Greetings from Texas as we are here in north Dallas suburbia visiting family. (Oh by the way the road trip went well. Callie did great! We just took our time, stopping when we needed too enjoying the road.)
My thought for you this morning is the nature of the Church here in the lone star state: large. Every building is huge and seems like an attempt to over top the mega-church down the street (or toll way or farm road—nothing in the way of mid-sized roads).
Now I know there are smaller churches and, from talking to my brother-in-law, people here who “get” grace and being missional. My observation; however, is that the culture down here does not lend itself to liminality. Liminality is the process of being push to the periphery through isolation and re-assessing one’s identity. This process is done by a tribal boy who leaves his mothers hut and, depending on the culture, goes out on a quest to kill some wild game or smoke some dope and see his spirit guide—when he comes back to the tribe he is a man.
We as people go through liminality, as groups we can go through liminality (sound familiar Edge friends) but liminality can also be experienced in large groups as culture changes i.e., the evangelical church as society in the States becomes more post-modern. Historically speaking, before the enlightenment the Church held the center of society controlling politics, morality and individuals. During the enlightenment project reason was the center of society informing politics and the like—and the Church began the process of being marginalized. Now with our changing post-modern sensibilities the idea of a center has been replaced with a “do as you wish” mentality and for the Church the process of liminality has begun. Will the Church strive to re-claim a non-existing center—as is it appears to be here in Texas—building bigger buildings with slicker programming and performance based excellence (I have read you can call this a broadcast church) or will the people of God be comfortable being relegated to the periphery?
It is not to say that broadcast church cannot be missional and understand grace, but it is mighty hard in a corporate culture to not be about the institution. Now is this just the end of the Bible belt so this observation means nothing for other regions? Possibly, but at the very least it is good to re-evaluate motives of the people of Jesus gathered: do we depend on being valued by the world, which I think leads to human-driven effort; or do we depend on being directed by Jesus, which is to say that we live in grace being missional?
Granted we might fall somewhere in the middle of these poles, but I pray we fall into the arms of Jesus no matter what cultural paradigm we use. As we experience isolation and the re-assessing one’s identity, as life is often cruel enough to throw us, I pray that as an expression of the deep seeded belief in Jesus’ sovereignty we will put our trust in Him and not live by our own plans and in our own strength and not be about building bigger buildings but humbly be OK with being as small as He wants us to be.
Blessings,
Dustin
7 comments:
Very nicely done Ed. That’s exactly it. Big is neither good nor bad. The only thing that counts is keeping our eyes on Jesus. Yes both size churches have their issues to over come to stay focused on Jesus. It is not even that it is harder for the big church, but rather that the big church seems unwilling to take an honest look at the consumer culture it creates. I just think liminality helps, and you cannot go through liminality by attempting to draw attention to yourself. Besides that is not our mission…we are to point people to Jesus. And in our American culture it is far to easy to focus on “getting people to leave one church, and go to another, and the one with the best programs, sound system, electronics, seating, climate control, etc. wins?” Well said Ed.
Dustin, I was struck by your image of the tribal boy who becomes a man. It seems to me that a major failure of the church today is to bring Christians to maturity.
Or is the "failure" simply an institutional shortcoming? T.S. Eliot asks:
"Has the Church failed mankind or has mankind failed the Church?"
So, perhaps we are dealing with a mystery that does not admit of a facile answer. With Christianity's loss of cultural significance and the (apparent) triumph of consumerism and relativism, many people settle for less than what they were made for (the Infinite).
Lacking the institutional "levers" of influence (especially in education -- secularism has a near monopoly), it now seems to fall on smaller groups of individuals to help bring each other to maturity.
My initial maturity and growth in Christ came primarily through the mediation of books. This was good but inadequate. At a conference sponsored by the Archdiocese of Denver some 10 or 12 years ago, I met some people from a group called "Communion and Liberation." They gave me a book (this alone endeared me to them) by Luigi Giussani called "At the Origin of the Christian Claim."
The book and the ensuing friendship helped me to understand that Christianity must be lived at the level of friendship: yes, with Christ, and simultaneously, with my brothers and sisters. Put another way, I came to see (am coming to see) that Christ has chosen to extend his presence in the world INCARNATIONALLY.
That is, he is not absent since the Ascension. Rather, His presence is made available to me in the here and now. The form that he has chosen is a sacramental one: Baptism, Marriage, the Lord's Supper, etc. This I knew from my Catechism. What I newly discovered was the importance of the humanity of my friends in communicating Christ to me (and, miraculously, my communication of Christ to them).
My point is that faith in Christ must be communicated with an awareness that the broader culture is hostile to Christ and the Gospel. This can make us sullen or can lead to have a heart for those immersed in the culture of mediocrity and mendacity (what the late JPII called "the culture of death").
Lorenzo Albacete gave a presentation at the conference above on Christianity in the culture of unbelief. The image he used was a shopping mall: everything is available that we may want, but access to mountains, trees, streams, etc. in disallowed. For the believer who knows Christ (has seen "Paris" and is no longer content to stay down on the farm or at Dillards), there is an urge to tell the mall-dwellers about the outside world. Yet they are content with the artifical world where every physical need is met. The question Albacete raised was "How do we reach those who are self-satisfied?" The only way is by being with them and living Christ's life in the here and now.
Getting back to the tribal boy: The culture will not allow us to go kill animals or smoke dope, so we must find new ways to be educated in Christ. The new ways are emerging and this verifies for me the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world. One new way I see is represented by this blog!
"Christ humbled himself and took the form of a slave." So too must the Church follow in the Master's footsteps (rejection, suffering, yet, ultimately, resurrection). The future does not depend upon power but upon love. If we focus on the standards of the world, we gain only worldly results.
Let us continue to celebrate Christ's presence and listen to him. And let us embrace those he has placed in our lives.
-Matt
Matt,
I’ll post a longer response worthy of your brilliance. But for know let me say…I love your thoughts man! The failing of the Body of Christ to fail to live incarnationally, may that never be said of us.
Crumbs and Ed,
You guys said something that I want to explore a little. Crumbs, you said, "We are not physically reborn." You then went on to demonstrate that redemption includes a whole lot more than forgiveness and the ability to "move on." (Thus, the effects of both grace and sin have a communal dimension.)
What I would like to ask you, is do you think that just as Mercy extends deeper (me, others, the Other) than it appears on the surface (just me), might it also be the case that Nicodemus' misunderstanding (a flat literalism) didn't go too far but not far enough?
In other words, could it be that being born again (or from above) -- pick your favorite translation -- includes interior conversion as well as our physicality? I think that Jesus has a holistic notion of salvation in mind (water and spirit; visible and invisible), whereas Nikki is falling into absurdity by wanting to climb back into momma's womb.
I think the grace of Christ does change our faces, our souls, our entire selves.... Yet we are dealing with a mystery here and I am not suggesting that we attempt to "ID" true believers based upon mere outward signs. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Christ changes us from the inside out and that we can and do experience the redemption of our bodies to some degree or another in the here and now.
Perhaps this sounds kookie. Still, I think that just was raised from the dead in his totality (not just a ghost or appearance of Jesus), so too, we are transformed body and soul.
This is what I think distinguishes Christianity from other religions. All religions suggest some kind of moral code as ideal and the major religions agree on the basics. What is new about Christianity is not ethical (behavior) but ontological (Being -- as the scholastics would say). I don't understand the implications of this but I think this is what allows for a positive approach to all that is negative in America today. If our faith is all about morality, we've obviously lost; if it is about encountering Christ in and through others, I can perceive His victory and live.
-Matt
Crumbs,
Yes, I suppose that what I'm getting at is that our human nature has been taken on by Christ and it is therefore an adequate vehicle (in grace) to bring forth God's presence.
I suppose what is in the back of my mind is a form of dualism that would pit soul against body, or view the body as not tied into our redemption. I remember a preacher who likened our body to a space-suit that could be safely discarded once we pass into the next world. This strikes me as anti-biblical to say the least.
An Eastern theologian noted that in sin, the "image" remains while the "likeness" to Christ is diminished. With our redemption, our renewal tends toward restoring both image and likeness -- though this is never fully corrected in this life.
-Matt
Don't really have anything to say, just wanted to say hi. HI
HI
On a side note. I believe Christianity if you think about it is the practice of "unperfectness" (yeah I just made up a word) in a "perfect" world.
HIguy
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