BLOG 4/3/2016. THE PRESENCE OF THE CHURCH: A CULTURAL ANALYSIS

We were sitting over brunch last week, and the lawyer-friend at whose house we were meeting asked me the question: What do you think the role of the church is in this current confusing presidential race? There isn’t any simple answer to tha questiont, because the whole phenomenon of the church is so enigmatic, so ambiguous and complex. There is no simple or single description by which to answer such a question. In missiology we insist that cultural analysis is always essential in understanding the potential of the church in any given culture. So let me ramble a bit. There are several different ‘church’ phenomena to keep in mind:

• There are all of the un-churched Christian believers, i.e., those folk who sincerely and thoughtfully hold to the faith of Jesus Christ, but have found organized churches as not being too helpful in their life of discipleship. The number of such is legion.
• There is that huge phenomenon, which one can footnote back to Soren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the last century, of unconverted church members. Maybe religious Christians, those who know the data of the faith, but it certainly is not what forms their lives, so folk indulge them but don’t take them seriously. (Ah, yes! There are many very commendable church institutions, thankfully).
• There are all of those spiritual seekers who sense that there must be something of ultimate value in the church, and so turn up in church meetings somehow assuming that their presence in those church meetings will satisfy their heart’s desire, … and may even join briefly, but are continually disappointed.
• There are those lonely folk needing some kind of social contact and community, and so sign on, but are quite frequently disappointed at the superficial, even hollow, level of the relationships and activities, and soon depart.
• There is that vast number of venerable old church institutions across the cultural landscape which are idolatrous about their buildings, their heritage, their particular denominations and traditions but which don’t form the participants into contagious colonies of God’s New Humanity, and are now rapidly fading off the scene. They, in my own mind are best described by Tolkien’s Lord Faramir (Book II of the Rings Trilogy): “We are a failing people, a springless autumn. (Again, so many remarkable exceptions to this sweeping generalization–but such are a fading expression of the church in the world).
• There is that distressing phenomenon of folk whose fervent, even psychotic identity as: evangelical is not informed by the the data of the New Testament and the teachings of Jess, or the praxis of God’s New Humanity people—seemingly devoid of God’s reconciling love, of warmth and hospitality and caring—and so are an offense to secular folk with any sense of justice and the welfare of God’s creation.

… But then, without fanfare, often right behind those dying old church institutions, there are emerging vital new colonies of God’s contagious New Humanity people, meeting in a condominium or an apartment, … or maybe around a table in some public place, who take Jesus seriously, and are formed by his teachings, and who love one another, their neighbors, strangers, broken and hurting people … and are intentional in incarnating those teachings in reconciled communities. These are where the church is growing like Jesus’ image of leaven in the loaf. It is a community where the springs of living water are flowing in mutual encouragement and mutual provocation to be the communal incarnation of God’s New Creation in Christ. They are creative.

What is the role of the church in the present scene? Much more that you will ever read of in the daily press, but quietly much more transformational and intentional than so many traditional church institutions—they are a sweet smelling aroma of Christ unto God, and in their hiddenness, are awesome. [I’d be please if you would recommend this to your friends.]