Showing posts with label ecclesiology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ecclesiology. Show all posts

September 11, 2009

Moltmann, Session II, Day 3

Tony Jones on Moltmann:

Disability, Homosexuality, & Church in Mission (or the church only in mission)
  • from Diane, a disabled person who found language to see herself as God does in crucfed God...how does a person with disabilities- how do they have accsss to the church in power of HS?
  • JM- a disability concerned him, b/c older bro had severe disability. I think the church must be, consistent of disabled, not abled person. congregation w/o disabled persons is a disabled congregation.
  • TJ- rational beings as humans- imago dei, but there are humans w/o ability to reason. we wouldn't say they are not created in image of God. how does disability of reason effect idea of imago dei
  • JM- imago dei- not of qualification of human, but of relationships of God toward human, which human is image, resonance of God. relationships of God to every human being, this cannot be destroyed by disability nor by sin.
  • simile tuo?- response to God, our relationship to God. life, faith, and responsibility and conformity of our life to will of god. first relationship in regard to humans, is in every human being be a Xn or muslim or atheist, every single person without qualification. so you m ust respect God in every person we meet. the second, the simile...our relationship to god, God crated all man equal, free..so we must respect image of God in every person.
  • TJ- you bring up Constitution, who are influenced by John Locke- theory of inalienable human rights. some theo and philo (macintyre, haeurwas, etc say they are unicorns)- they say these are made up. no inalienable rights. we determine the rights, but there is no such thing as transcendence universal inalienable right. what do you think about universal rights?
  • JM- praise doc of independence for saying this. 1978- wrote doc- God's rights and Human rights. adopted by denom bodies.
  • Unfortunately, dictatorial gov't denied citizens human rights according to the same line of thought. But every person has inalienable rights. you can commit crimes against humanity. there is an implementation of human rights united nations. US didn't sign the doc for int'l trials according to human rights.
  • this is good, for the growing world community based in human rights- or there will be no world community at all.
  • So, it is true.
  • TJ- Rowan Williams- proposed b/c of growing proportion of Muslims in GB, there should be pluralization of law to reflect the Shari'a law.
  • JM- This was not good for Muslim women, who said, do we not have rights like veryone else? I do not understand Williams on this point, or the maybe the British system.
  • You cannot relative th rights of everyone, b/c no one can be brought to court. This is an impossibility.
  • TJ- you've referred to God as he and HS as she in our conversation. coming up with pronouns appropriately intimate and personal for god, but don't anthropomorphize god with gender identity, is difficult for describing god in finite language
  • JM- god it not he, she, or it. god is god. we should not use god's divinity to justify a gender role, etc.
  • image can be described as Trinity is neither Father, Son, or HS: but a community. this can be reflected in human community. need united community.
  • TJ- filioque clause - lead to monarchical theism or trinity. rely on eastern theology.
  • Great schism brought filioque clause
  • JM- practical side- 1985- conf. in Rome. on Holy Spirit. john Pope II, read and when came to Nicene creed, read it in Greek where there is no filioque.
  • TJ- you've really made strong point of how esoteric theology has consequences for our world...like idea of Father, Son, SPirit can serve for King ad surfs, master slave, etc. Maybe monarchial theism is supported to hold onto authority. So the filioque leads to subordination of Spirit, thus the surfs, humans, oppressed.
  • JM_ criticism of Barth- in trinity there is community of commanding father and obedient Son. So heaven is above, earth below. soul above, body below. man above, woman below.
  • SEX!
  • TJ- Paul, Augustine, all talked about sex. Sexuality is a schismatic topic and many have withdrawn from denom fights, b/c of schismatic nature. May have been filioque 1000 yrs ago, btu now it is who can be ordained
  • JM- first let me say...this is no problem in germany. no struggle about homosexuality
  • Tj why?
  • JM
  • because church in germany is about gospel not about sex.
  • we believe in justification not by human work, but by God's work.
  • homosexual, heterosexual, whoever believes in faith alone is saved and certainly abled to be ordained in community.
  • would not say that a gay partnership is equal, for a marriage between man and owmen is to further children,
  • but have no problems blessing such a partnership.
    why not bless a partnership.
  • homosexuality is neither a sin or crime, like near-sightedness is neither a sin or crime.
  • don't understand schism or heat of debate.
  • Questions:
  • TJ- eschatology and what happens after this existence. - in face of many deaths, am i right to trust community in future...jesus' saying that there will be no marriage in that experience of life.
  • JM-I don't want to get into this dispute with Jesus.
  • But i trust that those who died are not dead, they are with us, watching over us and we live in their presence and can feel occasionally their presence. according to Calvin, they are growing until they reach the destiny for which they were created. if life was cut short, God will bring what he had begun to its intended end. death cannot end God to do this, but God cannot be overcome by death. He will bring life to fruition.
  • Barth was once asked by woman- do you think we'll see beloved again. and Barth answered yes, and the others too.
  • Fuzz goes on stage.
  • TJ- church is agent of God's mission world.
  • ECCLESIOLOGY:
  • What is the church?
  • JM- there are many perspectives on it. For a long time we've said its a body of risen Christ, after vatican II, catholics spoke of people OF god. if you say this, you must also say that God has 2 parts of his people: Israel and the church.
  • and the mission agency is not only through the church of hte people's but also Israel. so we must take care of both sides, not only looking after poor and sick, but also the Jews, elected people of God.
  • Understanding of mission of church-
  • nowadays we have dialogue everywhere but this is not good, for it has no goal. if dialogue is to convert, there is an end, a goal and you can dialogue. it is good to know other religion communities. dialogue need common ground. so we have special relatipnship- partner in mission.
  • Fuzz- church consultant, collects stories and spreading rumors of hope. indebted to Moltmann. you say in books, not so much question of what is teh church, but where is the church. where have you seen, the where is now that we havent traditionally seen in the orthodoxy of the past?
  • JM_ one hand, mission of risen Christ. who is in me, i am in him... other hand, the inviting voice of Christ. whoever visits them visits me. they- the hungry, poor, ochlos, etc in the world.
  • invitation of Christ on the outside. church must be present in special places and special way.
  • Fuzz- changing forms of inside outside, new communities ..not geographical..etc. what is future of congregation
  • JM- believe in face to face community. cyberspace may be nice for communication, but a cyber church is a church w.o the Eucharist.
  • in this new media, you can see and listen, but you cannot feel, taste, smell. only two of sense are engaged, other senses are diminished and no longer developed. make test in school, where children already have iphones, etc. let them close eyes and feel, tehy can't differentiate between wood and plastic- b/c no education of emotion, feelings.
  • baby develops first with feeling senses, then get misdeveloped with emphasis on seeing and hearing.
  • belive strongly in face to face communities, see each other, talk, eat, drink togehter and be a community of FULL senses.
  • TJ- Eucharist- seems we call it so many names. RO proposes church should live by Eucharistic rationality, center point. Zwingilian experience moves toward communion like agape meal, less sacramental, but communal gathering and foretaste of coming kingdom. you used Eucharist, ...how do you see role of communion in church?
  • JM- hot point or most difficult ecumenical point. believes very strongly, that we dont celebrate in Lord's table in our theories. we may have different theories in the way he is present. but let's celebrate his presence first. so after the eating and drinking at lord's table, thhhen we talk about different theories. dont start with theories, or will nover come to the table. we will have an empty stomach. go to any invitation we hear the inviting words of X. I dont care where I'm at, I take it.
  • Jesus invites all those who are weary, not just Catholics or presbys, but all.
  • Fuzz- thinking eschatology- to spend eternity together, we should now each other now. SO
  • JM- transubstantiation- evil theory. we believe as Lutherans or reformed as real presence of Christ, whether is transformed, etc. what is important is that we believe in presence of Christ in both forms: bread and wine. and we reject Catholic tradition of wine for priest and bread for people.
  • Fuzz- go back to understanding of church. cyber reality is one form. but more and more as churches are more missional, the focus is in community not gathering. church attendance is less frequent in west. partly so busy, stress of time as commodity, so spending time with neighbor is more important than gathering together of worship.
  • JM- this may be true of those who have a job, but not for the unemployed. those with a job, this is a question of priority. question of whether they should go to vacation, etc or more important to be part of congregation. they have no time..no question of priorities.
  • Fuzz- is church only church when gathered or scattered
  • JM- both sides. we gather them together and send them into teh world.
  • Fuzz- is there a weekly breathing, gathering and sending
  • JM- tradition of OT and NT-work day and divine day is good ecology. sabbath is good ecology, we move in and out of it.
  • JM- writing in ethics for concept of justice and righteousness according to biblical ideas.
  • TJ- who should we be reading?
  • what are you reading
  • JM- the BIBLE. depends on your eyes: curiosity to find new things in old book, you'll find it. but traditional understanding it may be boring. full of dangerous memories.
  • read: Volf, Phillip Clayton, tony jones, john cobb,
  • many good people coming up, so we can step down and have rest.
Afterward, they opened the floor for the crowd to reveal their gratefulness to Moltman. Several people were given the opportunity to say thank you for your work, life, thought, etc.
I was able to to stand up and give thanks to Moltmann for giving me the words in seminary to be able to keep my faith.

Thoughts to follow up later.

March 12, 2009

Googling the Bible- De-Signs of the Times

In staff meeting a few days ago, we were talking about the lectionary reading for the fourth Sunday in Lent, which contains John 3:16. So I shared the story about Tim Tebow, the QB for the national champions Florida who put John 3:16 under his eyes, and that day "John 3:16" was the top Google search. Check it out yourself here and here. The implications being that enough people, in fact several thousand people didn't know and had to google John 3:16 to find out what it means. Yes, the staple verse that every person slightly familiar with the church knows had to be googled.

I think I was more surprised that the staff was surprised that so many people didn't know what John 3:16 means. I posted a few days ago about this study which revealed the fastest growing religious population in the USA are the "Nones" (see CNN"s coverage here).. Via Alan Hirsch's blog post on this subject, I was tuned into some interesting thoughts by a missional leader:
In sum, the findings show or lead to the conclusion that:
1) Religion and Christianity are on the decline in the US;
2) Protestantism is doing worse than Catholicism due to Catholic immigrants;
3) Mormonism is keeping up with population growth, and Islam and New Age/Wicca are exceeding it;
4) Atheism, while still a small percentage of the population, is on the rise; and
5) "Spirituality,"--or non-organized belief in God--is still vibrant in the US.

What implications does this have for the church in the US?
- Attractional methods alone will have decreasing effectiveness, though they will reach some.-
- Not only theologically, but pragmatically, we must make the structure of the church be missional in nature and make dramatic changes in how we allocate our resources. This might mean moving all "Bible studies" off site, in coffee shops, Starbucks, homes, schools, etc.to meet people where they are. With antagonism and apathy towards religion, fewer will show up because we have better programs. And those that do will already be Christians.
- We need to train our members in knowledge of other faiths and resurgent atheism and methods to reach these adherents.

We must make dramatic changes. Sadly, however, most churches will do almost nothing to respond to these cultural changes. Those that do respond will respond incrementally only. With a shrinking pool of Christians, there will be an increasing competition amongst churches for members. This will, ironically, put more pressure upon church leaders to shore up "programs" to attract church members to shore up the decreasing member base.

In the midst of all of this, it is unbelievable to me that our fellowship is consumed on all sides with "doctrinal issues"--meanwhile our nation is hopelessly lost. And the resistance to making practical, methodological changes, such as replacing Sunday night worship or Wed. night classes with outreach and service, moving "classes" off site, planting new churches, changing times, making budgets missional, etc., is quite simply, absurd.

What do you think of these findings? How should the church respond to the changing (a)religious landscape of the US so that we can reach people today?
These are great thoughts and questions to ponder honestly in our cultural climate of religious change. There are doctrinal issues that are important, like how we read the Bible when dealing with women or homosexuals; but the church must start asking questions about true change. Yet, I wonder as I reflect upon my experience in staff meeting, if the church is capable of asking these questions. It seems, at least in my context, that the anomalies are just arising and when anomalies first pop their ugly heads our paradigms and plausibility structures have ways of ignoring them. What are the methodological, ecclesiological, budget, staff, small group, community development, worship, discipleship...what are the changes you see that we need to make?

Oh, and here are some other good thoughts on this article.

February 9, 2009

Shenk & a missional ecclesiology

Wilbert Shenk asks, “What can we say are the main features of a missional ecclesiology? At least five things will characterize a missional church:
• The missional church is intensely aware that its priority is to witness to the kingdom of God so that people are being liberated from the oppressive power of idols. The church is consciously discerning and naming the idols.
• The church is deeply committed to the world but is not controlled by the world. In other words, the church knows that it has been placed in the world but is never to be subservient to the world. The absence of this tension indicates that the church has made its peace with the world.
• Mission is patterned after the example of Jesus the Messiah; that is, mission is cruciform. The vision of Isaiah 53 is being fulfilled as God’s people serve and witness. The cross is central.
• The missional church has a keen awareness of the eschaton. In Jesus Christ the kingdom has been inaugurated, but the people of God eagerly await the consummation of the kingdom.
• Church structures will serve and support its mission to the world. Human cultures inevitably change over time. The church must stay abreast of its changing cultural context, which will require the dismantling of archaic forms that impede missionary witness and the devising of new structures that support the mission
New Wineskins for New Wine: Toward a Post-Christendom Ecclesiology
via.

January 16, 2009

The Emerging Commodification of the Church

I do have my hang ups with how much time, energy, resources, thought, and planning goes into a single day of the week, Sunday. I've been brooding over this fact for some time now, but haven't come to any real conclusions about how I feel. In the "emerging missional church (EMC)" conversation, attractional vs. missional battle lines have been drawn and Sunday morning has become a topic often battered by a dualistic perspective that paints a strawman for the burning.

David Fitch, who has constantly been a helpful voice in this EMC conversation, recently wrote a good post on this issue referencing to Zizek's "decaffeinated belief:"
Zizek argues that when we say “I enjoy my religion” this implies that I don’t take it TOO seriously. For we really don’t want to take it too seriously (this is what the fundamentalists do according to Zizek). We keep it at a distance so to appear to be a Christian with all of it comforts and accoutrements yet not requiring any great disruption to a comfortable way of life. This distance, between the subject and the Symbolic Order, is what allows the subject’s Christianity (or religion) to be subsumed by the existing order.
The existing order that controls Western culture is the power of the spectacle produced by consumer culture. We commodify everything including our faith. Sunday becomes about receiving religious goods. Pastors are recognizing this growing trend and
…agree that a growing number of worshipers are talking or sitting through the congregational singing writing notes during the special music, showing up 10-15 minutes late, not worried about interrupting anything or anyone. One pastor shared that a congregant stopped attending worship opting to stay home and worship with a church on television. When asked about this, the congregant responded, “Why does it matter where I watch the service?” Another pastor commented that people treat everything in the service as if it were a movie preview and it is not until the feature presentation (the sermon) that people really start paying attention. Or in other churches with a more contemporary style of worship a pastor stated, “Once the ‘concert’ is over, they just settle in waiting for a sermon.”
Most church plants are in the business of Christian reconfiguration, they steal Christians from churches in the area instead of leading people to faith (and this is NOT an overstatement). My growing concern for the "emerging church" is that it preys on the sensabilities of its consumer culture, thus utilizing culture uncritically or being used by culture.

The power of consumer culture and the commodification of everything is that religious seekers can take objects, beliefs, and pieces of traditions and lift them out of their context to be used in whatever way they like. They can have their cake and eat it too, because they simply cut off the baggage from where those traditions arose.

In some respects, I believe this weakens the ability of emerging churches to form people for Kingdom work, because the main tool for combatting commodification is immersion in a religious community who emphasizes its deep religious tradition (baggage and all) for the formation of disciples. I know this is a generalization, but emerging churches are heavily influences by the culture of consumerism because they tend to be planted by those on the cutting edge of consumer culture.

Of course, I've excluded from this conversation "seeker churches," who attract people to church Sunday mornings by having a great rock show and a funny preacher (because I'm sympathetic to EMC). Sunday morning should be about formation:

I think this is a mistake. For the missional church communities require a regular practice for the shaping and forming of a people into the Life with God, the Mission of God. Missional people do not grow on trees. If then we would see people formed into the Missio Dei we must order our worship so as to be encountered by the living God. We must learn how to preach not as information but as proclamation and invite people into the Mission. The real presence at the Table must be the center of our gathering, our lives and our community. If we would see people formed into the Missio Dei, our gatherings must take on liturgical shape, a way of inviting people into the prayers, confessions and affirmations of the alive relationship we have with the living God of Mission. We must learn how to listen, interpret Scripture for what God is doing among us and in the world, hear God and then respond to God. This should be the character of our Sunday morning gatherings.

This kind of gathering should be both easier and harder to plan than any kind of programming approach we have hitherto been used to. It should be simpler and less focused on excellence of performance. It should not cost near as much in time, resourses and planning. It should be able to be done in a living room with three to thirty people or in a larger sanctuary with 200. Yet this kind of gathering takes more discernment of the Spirit, theological wisdom, historical sensitivity than we have been used to in the protestant church of our evangelical past (we haven’t paid attention to theology of worship in evangelical church). This way can lead us out of the wilderness of decaffeinated worship.

Deep traditions like lectio divina, intentional community, monastic practices, authenticity, and vulnerability are all very important, but so are the communities, traditions, and histories they have grown up in. Much of the EMC conversation is reactionary and deconstructive (which is fine, I understand), but there is something unhealthy about simply cutting ties with communities of faith that tend to have baggage because they've been around for 50, 100, or 150 years. Of course, this critique works in the inverse. Communities with baggage need to be listening to churches who are concerned about doing and being church differently.

My main concern though, is that churches critically engage culture so that contextualization is healthy (meaning the gospel doesn't get subsumed or overpowered by the culture). Our culture is a product of late capitalism, consumerism, and commodification; so we need traditions and narratives that will equip us to live counterculturally. We need Sunday mornings baggage and all to be unenjoyable, uncomfortable, and formative.


If you've made it this far, you might also be interested in Fitch's conversation over the epistemology of missiology and ecclesiology.

November 26, 2008

Generosity that Converts the Church



What does it mean to give, when everything we need is given to us?

Real generosity occurs when the gift leaves not a hand of joy, but a hand of heartache. The joyous giver is loved by God, but the one who gives in the midst of pain, tears, and heartache reflects God's love. The cross reveals this reality.

We give not to build nor restore. Our gifts in the machinations of the church do not reflect the Kingdom movement of love, rather the Kingdom movement of love makes possible the radical conversion of the machine by our generosity and love, a transformation of the microcosm, alternative people named church by the Gift(s) already received.

If the church is to be Christ this holiday season despite its budgets and buildings, it must allow Christ to convert it by accepting the gift. Salvation, life, justice, love. All gifts, all free.

It's time to trust and by trusting we make ourselves vulnerable to the capacities of generosity so that we give not to build nor restore, but to convert the church and find that God is not done with us no matter how done we are with ourselves as if a building, budget,program, or ministry means that we have arrived.

When we are generous we gather up within ourselves the ability to share our lives and the things we love with others, thus making ourselves richer then any amount of money. But when we are greedy, we close off ourselves to others for fear that what we love will be diminished and thus become poorer then any homeless person.

November 6, 2008

Be Careful What You Wish For

“He who loves the dream of a Christian community more than the community itself, often does great damage to that community, no matter how well-intentioned he might be.”

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in David Bosch, Transforming Mission, 387. via.

September 20, 2008

Rollins & Bonhoeffer in Coversation

"The argument can be made naming church is never really naming church but only our understanding of church." *I have taken the liberty in the quotations from Rollins to replace "God" with "church" in light of Bonhoeffer's discussion on the church as revelation.

The funny thing about revelation for Rollins is that although it may be the opposite of concealment, it still has concealment built into it. He tests his case by showing the various and even contradictory forms of God revealed throughout the testimony of the Scriptures do not paint a complete or clear picture of God for every case. "Hence, revelation ought not to be thought of either as that which makes church known or that which leaves church unknown but rather as the overpowering light that renders church known as unknown."

Rollins states, "Consequently, we do not do theology (church) but rather are overcome and transformed by it; we do not master it, but are mastered by it." We must be willing to give up our talk about God and the church, or hold it loosely for the church to overcome us. I'm concerned that the emerging church conversation has become a place to master church, instead of be mastered by it. We are grateful and appreciated or generous enough to appreciate the ancient church, but too bitter to do the same for the modern church.

In line with Rollins' thinking about God, the church is not an object to be studied, replicated, etc. Rather, she is a subject to be in faithful relationship, understood not through study but experience, an experience with reality that transforms reality, not describes it.

Thus, God or the church as revelation can be met through the a/theistic religious community or church. Instead of a gross fundamentalism that excludes all other interpretations of reality that differ from one's own, "the a/theistic approach can be seen as a form of disbelieving what one believes, or rather believing in church, while remaining dubious concerning what one beleives about church."

September 17, 2008

Bonhoeffer & Rollins in Conversation

In his PhD. dissertation, Sanctorum Communio (SC) Bonhoeffer (DB) writes a sociological/theological account of the church and community. Instead of arguing for a narrow individualism, DB argues that humans exist as communal beings. This does not take away from the uniqueness of individuals, but rather highlights it.
The individual personal spirit lives solely by virtue of sociality, and the ‘social spirit’ becomes real only in individual embodiment. (SC)
DB then explicates a very helpful understanding of sin as both individual and communal so that guilt lies within both realms evenly (which I believe is a very important theological statement to make).

Thus, sin is not a biological problem, but a societal and individual problem. Every individual falls into sin, thus making the human race fall into sin anew. So here is where the church comes in:
It is 'Adam', a collective person who can only be superceded by the collective person 'Christ existing as church-community.' (SC)
The reality of the church is to be either denied or trusted, because it is by nature revelation. By nature man is capable of sin, not church which is understood by Bonhoeffer to be the presence of Christ.
Thus, everyone beomces guilty by their own strength and fault, because they themselves are Adam; each person, however, is reconciled apart from their own strength and merit, because they themselves are not Christ. (SC)
These thought by Bonhoeffer will be helpful when I bring Pete Rollins into the conversation. We'll need to remember that the church when it exists, exists not by the actions of 'Adam', but instead by the revelation of Christ, the church is Christ and Christ is the church. There is much that can be said here, but our focus is that whatever may be said of the church, it is the real presence of God in the world through the revelation of God himself.