Welcome to Edinburgh, sometime after 2000 AD. You’re a Christian, except you’re uncomfortable with the word – Jerry Falwell is a ‘Christian’; you follow Jesus Christ. You visit a few churches and what do you get? The usual – you’re greeted by the official greeters, you're subjected to a worship set through which the congregation responds in an almost choreographic fashion or not at all, you endure either oratory prayers or endless uses of the phrase “Jesus…just…Lord”, you sit through a good sermon which clogs your brain with anything but the person of Jesus, and afterwards you’re sized up in terms of your theology. Throughout, you’re wondering, ‘is this the light of the world?’
So you cut loose – you say, I will stick close to Jesus, be the light of the world, salt of the earth. Live always with the desire to give to all people, wherever they are, the good news of Jesus. Wonderfully, you realise that there are many others in the same boat, and they are doing stuff. You network, and all of a sudden you realise that people are meeting Jesus for the first time, precisely because, it seems, Jesus followers have left the church, with its colonising, tyrannical, bounded sets in which people are seen firstly as either ‘inside’ or ‘outside’. You are no longer tied down – you are free to serve the Jesus in the world rather than the church.
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, St Anon’s Church is rid of the prophetic voice that was always nagging away at its leaders, always making a nuisance of itself by diverting the church’s attention away from getting people ‘in’. Strangely, no-one enters the building expecting to meet with the Spirit of God anymore, but everything else is going swimmingly. New Christians are being made steadily and, reassuringly, they’re no trouble at all.
Everyone seems reasonably happy that God’s pleased with what’s going on.
Elsewhere, a martian is doing his homework on the founder himself and the New Testament Church and says, ‘Crikey! It must be hard for these Christians being so counter-cultural. They have to be so deeply in the world so as to dissolve like salt-crystals in a pot roast, so they aren’t like a typical club. Meanwhile, they are so anchored in community that the pervasive individualism of their culture will be sacrificed by each one of them. They will surrender their selves for each other – even others who drive them insane. They will resist consumer culture even to the extent that they will not allow choice to determine their relationships – they belong to a family, a happy one or otherwise.’ He may continue, ‘When I go to earth, I want to be a Christian – it’s so secure, however much I mess up. It is a family in which I will grow, not into a spiritually successful monad, but towards the perfect person of the one I seek to follow. It is living as the light in a dark world, despite being soaked in darkness myself.’
Do you think the martian would recognise us?
Painting: Alone by Leah Rob
Posts
16 comments:
No. I don't think so. It's not just 'radicals' leaving the church that's a problem, either. If we give up being radical within the church and start going with the flow (or stagnating with the lack of it) we achieve even less.
On the same theme, I just finished reading The Lost Letters of Pergamum by Bruce W. Longenecker. Very thought provoking to look at the early Church and how people interpreted Jesus example/teaching in those early days and years.
Good post box.
On the positive side, there's a lot that liquid/network church can teach us about mission, and about incarnation (see Paul's blog. But there's a couple of further concerns I have. To what degree is this actually "church"? Two Christian men sitting in the pub may exclaim "hey - we're doing church right now", but that doesn't make it so. What space is there for united vision, for communal worship, for the sacraments, and genuine sacrificial community?
Doesn't this approach just take us down the road of sanctified hyperindividualism (which as you rightly point out fails to challenge our culture)? After all, I choose who I network with, so I never need to worship with someone I disagree with, or break bread with a guy who hurt me. Doesn't sound a lot like Jesus, who broke bread with men who betrayed, doubted, denied and misunderstood him.
"No one can attempt to nurture an alternative imagination on their own without a community gathered around a crucified and risen Lord and enlivened by the Holy Spirit."
I just read this in Walsh and Keesmaat (p.214), which I'm nearly done with reading at snail's pace - a truly exciting book.
Profound stuff...
I think you make a really good point about a possible danger of whats being referred to here as 'Network Church'. The hyper individualism thing is really interesting - it definately deserves to be addressed.
It might be helpful to note that many of us networkey types are quite into the other seemingly 'big' thing in Christendom at the moment - 'new' monasticism.
Historically, monasticism has always been a response to a church that has become in some way corrupt. When I look at much of the UK's Christian institutions I dont see much integrity and authenticity to the teachings of Christ. I see allot of politics, allot of time wasted and allot of vampiric congregations claiming that their fellowship is 'radical' because 5 or 6 poor saps slog their guts out while the rest of the congretation looks on (applauding themselves for being such a great church - only to state how dissapointed they are when said sap hopelessly burns out and goes off the rails).
Straight away, many people full-on living for Christ in this environment looks like they are 'radical'. I recon they're only radical when observed in the context of tepid traditionalism and nondestinct nominalism. To my eyes, the so called 'radicals' are just being what they should be.
This can be even more apparent if youre outside the city like I am - lost in the peroquial desert of new town Scotlnd - where the Christian gene pool is so much smaller and the Hillbillies of the faith (like cousin Sectarianism or cousin Traditionalsm can often run the show).
In the monastic context, its not about individualism of those that St. Benedict refered to as Sarabite or Gyrovague. Its about trying becoming a new kind of Cenobyte (Benedict's Rule: CH1) while we try to figure out what 'community' means to our generation. After all - Benedict recommended that each sucessive generation try to reinterpret his rule as apporpriate to their situation.
Sorry for being rambling and long... Im on the night shift.
Good points - the new monasticism, and your critique of the traditional church resonates all too well with my experience, although I have known exceptions.
Brian McLaren talked about a new monastic community who attended his church on a Sunday. When they came he told them not to contribute to the church - financially, in time, or any other way - but said, allow us to be a blessing to you. Importantly, they weren't only a bunch of missionally-minded individuals, but were already a community of mutual encouragement, support and confession, and so seemed to fulfil what strikes me as the two major defining features of 'church'.
One of the tragedies of the traditional church is that there are often very few spaces for this kind of real confession, real vulnerability, and so real encouragement. Networks don't necessarily create this space either. In the church, we have loads of pious sounding confession in the abstract, but few places where people can collapse into the God-loved wreckage we really are, and be loved. Meanwhile, networks could go the other way and be so focused on doing stuff that the safe - even sacred - space for breakdown is never established, tested and consolidated.
For a monastic community to create this space requires that it becomes precisely this, a community. Whether it has a fixed locus, a hub, or not, there has to be some sense of belonging.
My fear is that we could recontextualise monasticism in a way that abandons this central characteristic of the Body. Because we see that most people today are in many relationships that do not seem like community, we could decide that the way we conceive of church need not be community either. The question is, is this an area in which the church is to be counter-cultural, or is it instead to change itself in order to resonate with the culture?
My guess is that, for once, this is where we have to be different.
Agreed. Good to hear of the network/new monasticism combo. I guess what's crucial in a new monastic approach is that the community is united around a shared praxis and a missional focus - they exist primarily to reach and serve the world, and not for themselves.
Not a profound comment I know, but wanted to stay in the conversation!
P.S. I was again convicted of the need for community today as I broke bread with someone who had hurt me. Very hard to do (although it was made easier by my individual-size bread portion! ahem, sorry). There's something about communal worship and communal sacrament that 'forces' me to be reconciled with my brother/sister and honour the image of the communal God that is the church. Even when I didn't want to. I guess that's the point of the thing.
quoting boxthejack ...
"In the church, we have loads of pious sounding confession in the abstract, but few places where people can collapse into the God-loved wreckage we really are, and be loved"
Channel four film last night "The Phone Booth" was a powerful image of the latter. Took a while to get there though.
fit like! great blog! all good comments- you've all fair got me thinking: I've bunged down far too many thoughts.. sorry!
i'm convinced now- community v individualism is a false dichotomy... as is solid v network church.. a dead end, a tomb at the end of european christian history..
that still stinks of empire.
some fun stuff about church..
1. Firstly, I don't think europe has modelled 'church', Christ's body - I don't think anyone has seen it yet.. christian empire with it's modern cut down- versions: the sect and the congregation - are empire-factories:
their DNA sets them up to compete and duplicate - de-energised by it's ideal of empire - it is a zero challenge to our new global landscape where empire is becoming normative for all the worlds citizens - in desperate need of Christ's anti-empire (God's kingdom) demonstrated in imaginative comic, concrete non-violent easy to learn - even by the world's children- ways across the earth.
2. the 20thC diaspora of millions of saints across europe since first and second world wars.. INTO Europe.. is I believe, God's doing.. joseph sent into a new egypt.. post-congo saints dragged into a brave new world!
some awake, some sleepers awaiting the kiss of Christ, to awaken them in a new land..
the remainder travel in circles,week in week out - hankering after and trying to rebuild the christian idols they left behind.
Many have noticed that Every revival starts in the city/street and ends up in the congregation and then dies - because most christians are unaware that revival is an eruption of the Spirit among every generation that aims to launch God's people into the land, into a creation that screams for the saints to BE THERE - over 4000 years - the same pattern.. the Spirit pushes out -we pull it back in out of fear/greed
now He has taken matters into his own hands.. hence the holy diaspora.. of wargens/boomers/xers and yers.. into the land.
3. when God looks at your city/toon/region - he sees ONE church - a spectrum of saints in every sphere of life there.. I think that is how we must try and see.. and ACT as if it were true in all that we do next- the days of sect and para and denom are over - it is finished! the empire is tatties! Jesus anti-empire is here.. get used tae it! at a toon near you!
'the change' many are picking up in uk and trying to find a shared language for (vocab).. here's my 2p worth so far..
It's only when we saints give up the auld booz and stop jacking up- the cruel fiery seductive ideal of empire (located in the above sectarian systems) - that we begin to see this.. around us- real revival - church already here.. in the Spirit of creating and resistance around us.. and realise that it was here all along- eyes and ears start to open..
new courage and energy and vitality begin to flow through our veins, and dreams erupt across the body of christ- dreams for transformation of our cities and lands bubble up freely- saints at last learning with Christ how to draw out the gifts of and reduce the toxic energies of a new land: the global age.. beginning with the poorest people and places on the planet!
For christian empire: you need 3 interconnecting components: the congregation, a leaders-laity caste system and a God-money system to keep it whirring.. like a planet that sucks everything into it.. with an atmosphere that creates an inner sacred-secular division and an outer sectarian landscape of cooption, competition and duplication.. disempowering and killing every move of God.. that erupts in the land- and coopting the dreams of the saints for the land/creation that god loves so much that he.. gave his son away.. to it!
Good news:
God since ww1 has been busy doing the opposite away from the religious centres of power (as John the baptist might say - helping God's saints repent!)
turning the saints 180 degrees..
1. from congregation to creation (where jesus is smack bang in the middle of - incarnation is finally proved true)
2. from leader-laity division to just 'the saints'- an amazing multicoloured trans-national confederation of the body of christ - in and across every sphere, every city region tribe and language..
3.from using money to conserve the congregation - to launch - to give away God's bonnie saints and their dreams out into the land
a land screams for them to, at last, be there..
Thanks Paul - there's loads I agree with in this.
I guess where we differ is that you think individualism/community is a false dichotomy, whereas I would assert that the way our culture elevates the individual and the sanctity of choice is totalising and imperial, and that community is the antidote, rather than the problem. Of course, I agree that sectarianism and denominationalism only make real community harder to achieve. In fact, the traditional congregational form can be deeply individualistic - look at the way we Protties do the eucharist: an individual thimble of wine, an individual crouton of the body of Christ, and all this after sitting for an hour facing the front, looking through the community, supposedly to the truth.
But I don't think congraphobia is the answer. Congregation is neutral, community is positive. But I don't see how we can have unconditional community without congregation of some sort. In fact, I wonder if our congregations need people who are averse to the self-satisfied, club-like congregation in their midst, living it in the ways you describe.
I'm sure you've heard all this before - I'm new to the discussion!
our culture?
((;-))
the obsessions with congregational id are a middle class phenomena - 'church' is geared toward saifying the needs and asirations of middle class culture - with a covenant of security..
where i come from- it is the opposite
also tartan cultures - in haggisland
have a very different constellation of pains and gifts to struggle with than - bros and sis's in anglican culture..down south
(this is ignored hence much anglo-US-centric diagnosis is skewed)
scotland big 3 pains = masochism, addiction and idealism (with it's wee bro-sectarianism)
masking its 3 gifts: comic resistance (to dehumanisation), capacity for bearing big life, invention..
capacity for life
hence particularly in scotland - congregations (sects)are the worst thing you can have here, miltiating against unity of the body across our cities and regions - robbing/coopting christian symobols that support middle class aspirations and deny the
production of symbols/practices that meet the needs and aspiurations and rage of the poor here -
also congregations are impossible to hold together without the 2 other components of colonialism/empire - leader-laity and God-money
de-energising and burning out the dreams of the saints (and the saints now too- even faster in a global era) in this land for centuries
((;-)) individualism v community isn't the problem - its' empire v body of christ
not a post-modern struggle for middle class - a post-colonial one..for the worlds poor- who have had their 'gospel' stolen from them
Empire vs. Body: that's exactly my point. I don't see individualism as neutral or an incidental however. The Empire hates community because community subverts the market; meanwhile, if it can get people to feel like free agents, rational consumers in the material, moral, missional marketplace, then it has achieved its hegemony.
I am suggesting our resistance should be communal, and yes, that may at times divert us away from the mission as we try and preserve community.
I am not suggesting that the traditional church has not turned into a middle class club that works for empire instead of against it. However, I think part of this is because it preserves individualism in much of its praxis. Clubs are groups of like-minded individuals congregating around a shared interest/belief/aesthetic. Not wrong as such, but definitely not missional in essence. If this is how you understand congregation I agree.
However, if we believe congregation can be community, that is, unconditional, diverse, relational, then it is not imperial, but precisely that which the Empire can't stomach. If instead we throw out the community bit of the traditional church, and preserve the individualism, I think we are throwing out the Christ child and keeping the imperial bath water.
Some thoughts and questions related to community and individualism:
there were some monks who went to live on their own in the desert, but who ended up finding themselves founding 'one of the most durable expressions of community the Church has known'.
It is a very good question to ask: Are we running away from situations where we are forced to interract with people we find difficult, into the narrowed world where people are all quite like us?
This is a good question for everyone to answer including those inside church congregations.
I think it's a lot about an attitude; whatever we do, we can try and avoid 'uncomfortable community'.. But if we are oriented towards seeking connections and reconcilliations (as opposed to creating or maintaining divides), then there is no shortage of people unlike us who we may find ourselves alongside in the city.
It can be very uncomfortable discovering some of the separation walls we are not allowed to build if we live like this.
I think it is in learning to be increasingly motivated by compassion, that is the cure to much of our individualism.
Is it possible to remain part of a community that has formed around a 'local church congregation', whilst learning to avoid the trappings of empire that we are becoming aware of?
Perhaps to 'leave a church*' and then see what community links remain, is one way to discover what community really existed beforehand?
I definitly wouldn't recommend anyone cut any of their real commitments to actual people or God.
I want to learn to critique individualism (and individualchurchism?), in the way that I live.. any ideas?
[*i know 'leaving church' is a very loaded term, It's important that we don't leave or disown any of the Church. I'm interested in joining all the rest of it, not in leaving one small part of it.
The communication involved if people feel you are 'leaving them' is really important, -lots of room for hurt in percieved abandonment/breaking of loyalty.
Similar communication needed if you critique empire in something. (I still stink of empire, I have much to learn).]
You scare me bro, in the very best, most inspirational way!
comments coming thick and fast today..
On individualism and the congregation:
yeah individualism is loads of our problem..
Compassion, and learning to see things from points of view that are not based in our selves (eg. to always ask the question: God how do you see this?) are one way to get away from this "I am the centre of the universe and what really matters" thing.
"five messages that a teenage boy needs to learn to become a wise man": 1. Life is hard 2. You are going to die 3. You are not that important 4. You are not in control 5. Your life is not about you "
-A franciscan monk i once met.
a lot of my critique of 'congregational church' is exactly that it is individualistic.
(in the same way that nationalism could be said to be individualistic?(always competing and putting national interests before responsibility to the wider community)).
An individual church will see things from its own point of view, it will think about what it needs, and is likely to 'serve itself', although it may then serve those around it a bit. It is prone to dangers of competing with others, promoting its self image, demarkating boundaries, trying to grow itself and expand, basically to further its own interests.. (even if these interests actually include a lot of good).
Is any of this fair?
I think that the individualism in 'individualchurchism' is more subtle, because it appears to be a communal activity. (with elements of real community in the mix).
The church is a body, of which we are each small and different parts, it is to a large degree the landscape of individualchurchism, that has divided this community up, separated it, and had the cheek to call each part as if it were church in completeness.
What if we were to read the '5 things a teenage boy needs to learn', from the point of view of the small part of Church that we have experienced, as a warning to individualism in this form?
God how do you see this?
How do you see Church?
I love it. It reminds me of my Son.
I heard an interesting sermon on Sunday at Greyfriars. It was the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland speaking - standing in for Juergen Moltmann who was sick - and he said the church, particularly in the west, needs to be liberated from its "claustrophobic spaces of self interest" which it generally inhabits. With this in mind, Tom, I suspect you're absolutely right. Our churches are so often so very self-involved, as we confuse the means (us) with the end (a healed world come the eschaton).
Post a Comment