Class Reflection for Monday Week 6

Today Dr. Bolger continued his discussion on the emergent church.  One thing I thought was interesting about his lecture was the implications about the gospel that he seemed to be making…that part of what Jesus was doing in his work was to narrow the gap that is achieved in a subject-object dualism.  This, is, however, not immediately obvious when you read the gospels, and there is a long history of reading scripture in which subject-object dualism is pronounced.  This occurs when the lens with which you look at scripture is rather narrow.  That is, you can easily reduce the gospel story in such a way that Jesus’ ministry solely concerned saving people from their sins–people, then are objects to evangelize. And yet, Jesus was also doing a lot more than just evangelizing people…but he was also creating a community without dominating structures..where the marginalized are embraced as equals.  So Jesus didn’t just do a feeding program for the poor, but he considered the poor as friends.  This difference of looking at the Christian life as either promoting more of a subject/object dualism or rather a subject/subject partnership is tricky, though, and I don’t think you would want to throw out one for the other, necessarily.  Or do you? On the one hand, God came in the form of Christ and bridged a great distance…Jesus was also a servant to humanity.  On the other hand, we worship Jesus as divine, and in this way there is a great distance.  Do we model our ministry more on the former theological truth that follows from the idea of incarnation/crucifixion….or do we model our ministry more on the basis of Christ’s work to spread alien (i.e. divine) truths to a broken humanity (i.e., the older Roman Catholic model of the priesthood seems to be modeled more after this latter truth).  Although Paul seems to think that Christ’s divine nature/ divine work was epitomized on the cross…so perhaps when we are elevating Christ’s teaching ministry over his work on the cross we are really missing something. 

Book Review: Boff, Leonardo, The Base Communities Reinvent the Church (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997)

The title of Boff’s book, Ecclesiogenesis, refers to what Boff understands as a new phenomenon in the Roman Catholic Church, the birth of a new type of ecclesiology.  As a Brazilian theologian he has seen the emergence of Christian communities among
Brazil’s poor, called basic communities that have come up with creative new ways for addressing the shortage of ordained priests.  As lay-supported communities, they are more characterized by mutuality, reciprocity, and equality among members instead of the alienation that can be suffered under hierarchical structures. Boff doesn’t altogether reject the need for institutional structures per se, but his thesis is that basic communities offer up an ecclesiological ideal that “official” churches should emulate.

 

After laying a positive description of basic communities, Boff proceeds by reexamining the traditional understanding of Roman Catholic ecclesiology and the basis for this tradition using exegetical and theological tools.  His arguments are leveled at the church’s hierarchy that, among other things, necessitates the presence of an ordained priest to preside over and to consecrate the Eucharist.  The second half of his book deals with “quaestio disputata” that pertain to a defense of the sacramental validity of the eucharist apart form the consecration of a priest ordained under a traditional understanding of apostolic succession.  In a radical move for a catholic theologian, Boff quotes from Tavard’s “Protestant Ministry,” “It is not apostolic succession which makes the church Catholic, but the catholicity of the Church which guarantees apostolic succession.” (69)  For, Boff, the prime significance of church leadership is less that it can be traced back to the apostles, but more that it can effect a symbol, or sacrament, of unity among the different churches.  That is, although Boff, like Vatican II, understands the local church to be the whole church, in order for it to be orthodox it also needs to recognize the catholicity of other local churches.  It is the symbol of a Catholic leader that can effect this orthodox recognition. The other prime function of church leadership is to organize and encourage the charisms given already to the people by the Holy Spirit. Although these charisms can be “supernatural,” Boff mostly identifies them as the contribution each member brings in order to fulfill the necessary tasks of the church. 

 

 

This description of basic communities has brought to the fore, once again (with Sider et al, Karkkainen, Lohfink, Fuellenbach), a vision of the church as inherently outward-oriented.  Not only does Boff describe catholicity of the church as being “open to its counterparts,” but also “to the eschatological church as well.” He writes, “The particular church is in via, still imperfect, incomplete, holy and pentitent, for it is sinful.  It will be complete, fulfilled, when the Lord comes at last.” (20)  So, as such, the church needs to realize how provisional it is in light of God’s coming Kingdom. With Lohfink, Boff describes a vision of the church that is not absolute, but which stands humbly under the reign of God, along with the rest of society.  An understanding of this provisional nature, then, can be ecumenically fruitful and it can inspire the church to partner with other organizations for the good of the community.  Because Boff equates such catholicity with a church’s faithfulness to apostolic tradition, a church without such outward-orientation, then, is not being faithful to the gospel. And so as I think about my case study, it will be important to think through the ministry’s potential for real catholicity, and whether the leaders understand their role as only that which creates structure or whether they really see themselves as bridge-builders in God’s Kingdom.

Class Reflection for Wednesday of Week 5

Today we talked about the so-called “Emerging Church,” which, as self-consciously “post-modern” resists any definitive labels or categories, although there are certain emphases that such churches seem to embrace: Focus on community, elevation of the laity, use of the arts, eclectic appropriation of various Christian traditons, engagement with culture/context, and porous boundaries.  And, as a genXer, this type of church makes perfect sense to me.  If the leaders of such churches are anything like me, they were disillusioned with the cookie-cutter spirituality of their parents’ churches, which also glaringly missed the mark when these boomer churches started the “alternative services” to attract the kids. Well, that’s an overstatement and a caricature of our parents’ church, but the underlying sentiment still lies beneath the surface, even if our parents’ churches can still offer us lots of good stuff.  So, in some ways I am very attracted to the ethos driving the emerging church.  One thing that has concerned me a bit though–or at least has been a question for me–is the effect that these church’s appropriation of common cultural phenomenon has on spirituality.  That is, I was a bit taken aback when Dr. Bolger discussed the night-club atmosphere of some of these churches…which allows a culture to worship God with it’s own symbols and music and which maintains a porous boundary between church and the rest of life thereby lessening the stark division between the sacred and secular.  On the one hand, when such divisions are mutted, one’s spirituality can become more holisitic…on the other hand, there is the increased danger that instead of the sacred infusing the secular, it’s the other way around.  Of course, part of the impact of the incarnation is that God risked divinity to come in the form of humanity….that the incarnation is the ultimate mutting of such distinctions.  Similarily, another way to view these same issues is to look at the relationship between form and content.  Does form affect content, and if so..why, how, to what degree?  Once upon a time we got all our stories either orally or from books..now we get our stories from t.v., movies, the internet, etc….are such mediums neutral?  Or does the manner in which we receive our stories affect who we are as people…and then the same questions can be applied to liturgy, etc…I have to admit that I am a little shy when it comes to embracing new forms of technology because of these questions, but it light of the incarnation, perhaps mine is just a conservative response to change.  And if God had asked me about whether or to send his send son in the flesh, I might have been extremely cautious in nervous in the face of such innovation.

Class Reflection for Monday of Week 5

Today we talked about Kingdom-like qualities that the historic denominations may or may not possess.  My group looked at the Eastern Orthodox tradition.  One of the things that concerned us about this denomination was its tendancy to conflate the Kingdom with the Orthodox Church…but when we gave our presentation, one student–who seemed more familiar with the tradition than we were–said that it was an over statement and that also we should read The Brothers Karamozov to gain a better perspective of the tradition.  And his comment helped me think about how our theology doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but in history.  I think Dostoevsky also hinted at the idea that “The Church” (i.e. the Orthodox Church) was the center (or perhaps, life center, would be more appropriate in Dostoevsky’s view) of the world…which was one of Karkkainen’s points.  But Dostoevsky was also writing during the rise of the “Kingdom on Earth” socialist-humanistic phenonmenon, which later ushered in Communist Revolution.  And so, with Dostoevsky’s concern in view, we should be cautious when we too quickly dismiss the Orthodox position on the Church/Kingdom….granted, all the authors we have read have been careful to note that it’s not we who usher in the Kingdom, in light of this past error, but so often I think we hold a myopic view of history that, at best, goes back only a generation or two…we’re always reacting to what our parents were doing…and so we casually think to ourselves, “oh yah, of course, we don’t bring the Kingdom.” But maybe as we wrestle with what it means to be the church, to do God’s work in the world, we should also remember that we see through a glass darkly…that there won’t be this smooth continuum between what the church is doing and what God will do when he brings the Kingdom..but it will be radically new.  So we realize that all our strivings are provisional.

Book Review: Sider, Roland J., Olson, Philip N., and Unruh, Heidi Rolland. Churches That Make a Difference (Grand Rapids: Baker Books,2002)

Roland J. Sider is president of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA) and professor of theology and culture at Easter Baptist Theological Seminary.  Philip N. Olson is vice president for church relations at ESA and director of Network 9:3.  Heidi Rolland Unruh is associate director of the Congregations, Communities, and Leadership Development Project at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Churches That Make a Difference is about holistic ministry, which the authors define as “a wholehearted embrace and integration of both evangelism and social ministry so that people experience spiritual renewal, socioeconomic uplift, and transformation of their social context.” (325)   Part One lays out the book’s thesis—ministry should be holistic—and it does this by giving the theological and biblical rational for it.  Part Two describes characteristics of holistic congregations; Part Three outlines steps to develop and elicit support for a vision of  holistic ministry in congregations. 

The authors first concern is to bridge the historic divide that has developed in Protestantism between churches which focus on evangelism and those which focus on social justice.  Each emphasis, when promoted to the exclusion of the other, is a perversion of the gospel.  Here the authors begin, like so many of our other authors, with the teachings of Jesus and with a look at what the Kingdom of
God means.  In addition, there is a certain anthropological thrust running through their theological and biblical rational.  That is, they address the implicit—or explicit—body/soul dualism that conditions much evangelical thought.  People can’t be separated into bodies and souls, salvation isn’t just for one part of the other, and evangelism means the gospel is shared “by word and deed.” (64)  And the authors also address another kind of dualism that affects American Christianity—the individual (or, in the case of churches, secretarian group) versus the larger community.  The authors describe holistic ministry as a partnership ministry—with other churches, parachurch organizations, businesses, and government.

The book’s practical emphasis is very helpful as I think about my case study and the vision I am developing for this ministry context.  Because I am looking at a young adults fellowship group in the middle of
Hollywood, many of my concerns are similar to those of the urban churches that the authors looked at.  Basically, the young adults group eventually ended when the groups leaders became faced with the enormous task of ministering to the growing number of members, who could be characterized as among the dispossessed.  The leadership was comprised of many highly educated transplants to the city, in pursuit of film careers and other professions, while the surrounding neighborhood was home to a decidedly different population.   So two aspects of the book that first come to mind, which are helpful in this context, are the need for a church to really commit to the neighborhood that it ministers to and the necessity of building partnerships to really do effective ministry.  The leadership was simply ill-equipped to deal with the deep needs of some of the members.  By partnering with other churches, other ministries within the larger church body, and social service agencies, perhaps a strong, wider community could have been built to support such members.  Also, because of the demands of the film industry, there was an implicit lack of commitment on the part of many of the members.  That is, L.A. has a culture marked by transience, and it’s probably one of the toughest places to build community that there is.  So right now, the biggest hurdle that I’m seeing in trying to develop Kingdom-like qualities in this context is with the level of commitment people might be willing to make. 

Class Reflection for Wednesday of Week 4

Today Dr. Bolger asked us to imagine what the kingdom of God might look like in our ministry settings.    Immediatley, I began thinking of social justice concerns and the missional posture of the church; that in someways the church’s outward focus is primary over against defining church as a worshipping community.  But, then as soon as you begin separating worship and justice from each other, or elevating one over the other, you can run into problems.  Although all the authors we have read have agreed that there is a dialectical relationship between a community’s inward and outward focus, it seems that churches define themselves by which orientation they emphasize, whether implicitly or explicitly.  And perhaps because of the imperfection of this world, the ability to achieve a perfect balance will remain elusive for most of our communities.  But, that said, it’s been helpful for me to think about the Kingdom of God in terms of God’s reign.  That the Kingdom of God is an action that demands the responses to acknowledge this reign and rejoice for it (worship) and that demands action in accordance with this reign (social/horizontal focus).  Generally, I think of active Christian love as that which is born from worship, as that which is a secondary response to God’s love, but it can make social action into an occasional event, as dependant on something prior, but should it be viewed as such?  Actually, this is a primary question for me now in light of all our reading.  Ingrained as I am with a solid protestant/lutheran understanding of the relationship between faith/works…works are necessarily a response to God’s grace and therefore necessarily secondary to me…this is gospel.  But then, we evangelicals are now only recently getting our heads out of the sand and realizing the importance of social justice…is this a reflection of a lutheran hermeneutic that needs adjusting?  Karkainnen’s summary of Luther seemed to indicate that often Luther is misinterpreted.  Perhaps now we need to bring alongside Luther’s important corrective our own corrective to Luther (or corrective to our misreading of him) and consider more closely what the reign of God means.

Class Reflection for Moday of Week 4

Today Dr. Bolger asked us to imagine what it might look like if Jesus made a visit to the places/contexts of our case studies.  I took a kind of meditative/prayerful approach to the exercise and almost played the role of “audience” to whatever was playing out in my imagination.  The situation that I am considering for my case study is a young adults fellowship/bible study in Hollywood that I attended for a number of years and in which I also took up some leadership duties.  We met in a large room with couches once a week…had some worship time/prayer/and then teaching.  So the first thing I imagined Jesus doing in this context was as soon as he comes into the room, he asks us all to get up, stop by the store to pick up some groceries, and drive down to Skid Row.  And our fellowship, then, would occur in the context of hanging out at Skid Row for awhile.  Afterwards, he’s asked if we could go to somebody’s house to maybe have some dessert or coffee and to just hang out for awhile.  Although we might pray/sing/have some teaching, etc.  the tone of the evening would be more just about hanging out with each other and enjoying each other’s company.  And then I imagined what our times would look like from week to week and again the tone was more about eating together, having fun, enjoying each other’s company, and serving the poor.  Anyway, as the “audience” to this scene, I had a couple of problems with it, i.e., when would we have our teaching or formal prayer time?..it seems like there’s a lot of relaxed hanging out together…does anyone really have time for that kind of thing on a week night?  How would a big fellowship pile into peoples’  houses? And it’s one thing for a group’s dynacism and focus to center in on an individual as charismatic as Jesus, but it seems that we want to avoid that kind of cult of personality in our fellowships.  So perhaps the exercise was helpful in giving me an image of ideal fellowship, but everything changes between Jesus actually being physically present among us versus coming together to worship and celebrate the one who often, at best, is only metaphorically present.  Or, that is, I’m not sure if we should take our cue about how to structure church from pretending that Jesus has already come back and we are living truly under God’s reign…it seems that extremes in the church, that become abusive, are so often built on trying to manifest ideal situations that simplyaren’t reality.  Perhaps in organizing such fellowships there needs to be a dialectic between celebrating Jesus’ presence, but also realizing his absence.  The first allows spontaneity–perhaps along the same lines as the “charismatic” element that all our authors have discussed–while the second gives us structure and purpose as we take stock of our brokenness, limitations, before Jesus’ return.

Book Review: Karkkainen, Veli-Matti, An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Ecumenical, Historical & Global Perspectives. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002)

Veki-Matti Karkkainen is associate professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary.  He has published numerous articles in international journals of theology and written: Pneumatology: An Introduction.

As its title suggests, Dr. Karkkainen’s book is a survey of differing approaches to ecclesiology.  In Part One, he looks at Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, Free Church, and Pentecostal/Charismatic ecclesiologies.  As a way to limit and frame this look at the church—in addition to summarizing the main features of these ecclesiologies—Karkkainen also asks questions about their the ecumenical viability. So, he also includes a section called “The Ecumenical Movement Ecclesiologies” in Part One. In Part Two, chapters are devoted to individual thinkers who represent—to varying degrees of agreement—the different denominations discussed in Part One.  Then, in Part Three, Karkkainen highlights a few recent ecclessiological trends operating in specific contexts as a way of looking at the possible church of the future.  Because the book is a survey, it doesn’t have a thesis per se, but Karkkainen describes the main interest of the book as focusing in on “what makes the church church, or what are the conditions for being church.”  

Karkkainen, who is a participant and leader in the ecumenical movement, develops his book around the question of what makes church church precisely because the answer that different denominations give to this question can decide their potential in helping Christendom meet the biblical mandate for church unity.  Although many main line denominations basically agree with Luther’s definition of church—the “pure” preaching of the Word and the “right” administration of the sacraments—the Eastern Orthodox need for bishops to affirm the validity of the Eucharist represents an impasse in ecumenical dialogue with Free Churches, for instance.  And this impasse, perhaps, is nothing compared to both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox definition of unity, insisting that churches return and recognize each, respectively, as the “true church.” 

That said, despite these impasses, however, there are many similar theological trends happening simultaneously throughout the different denominations—even those standing at opposite ends of the spectrum—that may prove ecumenically helpful.  For instance—although the Pentecostal movement and the Charismatic movement are not one and the same—because Pentecostal churches, with their free church structure, and Roman Catholic churches, structured hierarchically, both take the work of the Holy Spirit as their departing point in defining church, there is a point of contact between these denominations that differ in so many other ways. And because the Spirit’s work is this point of departure, the communal nature of church has been brought to the fore in a number of different ecclesiologies.  Because the Spirit equips the people of God with charisms, the Spirit enables each member—not just clergy—of Christ’s Body to do the work of building up the church.  A Trinitarian model of church has also been adopted by many churches spanning the denominational spectrum, which in turn, also brings out the necessity of koinonia to be present for church to be church. 

 In a couple of places, Karkkainen, discusses how important and central the place of ecclesiology has become in systematic theology.  And this repositioning of ecclesiology seems right to me because as he states, “the main task of theology [is] to reflect on and make sense of what is happening in Christian life and churches.” (9) And yet, from an ecumenical perspective, I wonder if the place that ecclesiology occupies does not exacerbate the issue.  If church were simply the place we go after having already appropriated our theologies in our private spheres, then the apparent obstacles challenging the ecumenical movement might not seem so daunting.  One wonders how an Eastern Orthodox understanding of church—and its Eucharist—as an ontological reality, as an event where individuals become persons, might be reconciled, for instance, with the Non-Church movement in Asia.  It’s no wonder that many in the ecumenical movement have begun to define unity in such a way that it hardly looks like unity at all, or that Free Churches decided to define church as something invisible, when clearly in the New Testament church was the outward response people made to Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.  One thing that seemed to emerge from Karkkainen’s survey was how often these different ecclesial emphases—to the utter rejection of others—was so much of a reaction to what had gone before.  The history of the church seems to be driven by pendulum swings in retreat from past errors.  And many of these pendulum swings were no doubt necessary to right wrongs, but it seems that whenever a church mistakes a reaction for true theology, the potential to meet other churches in the middle is threatened.  So, in terms of my case study, I will want to think about the ecumenical viability of whatever model I adopt, and how much of what I present is a reaction to present and past wrongs that I see verses a theologically developed model that takes seriously the biblical model for church unity. 

Class Reflection for Wednesday of Week 3

This week, Dr. Bolger, asked us what we thought the Kingdom of God might look like in society, our personal spheres and our churches.  In particular, he wanted us to think about what the kingdom of God might look like in the specific situations of our case studies.  It doesn’t seem as though there should be an enormously qualitative differance between what the Kingdom looks like in society vs. the church, but it’s interesting to think that if the Kingdom of God did come, would society look like the redeemed, glorified church or would the church look like society, albeit redeemed, glorified.  Of course, the idea is that there wouldn’t be any dicernable difference, but by thinking about why the church exists, what it will be  at the eschaton, we can perhaps have  a vision of what the church should look like now.  Mostly, church seems to be a place we go to worhsip God and become spiritually fed, which are wonderful things, but the church seems to exist alongside our secular lives without really being a sacrament of the future, which is how many of the theologians, those that Fuellenbach discusses, want to describe it. If it acted more as a sacrament of the future, would the church look more like a society…a way of life..that “contrast society” that Loehfink describes, instead of a building, which is so often how we think of it.  It seems that the line between the sacred and secular, then, would have to be blurred some…that is if the idea of redeemed society served as our model for church.  If it is the other way around, that when the Kingdom comes, society will like the church, then we may want to continue drawing the line between the sacred and secular clearly.  In any case, these are the things that I’m thinking about in terms of my case study.  Before  I begin thinking about how I would want to structure the ministry that I have in mind, I will want to wrestle with the larger issues involving the relationships between Kingdom, society and church. 

Class Reflection for Wednesday of Week 2

Last Wednesday’s class was my favorite yet.  Mostly because it was the most content driven yet.  Our discussion about the ways we see domination being played out in culture, in our personal lives, and in our church, has been something that I’ve recently been thinking a lot about–that is, even before this class.  Last quarter, I took a class called “Old Testament Themes in the New” with Dr. Beaton.  Many of the ideas in Lohfink’s book actually paralleled those we discussed in Dr. Beaton’s class.  One the themes that I have been thinking about is Jesus’ appropriation of the “servant” theme in Isaiah and how he applied it to his approaching death on the cross.  And then how Mark paints the picture of a Christian as one who takes up her cross.  And Mark’s expression doesn’t really seem to imply much of how it’s so often interpreted today…that taking up one’s cross means bearing whatever burdens we have been given in life.  Rather, it seems much more radical than that…that taking up the cross means no longer playing by the rules of power and manipulation…to the point where one might have to die because of it.  In thinking about what Mark meant, I have realized how pervasive issues of domination are.  Actually the movie Borat helped me think about how domination and manipulation make up so much of the fabric of society.  I think Sasha Cohen is brilliant , and if I didn’t know better I might say that his character was a variation on the theme of the Christ figure–albeit a perverse variation on the theme.  So Sasha Cohen exposes everybody’s prejudices in this really offensive way…well, who else is doing that much needed work (the exposure not the offense, per se)…Christians! No. But whatever Jesus was doing was really offensive because he got killed for it.  But unlike Sasha Cohen, Jesus’ offense was not just for the sake of being offensive, but Jesus was offensive because of the radical nature of his love.  In any case, the thing is, I’ve realized how prone I am to manipulate and go for power, granted in these small and seemingly insignificant ways.  I once heard somebody say that there was no such thing as a conversation, but really we only play these games with each other, sometimes very subtly or not so subtly.  That seemed an apt assessment of social dynamics.  So, when Jesus comes along and upsets power structures, he seems to be getting at something deep within us…maybe instead of boiling down sin to pride, another way to envision the root of sin is our tendency to grasp after power.  In any case, for the most part, there is nothing in me that wants to relinquish power…or at least in the way that Jesus models for us.  And my current question is, how should we conceive of our personal power?  Lots of times, I pride myself on the ways I can effect changes around me.  Or really is God the only one who should effect real power in the world?