Enchanted Community

BLOG 6/7/15. WHAT ON EARTH IS THE CHURCH?

“Pardon me, Mr. Henderson, but what on earth is the church?” That was the question poised to me by an obviously very intelligent young table mate in my favorites coffee shop. I was intrigued by his question. It made me more aware that we are now seeing a generation who are products of a post-Christian culture, and who have had no significant contact with what we call: the church.

The question fascinated me so much that I am currently working on a manuscript to see if I can satisfy myself in trying to define the essence of what can authentically be described as the church. The problem is that the more I probe into what the New Testament actually teaches about the church, and then comparing it with my long career of being involved with the church in its multiple expressions, . . . I am of the opinion that a large amount of that religious organization that passes itself off as ‘the church’ actually has very little to do with the church—often just a stagnant pool of what someone called: “a stagnant pool of religious Christianity.” (Isn’t that an awful thing to say about the church?) But there is undoubtedly a lot of confusion inside the church about what it is also.

For our purposes here, however, consider that Jesus uses the word ‘church’ maybe twice, but most prominently at Caesarea Philippi when he was near the end of his earthly ministry, and was facing the cross, he asked his disciples: “Who do men say that I am?” They gave him some of the responses they had received. Then he said to them: “But who do you say that I am?” At that point Peter voices their conclusion that he actually was the Messiah so long expected by the Jewish community. Jesus response to that affirmation of his role as Messiah was that it was upon that Messianic reality that he would build his church.

It is an interesting choice of a descriptive word. The word in Greek is ek-klesia, and is not at all a religious or Christian word. It means called-out. It describes a people called our for any one of many possible reasons: to celebrate something, or for political reasons, or to advocate something, . . . whatever. It was only the choice of the much later English translators to appropriate the word church that has to do with some community of the Lord’s people (the meaning is a bit shadowy).

It is the Greek word that demands our attention. When Jesus, who has presented himself as the very Son of God, now come to inaugurate God’s new creation, God’s kingdom, speaks of building his called-out community upon that Messianic foundation, . . . then any thoughtful person would immediately ask himself/herself: Called out of what? and, called into what? What have I been in that I need to be called out of? and, what are the implications of whatever it is that Jesus is calling me into, and what will that called-out community look like? And, what demands will it make of me?’

Later in the New Testament documents you begin to get some more precise understanding. Paul’s missionary mandate from the risen Christ was that he go and open men’s eyes that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, and that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are made like the one who calls. Later, Paul will speak of Christ delivering us out of the domain of darkness and transferring us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.

All of the apostolic writings, then, give substance to the radical new humanity that Christ is forming by his Spirit. There is never any suggestion that the church is some place to which we resort for inspiration. There is never any suggestion that we join the church. There is actually no mandate for so much of what consumes the ostensible church. So again, one wonders if much of what goes on under that concept has anything to do with the dynamic new humanity that Christ is building. How on earth is the church the incarnation of God’s New Creation? Stand by . . .

BLOG 6/3/15. THE GATES OF HELL . . . AND THE CHILDREN OF THE LIGHT

Those of you who are subscribers to these Blog ramblings of mine might be interested that the last one I posted (What Are We Going to Do With “The Gates of Hell?”) drew the largest number of visitors I have ever received in the several years I have been writing these. That fascinates me. What would it be about such that would catch the attention of so many? But one of the questions, which also came, was: “Where are you going to go with this?” Interesting question, in that I had not thought through any follow-up. But there is a necessary question behind the question, isn’t there?

Jesus affirmation that upon the disciples’ testimony: that he was the Messiah, the one who unveils the mystery hidden for the ages, . . . that upon that reality he was inaugurating God’s eternal design to recreate all things into conformity with his own divine nature—into perfect Shalom—into the ‘peaceable kingdom,’ upon that reality he would build his church. OK? But the very word he uses is a Greek word that describes a people called out for some purpose (ekklesia). It is not a Christian word. It is rather a functional word having to do with a community called for a specific purpose. It is translated much later into English as church.

For our purposes then how is it that this church, this specially called out people, will overcome the gates of hell? It gets more interesting in that the apostolic writing appropriate the concept of warfare frequently in describing the role of the Christian community. Now, here’s the interesting thing: Jesus and the apostles do not focus on some dramatic action the church is to take, but rather on the integrity of their character as those who belong to Jesus—on their faithful demonstration of the divine purpose through the radical New Creation lifestyle and thinking, . . . through their daily praxis, which puts the lie to the whole dominion of darkness. The apostles will encourage the people of God to put off the garments of darkness, and put on the garments of light, or, to put off the old man, and put on the new. The gates of hell are not able to deny the reality of God’s New Creation demonstrated in the flesh and blood lives of his people—who incarnate the teachings of Christ.

My favorite of such teachings comes from the Letter to the Ephesians, which has to be one of the most awesome descriptions of the life and purpose of the church, i.e., “a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” The church is his body, and the fullness of him who fills all in all. And it gets better. But then right at the very end of the letter, as though this might have been at the heart f his purpose in writing it, he tells them to be strong in the Lord, and to “put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the cosmic powers …” (the gates of hell). He doesn’t tell then anything to do, only what they are to wear in this life in the face of the malignant darkness. He doesn’t tell them anything battle plans, only what is to be their daily incarnation, their daily dress. The very integrity of their New Creation lives which overcomes the darkness is spelled out in these seven components: The belt of Truth (Jesus as the truth and his word as truth), the breastplate of righteousness, or of the moral and ethical character of God’s new creation; the readiness of the gospel of peace, i.e., their role as reconcilers and (to plagiarize St. Francis: Instruments of God’s peace; the shield of faith: “I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep me;” the helmet of salvation, i.e., New Creation thinking; the sword of the speaking the word of Christ; and prayer as our communication with the one who calls. Someone wrote that the early Christians overcame the world because they “out-lived, out-thought, and out-died their pagan counterparts,” i.e. defeated the gates of hell. Chew on that. We overcome the gates of hell by having the image of God daily recreated in us by the Holy Spirit. Not what we do, but what we are holistically as God’s New Creation folk.

BLOG 5/31/15. WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH: “THE GATES OF HELL?”

Have you ever noticed that there are some subjects in the Bible that are absolutely essential to our understanding the integrity and awesomeness of its message, but which are deliberately skirted, or avoided because they don’t fit into our comfortable schemes of interpretation?

One such subject is right there at a crucial moment in Jesus’ initiating his disciples into how it was that upon Peter’s affirmation that Jesus was Israel’s long-awaited Messiah, he, Jesus, was going to ‘call out’ a people, i.e., the church, to incarnate that Kingdom, or that New Creation of God which he was anointed to inaugurate. So far we can handle the notion. But then Jesus follows immediately that raison d’etre of the church with another prediction, which will be the inevitable result: “ . . . and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Say what? Such a concept at the reality of hell, or of some such dominion of darkness is an embarrassment to our modern, or post-modern, or secularized minds.

But there it is, out of the mouth of Jesus, that the reality of his New Creation people, that new humanity that he will be calling out, . . . will be that it will be always in missionary confrontation with some kind of energized darkness that will oppose it, but that darkness will not ultimately be able to withstand the people of God. As if that were not sufficient to get our full attention, we tend to mindlessly pray that our Father will deliver us from the evil (one), as we pray the Lord’s prayer.

Try as we may, it won’t work. As one Biblical scholar concluded, after his own somewhat cynical study of such a reality, . . . that there is real evil in the world, and that it is malignant, and that it has personality. One can attempt to avoid even confronting such a demonic personality, but it leaves the much larger unanswered metaphysical issue of where the destructive and malignant reality, which we designate as evil, come from? What is it? What is its goal? From whence its power? How would it seek to prevail against the church?

When Paul, that uniquely brilliant, and unlikely candidate to be an apostle, or a missionary, tells the story of his conversion from being a primary persecutor of the church, to one of its primary spokesmen, he puts his commission from the ascended Lord Jesus in these words: “ . . . I am sending you to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by me” (Acts 26:17-18 in loc.).

Or, if you need a key to the understanding of all of the colorful images and the message of the Book of Revelation, it is most simply an overview of the history of the church and its engagement in the cosmic battle between the Beast (Satan) and the Lamb (Christ). Yes, and the battle is real and relentless and has casualties—but in the midst of it all there is the wonderful reality that God’s people conquer the Beast “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:11). And that wonderful book of Revelation concludes with the reality that the devil, who such a deceiver, would be thrown into the lake of fire . . . forever, so also all the pieces of his dominion, Death and Hades.

From the third chapter of Genesis to this 20^th chapter of Revelation there is the unmistakable reality the presence of this evil personality. So what do we do with that in our attempts to be faithful to our calling to Jesus Christ? Ignore it? Pretend it’s not there? We do so to our own peril. So I’ll leave it there for you to chew on . . ..

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BLOG 5/27/15. GENERATIONAL CULTURES, AND THE CHURCH’S NEED OF PROPHETS

Monday was Memorial Day and the reminiscing reminded me that in my lifetime there have been at least four unique and quite different generational cultures, each hardly understood by the others. This came home to me most unmistakably a few years ago while I was attending the 60^th reunion of my class at Davidson College. I was sitting on the patio in front of the college union, wearing my alumni name-tag, when an attractive and friendly young lady (all Davidson students are friendly—it’s the campus culture) sat down in the chair next to mine, introduced herself, . . . then she asked me innocently if anything had changed since I was in school there. My response was: “Everything!” As we talked, and I reminisced, it all seemed so incomprehensible to her.

The Reason? There are four rather distinct generational cultures between my day at Davidson and hers. I arrived at Davidson with the generation that were formed by the Great Depression and World War II, and to a college that had itself barely survived a century through which it endured three wars, Reconstruction, and the Great Depression. Davidson had a wonderful academic reputation but not much else. The campus was sparse and showed its age, what with condemned buildings, and minimal facilities. What it did have was a small and dedicated faculty, and a student body with above average I.Q.s.

My generation produced the Boomer Generation, then came Generation X, followed by the Millennials (my conversation partner there was probably a Millennial), but now there is emerging the iY Generation, those born after 1995. Each of these has it own formative cultures. The Boomers were the post-war achievers, who produced the Gen X generation, which generation wanted for nothing but tended to be a bit cynical. Then came the Millennials (born after 1985), who became the innovative, “let’s fix it,” much more optimistic set. Now we have the first generation that seems to be totally defined by the digital age. Each of these generations is its own culture, and has difficulty identifying with the previous ones, or those who follow.

In the Old Testament there is a reference to the sons of Issachar, who understood the times to know what Israel ought to do. The prophetic gift emerges all along the way in the history of Israel, as God provides understanding and correctives and promises. It emerges again in the early church where the prophetic gift appears to be a part of every believer’s equipping for mission. What is it all about? Well, it is very pragmatic. Nothing ever stays the same. No context or culture is identical with any other. God provides those who know how to exegete the culture in which a colony of God’s people are his incarnation, so that they are sensitive to the persons, and the trends, and those factors that are ever changing. . . . and how to re-invent themselves!

The corporate and commercial Silicon Valley-types have been much more expressive of this necessity than has the church. They have seen a different market and a different consumer desire, and also have seen the potential of things that were inconceivable a short time ago—so you get Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergei Brin and Larry Page, who open up whole new realities that focus on the customer, and refuse to become ossified in any one original form. The church has probably been very slow to call forth the prophetic gift, to know how and in what new forms and paradigms it can fulfill Christ’s calling to be the agents of his in-breaking kingdom. The church easily falls prey to ancestor worship, to captivity to patterns and paradigms of a former age, and apparently incapable of creating alternative narratives that speak to the very real spiritual needs and desires of each new generation for meaning, justice, relationships, . . . some center for life, and some creative source. My conversation partner on the patio of the college union triggered my interest in attempting to provoke a prophetic and alternative narrative for each new generation, rather than worshiping the patterns and paradigms of our ancestors. Sound OK?

BLOG 5/24/15. PENTECOST, THE WIND OF GOD, AND A NEW RACE

The whole Christian church is unimaginable apart from that which the Christian church (ostensibly) celebrates today: Pentecost. The Spirit of God, or ‘the Wind of God’ (depending how you translate it) literally created a whole new race of humanity—in a sense they were recreated to be what they were intended to be originally, or maybe truly human. Here were thousands of Jewish folk in Jerusalem from all over the known world, and who were there for one of the proud Jewish nation’s significant feast days. Only weeks before in that same location, similar crowds had appealed to the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, to execute Jesus as one they considered a liability to their way of life, and the orthodox traditions of the Jewish nation.

But in the meantime, after having condemned him in something of a ‘kangaroo court’ setting, and having executed him in the most inhumane fashion, and heaping upon him all kinds of derisive taunts, . . . he was resurrected from the dead and seen by hundreds. His faithful followers were trying to figure it all out, and to obey his instruction that they were to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would endow them with power (none of which made much sense to them, but they were determined to follow through). They met together continually, and waited. Then . . .

Check this: on the day of the Pentecost feast the Holy Spirit came upon them quite dramatically (sound like rushing wind, and tongues of fire, like: unmistakable). What happened is totally super-natural. The divine life of God came into their human lives and so began the creation of a whole new race of men and women. They became a new humanity. Thousands believed. They, literally, had dynamically dwelling in their human bodies the very same divine Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. Add to that the fact that they began to speak in other tongues, the language of heaven, and the languages of the nations represented there at that celebration in Jerusalem.

This was all very pragmatic in a sense. First, their eyes were opened to what was really taking place in and through the whole event of Jesus, and their ears were finally opened to hear what he had been saying to them all along. They were given hearts, or wills, to be responsive to God’s will, and to be obedient to his guidance. Apart from this, what has now taken place in the intervening generations, and globally, is beyond comprehension. They became quite willing to engage in costly obedience, including giving their lives and possessions. They forsook security, or permanence, and created colonies of new creation humans who became pilgrims and strangers wherever God led them, but everywhere they went, they were the incarnation of the life of God, they were the Body of Christ, in relationships, in lifestyle, in their passion to share the message, but most of all in their total passion for the glory of Jesus Christ, and in their zeal to live out his teachings. They were Spirit-filled.

A later writer would say this as follows: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—these things God has revealed to us through his Spirit. Pentecost: When the mighty wind of God blew upon ordinary human beings and created a new race of humankind.

But you’d never know this reading the Atlanta Journal Constitution on this Pentecost Day (it is totally eclipsed by Memorial Day) because we have created in our culture a humanly explainable entity called ‘the church’ which does not even need the Holy Spirit, or depend upon that supernatural power, only a religious Christianity that does not require new eyes and new ears and new hearts—only comfortable, secure, respectable, and somewhat permanent institutions to provide us spiritual activities, alas! But there are everywhere in the world, under radar, those colonies of God’s new creation that are, in fact, inhabited by the Wind of God, and they are dynamic and multiplying and out of control in every nation.

BLOG 5/20/15. PENTECOST CONFUSES SOCIETY … AND THE CHURCH.

This coming Sunday is the Christian community’s annual celebration of Pentecost, … and, frankly it’s a bit amusing. The commercial interests have learned how to co-opt other Christian celebrations, or feast days, such as Christmas and Easter, along with the semi-religious national holiday of Thanksgiving, with all kinds of sales and promotions and overpowering media programming, … but it’s strangely quiet on Pentecost. Hallmark Greeting Cards doesn’t have whole racks of greeting cards about Pentecost.

What makes it a bit amusing is that Pentecost is also something of a confusing stepchild with most churches. What do you do with the coming of the Holy Spirit for a church that is so immunized, religiously comfortable, and humanly formed that it really is not desperately dependent on the Holy Spirit in order to accomplish its raison d’etre? It’s mission? When the church is formed to be a humanly controllable religious institution, then it can tip its institutional and liturgical hat to Pentecost, … but then it really is not at all dependent on any Wind of God, any divine force field, for the authenticity and accomplishment of its life and mission.

This was one of the ongoing filters that Jesus was dealing with in his disciples before the crucifixion and resurrection. The disciples had a vision of Jesus’ kingdom in terms of some grandiose new chapter in God’s working with Israel, in which they would be key players. They did not conceive of it in terms of a New Creation, even though he kept trying to get through to them that it was necessary for them to wait for the promise of his Father, namely the Spirit.

That being so, the events of that first Pentecost visitation in Jerusalem had the audible and visible thunder and tongues of fire, … but the real miracle was the most essential one, and that was that the eyes and ears of all of that international set who had come to Jerusalem for Pentecost were opened and made responsive to God’s thrilling fulfillment of his promise of a Messiah, who would inaugurate his New Creation, create a new humanity in which the very life of God would take up dwelling in their human lives and inaugurate the Age to Come in this age.

The result was that from that point the gospel and the church were out of control. A force field of the Spirit took possession of men and women, took possession of communities, and kept focusing them on the purpose of such communities of the Age to Come to herald the message of God’s reconciling love in Christ to every people group in the whole world. From Jerusalem to Rome in no time flat. Paul tells a small group in the synagogue in the port city of Ephesus about Jesus and the resurrection, and the Spirit opened the eyes of a dozen people, and within a short period the account reports that all in Asia Minor heard the gospel. Out of control.

Not a word anywhere in the accounts of setting up institutions, or forming church professionals to be institution keepers. Not a word. What you have are men and women who are the habitation of the Spirit creating colonies of that New Creation, and engaging in that which only the Spirit could empower them to do, namely: “Go, open their eyes, turn them from darkness to light, and from the dominion of Satan to the dominion of God’s dear Son” (Acts 26:18).

Somewhere so much of that got lost as the church became reduced more and more simply to the institution of a religious Christianity, familiar with the words but devoid of the eye-opening, ear opening, life-transforming power of the Spirit which produces those persons who are the dwelling place of God by the Spirit. But God keeps breaking in, and there are in the world today powerful Spirit movements that are radically transformational … but don’t be surprised if no one comprehends what you’re talking about in most traditional church contexts. All you will get is puzzled looks. And don’t expect a mailbox full of Pentecost greeting cards!

BLOG 5/17/15. THE FRIGHTENING PERIL OF BEING WEALTHY

There is one of Jesus’ parables that doesn’t get much attention, and with good reason: It challenges the popular myth that to be wealthy creates satisfaction, security, happiness—all of which is a huge fiction. The parable is about a very, very wealthy guy whose name was Dives. Everything about him exuded wealth. He dressed in the finest clothes and “fared sumptuously every day.” And what, or who, he ignored was a penniless and helpless invalid person named Lazarus, who was covered with sores and was laid at the gate of Dives’ home with the hope that he might find some food among the garbage scraps that were thrown out for the guard dogs. The irony is that it was those ordinarily vicious guard dogs who were Lazarus’ best friends, and who came and licked his wounds and kept him company. Now, given, that Jesus’ parables are frequently given to hyperbole, the message is still clear. Both Dives and Lazarus ultimately died, and while poor Lazarus was taken by the angels to Abraham’s side, Dives wound up in Hades (the place of suffering). When Dives protested and asked for mercy, the answer he received was that he had been blessed in his lifetime, but that he had totally neglected this wretched beggar at his gate … well, you get the message. But this is consistent with Jesus’ other teachings: “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God. … But woe to you rich, for you have received your consolation.”

I thought about this reading an article in today’s Sunday paper about the salaries of America’s corporate leaders—mostly in the range of between ten to one hundred million dollars a year. Somehow the news conveys the impression that such is a really, really desirable situation to be in. I think it’s frightening. One of the ironies is that, while no one aspires to be poor, it is also a reality that poor people find happiness, music, and meaning in their economic subsistence. Rich people seem always to want more, and can be hugely indifferent to the needs of those struggling to survive. I grew up with this reality on my doorstep during the depression days of the 1930s. I lived in West Palm Beach, which was right across a lake from the island of Palm Beach, which was (and may still be) the wealthiest colony of the super-rich in the world (according to the New York Times). We had a lot of commerce with Palm Beach, West Palm Beach being the mainland community that supplied a whole lot of the logistics that the Palm Beach folk depended on. From my youth I realized how vain and superficial that culture of wealth could be, and how indifferent to human need. They dressed elegantly, entertained lavishly, dined sumptuously like Dives.

We live in a nation and a world of a super-wealthy tiny minority, and a vast population of those who struggle to even exist, to provide for daily needs, and are totally vulnerable to so many factors of health, unemployment, economy, and unexpected calamity. I looked at this many years ago while spending time in the Congo, where hunger took its toll on children when mothers could no longer breast-feed them. They learned survival from health workers on how to grind up dried fish, or dried rats into a paste, which would provide protein for these small children. It opened my eyes. I realized how enormously blessed and truly ‘rich’ I was in my comfortable life.

Question: who is rich? The answer is that most of us of even modest middle class are the rich of the world. I am rich. I live on a modest pension and Social Security, but I have a comfortable home, I have food on the table, I have medical insurance, I could not ask for more. And when the bills are paid, what is my obligation to those globally who have none of these—to that vast company of Lazaruses? Or what is the obligation of our national leaders, our legislators, to seek the common welfare, to provide necessities, and to seek to eliminate the blight of poverty? Being rich can be hazardous to one’s health. Being indifferent to the poor even more so. But we avoid the parable of Dives and Lazarus. It’s too threatening.

BLOG 5/13/15. MILLENNIALS LEAVING THE CHURCH? SHOULD THEY, MAYBE?

Allow me to be my snarky self for a bit, here. It has been all over the news media for the past few days, in a report by the Pew Research Center, that those of the Millennial generation are leaving the church in droves. Leave it to the press to publish whatever negative stuff that attracts readers, but not to tell the whole (and often exciting) story. If one probes deeply enough into all that is behind this, it is not all that surprising—especially if one is any kind of a student of what the New Testament teaches about the church is, and how it is to be put together.

In those early days of the Christians church’s birth in the Roman Empire, and in many places of the earth today, one professes one’s faith in Jesus Christ in the context of a very hostile and dangerous setting, so that a person does not casually name the name of Jesus lest it cost him/her, his life and his security. Yet it was and is in such places that the church often defies all reason, and becomes an unimaginably joyous and transformational force. Why? The simple fact is that in such contexts, persons who are confronted with the message that Jesus is, in fact, the answer to the mystery hidden for ages, … and that he is the one by and for whom all things were created, … and that he has come to inaugurate a whole New Creation … then look at such an unimaginable proposition, consider the implications and consequences of it, and decide that it either is, or is not, true. In such contexts, no one jumps in without looking. Jesus makes no secret in his teachings that to become his disciple can cost one his life. This doesn’t produce fragile followers. It is also true that where persons encounter such claims, encounter the life and teachings of Jesus, and then turn and make him, his person, his work, his teachings the focus of their lives, that lives are set free from within, given meaning, acceptance, and hope rippling with a subliminal joy. Such a converting experience in their lives is undeniable. This has happened in ten thousand times ten thousand times over the centuries, and is still happening.So why are Millennials leaving the church in this country in droves? Maybe it is because the ‘churches’ that they are leaving are so shabbily formed, that they have never equipped their members carefully investigate all of the other gospels of this world, and have been too protective, so that they are fragile and vulnerable to every passing cultural virus.

After all, after World War II and in the optimism of that era, too many churches in this country went on a binge of building grand new church buildings, and engaging in colorful membership drives, what with competition between church communities for every potential candidate. But note: Jesus and the New Testament writers never, never even suggested that such church institutions were any part of its calling. Jesus commanded that his followers make disciples, teaching them to observe all that he had taught and commanded them. Such disciple making would create a New Humanity in which Jesus dwelt by his own Spirit, and would equip them to be strong light and leaven right in the midst of all of the other corrosive ‘lords and loyalties’ that were ever seeking to prevail against them, … and to form colonies of such disciples. So in the ensuing generations since World War II we have produced too many such churches that only expressed a religious Christianity, i.e. that used the Christian language, and recruited ‘members’ to support the institutions, but did not form convinced, and converted, and contagious disciples of Jesus Christ. And so who is surprised that such products of the Millennial generation should forsake such irrelevant church settings, and look for another reality? But—take note—the other side of the story is that there are those many Christian communities, including large numbers of Millennials, that are dynamic and growing and are hugely influential in their settings. Those are the realities that the press seems happy to ignore. Such communities of Millennials are sometimes large and vibrant and visible, more often under radar in coffee shops, homes, casual settings, … but are equipping their participants to be tough-minded disciples of Jesus Christ. There is a whole new emergence of such on the scene. Take note Pew Research folk!

BLOG 5/10/15. WHEN DOES A CHURCH CEASE TO BE A CHURCH?

A generation ago, Gerald Arbuckle was asked as a cultural anthropologist to seek to determine why it was that his Roman Catholic order was diminishing so rapidly. Among other insights, he came up with the discovery that whenever, such an order as his own, displaces, dilutes, or forgets its raison d’être, then that order reverts to chaos. It is always dismaying to realize that some such community in which one has invested oneself in with energy and devotion, could become a non-factor, or could revert to chaos. Communities such as the Roman Catholic orders, or Christian institutions (congregations, denominations, associations, etc.), can and do cease to be of hardly any significance, … and all the while their participants are in denial. (G. Arbuckle, Refounding the Church)

This is nothing new. Early on, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews warned his readers that they must pay much closer attention to what they had heard, lest they drift away from it (2:1). Or perhaps more telling would be the letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor recorded in Revelation 2-3. It is significant that the Risen Lord commands John to write to these and give each of them the Lord’s evaluation of their faithfulness, or lack of faithfulness, to their calling. Only the two who evidently had been under severe persecution (Smyrna and Philadelphia) were commended for their faithfulness and found to be without any rebuke. The others had engaged in all kinds of behavior that seemed to (as per Arbuckle) displace, dilute, or forget their essence and calling to be the obedient representatives of God’s New Humanity in Christ. Today, we see guided tourist trips to the scenes in Asia Minor (Turkey) where those seven churches existed on public television, but the churches themselves have long since ceased. Church buildings become historic curiosities.

Christian communities are never guaranteed permanence, nor are they guaranteed security. When the focus shifts from their calling by Christ …  to their institutional success and prestige, then they are destined for chaos. And, alas! the landscape is littered with those scenes that once had been living Christian colonies, but shifted their focus away from their calling to make disciples, and to form, or equip, all of God’s people into mature disciples in the image of Christ, to institutional prosperity. The result of such shifted focus is inevitably that the communities become immunized to their calling, or ossified in something other than the demonstration of God’s New Creation.

Some of the digital revolution geniuses who have captured our attention in recent decades have insisted that their startups keep their eye on the customer and not on the profits. They have also insisted that such startups need to re-invent themselves about every ten years. They have been ruthless in keeping their companies focused on the true purpose for which they were founded. That is precisely what the New Testament writers were trying to impress upon the rapidly growing first century church.

Churches have a lifespan. Churches can cease to be churches and nobody will notice. Folk can continue to engage in all of the institutional activities and use all of the Christian words, and have little if anything to do with the mission of God.

But have you ever seen a Christian community do a rigorous annual or periodic analyses to determine whether or not they were diluting, displacing, forgetting, or just drifting away from that for which they were ostensibly called by Jesus Christ? As a long term veteran of experiences in a diversity of church settings, I have too often found that Jesus and his mission is not at all the raison d’être, and too often found his name hardly ever named, … or even an embarrassment.

Gerald Arbuckle made an insistent point in his evaluation of his order. I commend it to your Christian community lest you be rapidly reverting to chaos. Or maybe its time for a whole new kind of narrative for the church, and for its formation. That’ll give you something to chew on.

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BLOG 5/6/15. POST-NEWBIGIN ‘ECCLESIASTICAL SCHIZOPHRENICS’?

It is probably tantamount to sheer heresy on my part to suggest that the influence of the venerable Lesslie Newbigin is not only dated, but outdated. After all, Lesslie Newbigin’s influence on the church’s understanding of itself and its mission was awesome. Many of the readers of this blog may have never encountered this guy, but Newbigin went from the UK to South India as a young missionary after World War II, and soon thereafter in a huge ecumenical development he found himself so respected locally as to become a bishop at a very young age. His genius was obvious in that when I was still ‘wet behind the ears’ Newbigin had written the much touted: The Household of God (1953). He was a prolific writer and much appreciated across the ecumenical spectrum.

Part of his enormous effectiveness was that he became a very sympathetic student and observer of the Hindu culture in the community in which he lived, and he found time to engage its leaders in fruitful conversation, so that in many ways he understood their culture and their sources as well, if not better, as they, and was appreciated by them. He was, then, a guy who was very culture conscious, and so aware of the context into which our gospel is addressed.

In1973 he retired from his post in South India, and he and his wife moved back to the UK, where he became a lecturer in Selly Oaks College, and as a pastor of local churches. But it was in the UK that his lights went on, and so the stimuli which launched him into such an influential career late in life. He became aware that it had been much easier for him to communicate the gospel in Hindu South India than it was in what was ostensibly ‘Christian’ England. What he realized was that for the Indian-Hindu folk, the gospel was a whole fresh and challenging thing, … but in England, the folk had heard the gospel for centuries, had pretty much become deaf and immune to it and so built up ‘anti-bodies’ against it.

It was this realization, that the West had moved into a post-Christendom, or post-Christian culture, and that the institutions and thought patterns that had dominated it for so many generations were no longer viable dawned on him. To that end he wrote a couple of milestone books in the 1980s: Foolishness to the Greeks, and The Gospel In a Pluralist Society. He became a frequent lecturer in universities and seminaries in both the UK and the USA. Whole think-tanks developed around his thesis, and seminary chairs of missiology were vastly influenced by him. I am one of those who has profited enormously by his thinking and have done some minor introductions to his contribution in classes and conferences. I am indebted to him in so many ways. But, do you know what? … history and culture don’t stand still. Newbigin’s huge influence was inescapable thirty years ago, but a couple of generations have emerged since then, and we have moved into a culture where even the word: Christian has little resonance among the Millennial generation and the iY (born after 1995) or ‘digital’ generation.

The Newbigin aficionados are rapidly passing into the AARP and what becomes apparent is that they have all too much become ecclesiastical schizophrenics, in that they have accepted the indisputable thesis of Newbigin that we have moved past the era of Christendom, and are, in fact in the post-Christian era, … but their roots are so deep in the forms and ecclesiastical and missiological patterns of Christendom, that the best they can do is to keep trying to find some way to refound Christendom congregations and institutions, while clinging to them rather than suspending the horizons, and re-inventing the church for a whole new culture. Everything must be on the line. … Meanwhile church headquarters and theological training schools keep cranking out church patterns and leadership for a cultural setting that is no longer with us, alas!

The fruitful church that Christ is building is elastic, ever re-inventing itself, defying institutional ossification, fruitless patterns, and ancestor worship as it pursues it pilgrim journey. There’s our challenge. Stay tuned …