each other.
The church is a community who use their different gifts to serve, love and bless each other and the wider world, and that includes the preachers and leadership. All have a role to play in the serving and building up of the church, however small or insignificant it might seem. The Bible says we all have gifts and are all part of the body.
I have been at churches without that and not grown at all, but at VCS my overall experience has been one of a family who are there for each other, care for each other, pray for each other and practically help and care for each other, generally without having to be asked. No church is perfect, but VCS is as near as I’ve found to what real church is and always was. The body of Christ.
The Pope is very wrong in his assessment of the church in my opinion. He is only fuelling the perception of the majority have of the church as an institution, much like government, steeped in tradition and conservatism and very distant from the rest of the world and normality.
Real church is nothing like that, and its about time people knew and understood that. We need to claim back real church and show the world what it really is, then I think Christianity might become much more appealing.
6.45 pm on 7.20.2007
Great post! Just today I posted on an excellent article discussing how trinitarian study in the past few decades has influenced our understanding of ecclesiology.
11.18 am on 7.24.2007
Good wrestlings, all around. In my estimation, it is not the nature of God, nor the nature of the Church, that is the central question of the age - within the Church or within the culture.
Jesus is the central issue of the age we live in. The community that follows him, the concept of God aroused by his presence in the historical narrative, the shape of the world according to his teaching - this is the epicenter of the postmodern quake.
The Church pivots on Jesus, and the Trinitarian conception of God pivots on Jesus. His presence or absence, divinity and self-declarations, are what the essential hustle and bustle are really about.
I.e. Apostolic succession is a fair question within the ranks of believers, but we don’t simply ask Church questions - we ask Church and Culture questions, because we believe Christianity to be a human story and resolution - not just a Church story.
4.52 pm on 7.27.2007
Thanks Dan, yes i think a Jesus centric approach is a good one, certainly it has been the focus for awhile in emergent inspired circles. I wonder though whether we can over focus on Jesus at times at the expense of the Father and Spirit? What do you think, can we make it a tri-une une at times?
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