Today's post is written by Dr. Robert Hunt, Director of Global Theological Education, Professor of Christian Mission and Interreligious Relations, and Director of the Center for Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology. It is the third of a three-part series.
As I explain in the first post in this series, within the last 25 years, the United States has adopted two laws intended to widen the protection given to the “free exercise of religion”: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA).
Have RFRA and RLUIPA benefited Christian witness to the gospel? No, as I explained in my last post, because there is no biblical or apostolic precedent for Christians advancing their mission by asserting special rights to freedom of religion within a secular political system.
Perhaps, though, these laws might be merely harmless, as long as Christians aren’t overly insistent on their own interests under these laws.
To assess this claim, we need to look at the presuppositions behind the law, not just the law’s impact. How does the framing of religious freedom in RFRA and RLUIPA compare to Christian understandings of the exercise of religion and the invitation to Christian discipleship?
Religion Freedom and Community
In scripture, Christian faith in God is always located in both a community and its tradition. The same is true of virtually all religious traditions. In Christian scripture, the first religion, to use the term anachronistically, is that of Abraham and his family, followed by the religion of Israel established at Sinai. In the Old Testament, it is communities, whether families, clans, tribes, or nations that possess what in modern terms we call religion. Similarly, the first Christians are Christians in community, a community so tightly bound that its members’ personal financial decisions and family relationships are a matter of community concern. "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." (Matthew 18:20 NRSV)
Moreover, this Christian community continually locates itself in the longer tradition of Abraham and Israel, to the extent that Jewish scripture becomes its scripture. And it locates itself in the traditions of Jesus and the apostles, which become the normative basis for all its teaching. Finally, these “Old and New Testaments” give birth to a tradition of teaching that ultimately gives birth to the communal creeds and liturgies of the Catholic and Orthodox churches and their offspring.
In terms of freedom, the first Christians and their successors asserted their freedom by both choosing to be followers of Christ, joining in the tradition and community of Christ, and by both expressing their faith in public and by expressing it in ways the benefited the public. They never claimed personal exemptions from the law or serving the public good.
Matthew 5:38–42: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.
The RFRA and RLUIPA advance an understanding of religion, and religious freedom, that undermines this traditional understanding of religious faith and replaces it with one that is individual, idiosyncratic, and unconcerned with the public good. These laws ratify a cultural environment in which the fundamental invitation of the gospel, an invitation into community that will be a light to the nations, is undermined.
What To Make of Modern Religious Freedom
For more than 200 years, Christianity thrived in the United States. Christians have every reason to be grateful for, and supportive of the first amendment and the Bill of Rights. It not only affirms the fundamental freedom and equality of human beings taught in scripture, it has given us the freedom to witness to Jesus Christ without coercion and without dependence on the powers and principalities of the world.
In situations where free expression of the gospel conflicts with the law, it has provided a legal basis for Christians to be part of a discourse over the role of religion in society. Most importantly, its understanding of freedom of religion in relation to the public good is consistent with a Christian understanding of both religion and the public good.
The aforementioned legislative efforts to strengthen or extend the right of freedom of religion in the Constitution (RFRA and RLUIPA), however, actually undermine a Christian understanding of religion, weaken the Christian witness to the gospel, and undermine the rights of others.
It is strange in our time that religious people and communities that claim to serve an omnipotent God should feel threatened by social change. But stranger still is an assertion that the religion of Christ crucified will be rescued from the corrosive effects of secularism by pleading a special privilege for Christians to humiliate others and harm their neighbors based on laws that ratify a secular understanding of religion.
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Monday, January 18, 2021
Monday, August 12, 2019
Evangelism in a Flat Earth
Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Director of Mission Theology at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.
Last year, Netflix released a documentary called "Behind the Curve" about US Americans who believe that the earth is flat. The documentary generated some discussion at the time it came out, much of it about what the documentary and its subjects say about the state of science, especially in a culture where many disbelieve in human-caused climate change, despite overwhelming scientific consensus on this point.
As I watched the movie, though, I was struck not by the parallels with science, but with the parallels with religion.
This started during a section of the movie that discusses factions within the group of people who believe the earth is flat. It turns out that there are different interpretations of what is at the edge of the earth (and whether there even is an edge). However, these are not just differences of theory, but different communities that have formed around the theories and their leading proponents, who hurl anathemas at one another.
The documentary suggests that these divisions are similar to sects within a religion, and the suggestion seemed a plausible one to me, based not just on Christian comparisons, but also what I know about Islam, Buddhism, and other religions.
What really drove home for me the sense that what I was watching was more akin to a religious community than a scientific community, though, was the convention that is documented near the film's end. Participants spoke of how much they appreciated the experience of community at the convention, and how the community and the enthusiasm evident at the convention affirmed their commitment to flat earthism, not just as a belief system, but as a movement, an identity, and a way of orienting oneself to the world.
The convention wasn't about knowledge as the secular Western scientific structure would define it. It was about the relationships and emotions that support shared identity, beliefs, practices, and motivations, which is the realm of religion.
Thus, following the movie, my question was not, "How can we get people to believe in science when this is the alternative?" It was, "How can we get people to believe in Christianity when this is the alternative?"
What does evangelism look like when the alternatives to Christianity are not just other religions and secularism, but a whole host of quasi-religious interest groups that arise through and are nourished by the Internet? Flat Earthers are not the only such group. Many other interest groups have generated a set of orienting beliefs and/or mythos, a sense of distinct identity, and a sense of group belonging, in large part through the skillful use of technology. These groups might be fandoms. They might be devotees of a particular health regimen. They might be conspiracy theorists.
To be clear, I am talking about interests that go beyond mere hobbies for those deeply involved to instead provide an orienting way of being in the world. These are interests and associated communities that provide the "system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men [sic] by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic" that Clifford Geertz defined as religion.
One of the challenges of the pluralistic, individualistic, postmodern world of the West is not that people no longer have a yearning for the type of good news that Christianity provides. It's that there so many plausible alternatives to "fill the God-shaped hole in their hearts," and people can choose the one that most caters to their particular interests, personality, and proclivities. The West isn't irreligious. It's abounding in simulacra of religion.
It seems that two responses on the part of Christian evangelism are in order.
First, Christianity has to be willing to critique a system of individualism and consumer capitalist thinking. If one adopts a framework of the individual as the supreme arbiter of good and consumer capitalism as the paramount methodology by which to achieve that good, it is difficult to critique the notion that people should be able to choose whatever religious or quasi-religious group and devotion seem to best suit them.
Yet, instead of critiquing such an approach to religion, Western Christians, and especially white American Christians, are often captive to such thinking, as Soong-Chan Rah and others have shown. Effective evangelism needs to raise questions about such assumptions, both among others and within the church, even though doing so is counter-cultural.
Second, Christianity has to recover the way in which it is not just about individual beliefs but about communities of practice. This is one of the things that the Flat Earthers intuitively understand and one of the keys to their success. Flat Earthism thrives not because its tenets are particularly compelling. It proceeds because the Internet has allowed people to create communities that support such beliefs, turning them from mere opinions to central components of identity, which seems to be the real sell for many involved.
Certainly, belief is important for Christianity. But when Christianity focuses solely on belief, it is easy for others to simply dismiss its conclusions, as Flat Earthers dismiss the truth claims of modern astronomy. Yet when truth claims are embedded within communities of belief and practice, they take on additional plausibility, even easily-disproved truth claims about the earth being flat.
For most of Christian history, this understanding of Christian belief as embedded within Christian community and strengthened by a sense of Christian identity was a given. That changed under the effects of the Enlightenment and modernity. Christians must therefore reclaim the communal sense to our religion, and to do so, they must be willing to push back on some of the individualism that so pervades Western culture.
In the end, the question is not really, "How can Christian evangelism defeat Flat Earthers?" The question should be, "What can we learn (or re-learn) from this growing social movement?" While the beliefs behind the Flat Earth movement may seem silly, the "Behind the Curve" documentary does raise important questions about how humans fill their basic needs for belief, identity, and community.
Last year, Netflix released a documentary called "Behind the Curve" about US Americans who believe that the earth is flat. The documentary generated some discussion at the time it came out, much of it about what the documentary and its subjects say about the state of science, especially in a culture where many disbelieve in human-caused climate change, despite overwhelming scientific consensus on this point.
As I watched the movie, though, I was struck not by the parallels with science, but with the parallels with religion.
This started during a section of the movie that discusses factions within the group of people who believe the earth is flat. It turns out that there are different interpretations of what is at the edge of the earth (and whether there even is an edge). However, these are not just differences of theory, but different communities that have formed around the theories and their leading proponents, who hurl anathemas at one another.
The documentary suggests that these divisions are similar to sects within a religion, and the suggestion seemed a plausible one to me, based not just on Christian comparisons, but also what I know about Islam, Buddhism, and other religions.
What really drove home for me the sense that what I was watching was more akin to a religious community than a scientific community, though, was the convention that is documented near the film's end. Participants spoke of how much they appreciated the experience of community at the convention, and how the community and the enthusiasm evident at the convention affirmed their commitment to flat earthism, not just as a belief system, but as a movement, an identity, and a way of orienting oneself to the world.
The convention wasn't about knowledge as the secular Western scientific structure would define it. It was about the relationships and emotions that support shared identity, beliefs, practices, and motivations, which is the realm of religion.
Thus, following the movie, my question was not, "How can we get people to believe in science when this is the alternative?" It was, "How can we get people to believe in Christianity when this is the alternative?"
What does evangelism look like when the alternatives to Christianity are not just other religions and secularism, but a whole host of quasi-religious interest groups that arise through and are nourished by the Internet? Flat Earthers are not the only such group. Many other interest groups have generated a set of orienting beliefs and/or mythos, a sense of distinct identity, and a sense of group belonging, in large part through the skillful use of technology. These groups might be fandoms. They might be devotees of a particular health regimen. They might be conspiracy theorists.
To be clear, I am talking about interests that go beyond mere hobbies for those deeply involved to instead provide an orienting way of being in the world. These are interests and associated communities that provide the "system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods in men [sic] by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing those conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic" that Clifford Geertz defined as religion.
One of the challenges of the pluralistic, individualistic, postmodern world of the West is not that people no longer have a yearning for the type of good news that Christianity provides. It's that there so many plausible alternatives to "fill the God-shaped hole in their hearts," and people can choose the one that most caters to their particular interests, personality, and proclivities. The West isn't irreligious. It's abounding in simulacra of religion.
It seems that two responses on the part of Christian evangelism are in order.
First, Christianity has to be willing to critique a system of individualism and consumer capitalist thinking. If one adopts a framework of the individual as the supreme arbiter of good and consumer capitalism as the paramount methodology by which to achieve that good, it is difficult to critique the notion that people should be able to choose whatever religious or quasi-religious group and devotion seem to best suit them.
Yet, instead of critiquing such an approach to religion, Western Christians, and especially white American Christians, are often captive to such thinking, as Soong-Chan Rah and others have shown. Effective evangelism needs to raise questions about such assumptions, both among others and within the church, even though doing so is counter-cultural.
Second, Christianity has to recover the way in which it is not just about individual beliefs but about communities of practice. This is one of the things that the Flat Earthers intuitively understand and one of the keys to their success. Flat Earthism thrives not because its tenets are particularly compelling. It proceeds because the Internet has allowed people to create communities that support such beliefs, turning them from mere opinions to central components of identity, which seems to be the real sell for many involved.
Certainly, belief is important for Christianity. But when Christianity focuses solely on belief, it is easy for others to simply dismiss its conclusions, as Flat Earthers dismiss the truth claims of modern astronomy. Yet when truth claims are embedded within communities of belief and practice, they take on additional plausibility, even easily-disproved truth claims about the earth being flat.
For most of Christian history, this understanding of Christian belief as embedded within Christian community and strengthened by a sense of Christian identity was a given. That changed under the effects of the Enlightenment and modernity. Christians must therefore reclaim the communal sense to our religion, and to do so, they must be willing to push back on some of the individualism that so pervades Western culture.
In the end, the question is not really, "How can Christian evangelism defeat Flat Earthers?" The question should be, "What can we learn (or re-learn) from this growing social movement?" While the beliefs behind the Flat Earth movement may seem silly, the "Behind the Curve" documentary does raise important questions about how humans fill their basic needs for belief, identity, and community.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Benjamin L. Hartley: #MyHope4Methodism
Today's post is part of a series that features United Methodist scholars and leaders from around the world reflecting on their hope for the future of The United Methodist Church as a global movement within the larger context of worldwide Methodism as a whole. Today's post is written by Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hartley. Dr. Hartley is Associate Professor of Christian Mission at the College of Christian Studies at George Fox University. He also blogs at http://www.missionandmethodism.net/
“Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem… They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?” John 11:55-57
The Scripture text above for the day before Palm Sunday ends with a question: Will Jesus show up? It is a question many people in The United Methodist Church are asking – sometimes with anguish in their hearts, yearning for renewal.
At our best, I think we ask this question not with anxious handwringing but with what Cornel West calls a “blues sensibility” sort of faith. Our eyes are wide open to the problems in our church and world, but we have faith that Jesus will always show up. It is the faith and love of Jesus working out in our lives that moves us with hope and a persistent unconditional love for others. At our best we sing with the pathos of a famous African American spiritual as our model, yearning for the “City Called Heaven.” It is that ultimate hope expressed with the grit of a blues artist that I pray will animate our life together as United Methodists in the years to come.
Where do I see this happening? What gives me this kind of gritty hope for the UMC? I have two stories.
Just before Holy Week I gathered with fourteen people in Portland, Oregon in order to encourage one another in our experiments of living in intentional Christian communities. Most were folks from Portland, but I drove an hour with my housemate and Romanian missionary friend, David, to see what this might be. I knew some friends would be there who went through Missional Wisdom training and prayerful retreats with me, but the circle was wider than that with people who have been experimenting for less than a year to one man who had lived in an intentional Christian community for 33 years.
I went to this gathering because I’ll be serving as a faculty mentor next year for two residential houses of university students who want to explore in practical ways what it means to live a deeper life of Christian fellowship that they have been reading about in the “great books” honors program I also teach in. I need help to dream what those houses could be so that my prayers would not be too small. Small prayers are a problem for many of us.
On my drive home with David last night we spoke about what we experienced in that Portland living room with other disciples of Jesus. There were deep wells of wisdom there, experiences of desert wandering, and also a spirit of holy experimentation. It is the willingness to experiment and yearning to keep re-envisioning church that gives me hope for United Methodism.
My second story is a tad less contemporary. I’m a historian of the missionary movement, and one of my current projects is to examine one of the earliest and exuberantly hopeful missionary endeavors of American Methodists. No other missionary venture of early American Methodists more fired the imagination than the mission to share the Gospel of Jesus with Native Americans in Oregon.
Big dreams of mass conversions of thousands of eager Native Americans (whom Methodist missionaries barely knew anything about) were quickly met with discouragement in the years after missionary arrival in Oregon in 1834. Instead of thousands yearning to become Christians they instead encountered thousands of people being decimated by diseases that had had been transmitted to the region earlier via trading ships.
The Methodist missionaries persisted in Oregon but perhaps the best missionary of the bunch, Henry Kirk White Perkins, has barely been recognized in Methodist mission histories. His journals reveal that he was probably the leading missionary linguist in the denomination at the time; he translated a good chunk of the New Testament into Sahaptin, a language of eastern Washington. He was also a man with a heart full of love for others and a belief that the Gospel truly can transform lives.
In a letter to his friend, Daniel Lee, he relays stories of a revival that took place at the Willamette Mission – a few miles south of where I now live – during a few days surrounding a Watch Night service in January of 1839. Perkins tells stories of the conversion of a half dozen Native Americans. Most were older children in the school the Methodists were running, along with some adults and children of white settlers.
He was especially moved by the emotional conversion of two Native American women – both named Mary. Mary Sargent had been converted the day before. She was friends with Mary Hauxhurst who was married to a white settler. As Perkins tells the story, “Mary S. arose and with joy beaming in her countenance, went and threw her arms around the neck of her friend, [Mary Hauxhurst] and they wept, and prayed together…O, thought I, this, this is religion, and religion is love. God beheld the sight, and he wiped their tears away, and in a few moments they were praising God together.”
At first glance this is not a particularly unusual conversion story. What makes it noteworthy to me is that it is the first conversion story in Oregon where – at least in the way Perkins tells it – the missionary seems to be more of an observer to one Native American woman introducing another to the saving love of Jesus. Perkins, it seems, trusted that what was happening to these two women was of God even though so much of their history and culture was unknown to him. It would still be over a year before he could preach in any language other than a rudimentary trade language the local people used.
This story that Perkins tells illustrates a hope I have for United Methodism in that we too will learn to trust one another across cultural and linguistic barriers. Perkins made plenty of mistakes in his work, to be sure, but as I have read his journals I am struck by his openness toward Native American cultural practices that were foreign to him. As he painstakingly translated Scripture day after day he was also willing to question his assumptions about how he interpreted the Bible. He even wrote back home to ask a friend for help in thinking through some passages.
That letter home embodies another hope and gritty prayer I have for United Methodism – namely, that we would learn to be better friends and vulnerably ask for the help we need – from God and one another. For where two or three are gathered... Jesus will most assuredly show up.
“Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem… They looked for Jesus and said to one another as they were in the temple area, “What do you think? That he will not come to the feast?” John 11:55-57
The Scripture text above for the day before Palm Sunday ends with a question: Will Jesus show up? It is a question many people in The United Methodist Church are asking – sometimes with anguish in their hearts, yearning for renewal.
At our best, I think we ask this question not with anxious handwringing but with what Cornel West calls a “blues sensibility” sort of faith. Our eyes are wide open to the problems in our church and world, but we have faith that Jesus will always show up. It is the faith and love of Jesus working out in our lives that moves us with hope and a persistent unconditional love for others. At our best we sing with the pathos of a famous African American spiritual as our model, yearning for the “City Called Heaven.” It is that ultimate hope expressed with the grit of a blues artist that I pray will animate our life together as United Methodists in the years to come.
Where do I see this happening? What gives me this kind of gritty hope for the UMC? I have two stories.
Just before Holy Week I gathered with fourteen people in Portland, Oregon in order to encourage one another in our experiments of living in intentional Christian communities. Most were folks from Portland, but I drove an hour with my housemate and Romanian missionary friend, David, to see what this might be. I knew some friends would be there who went through Missional Wisdom training and prayerful retreats with me, but the circle was wider than that with people who have been experimenting for less than a year to one man who had lived in an intentional Christian community for 33 years.
I went to this gathering because I’ll be serving as a faculty mentor next year for two residential houses of university students who want to explore in practical ways what it means to live a deeper life of Christian fellowship that they have been reading about in the “great books” honors program I also teach in. I need help to dream what those houses could be so that my prayers would not be too small. Small prayers are a problem for many of us.
On my drive home with David last night we spoke about what we experienced in that Portland living room with other disciples of Jesus. There were deep wells of wisdom there, experiences of desert wandering, and also a spirit of holy experimentation. It is the willingness to experiment and yearning to keep re-envisioning church that gives me hope for United Methodism.
My second story is a tad less contemporary. I’m a historian of the missionary movement, and one of my current projects is to examine one of the earliest and exuberantly hopeful missionary endeavors of American Methodists. No other missionary venture of early American Methodists more fired the imagination than the mission to share the Gospel of Jesus with Native Americans in Oregon.
Big dreams of mass conversions of thousands of eager Native Americans (whom Methodist missionaries barely knew anything about) were quickly met with discouragement in the years after missionary arrival in Oregon in 1834. Instead of thousands yearning to become Christians they instead encountered thousands of people being decimated by diseases that had had been transmitted to the region earlier via trading ships.
The Methodist missionaries persisted in Oregon but perhaps the best missionary of the bunch, Henry Kirk White Perkins, has barely been recognized in Methodist mission histories. His journals reveal that he was probably the leading missionary linguist in the denomination at the time; he translated a good chunk of the New Testament into Sahaptin, a language of eastern Washington. He was also a man with a heart full of love for others and a belief that the Gospel truly can transform lives.
In a letter to his friend, Daniel Lee, he relays stories of a revival that took place at the Willamette Mission – a few miles south of where I now live – during a few days surrounding a Watch Night service in January of 1839. Perkins tells stories of the conversion of a half dozen Native Americans. Most were older children in the school the Methodists were running, along with some adults and children of white settlers.
He was especially moved by the emotional conversion of two Native American women – both named Mary. Mary Sargent had been converted the day before. She was friends with Mary Hauxhurst who was married to a white settler. As Perkins tells the story, “Mary S. arose and with joy beaming in her countenance, went and threw her arms around the neck of her friend, [Mary Hauxhurst] and they wept, and prayed together…O, thought I, this, this is religion, and religion is love. God beheld the sight, and he wiped their tears away, and in a few moments they were praising God together.”
At first glance this is not a particularly unusual conversion story. What makes it noteworthy to me is that it is the first conversion story in Oregon where – at least in the way Perkins tells it – the missionary seems to be more of an observer to one Native American woman introducing another to the saving love of Jesus. Perkins, it seems, trusted that what was happening to these two women was of God even though so much of their history and culture was unknown to him. It would still be over a year before he could preach in any language other than a rudimentary trade language the local people used.
This story that Perkins tells illustrates a hope I have for United Methodism in that we too will learn to trust one another across cultural and linguistic barriers. Perkins made plenty of mistakes in his work, to be sure, but as I have read his journals I am struck by his openness toward Native American cultural practices that were foreign to him. As he painstakingly translated Scripture day after day he was also willing to question his assumptions about how he interpreted the Bible. He even wrote back home to ask a friend for help in thinking through some passages.
That letter home embodies another hope and gritty prayer I have for United Methodism – namely, that we would learn to be better friends and vulnerably ask for the help we need – from God and one another. For where two or three are gathered... Jesus will most assuredly show up.
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Global Ministries Response to Wonder, Love and Praise, Part III
This blog post is one in a series containing responses to the denomination's proposed ecclesiology document, "Wonder, Love and Praise." These responses are written by United Methodist scholars and practitioners around the world. This piece is the third of four written by a group of Global Ministries staff persons on behalf of the agency. That group includes Malcolm Frazier, David Logeman, Emily Richardson-Rossbach, Jerome Sahabandhu, and David W. Scott.
There is much to be appreciated and affirmed in “Wonder, Love and Praise,” the United Methodist Church’s ecclesiology document drafted by the Commission on Faith and Order (CFO). Global Ministries is grateful for the work of CFO is preparing this document for comment by the church. This piece is intended as a response to that call for church-wide feedback, and is offered in hope that other United Methodist individuals and entities will also heed the call.
While “Wonder, Love and Praise” (WLP) does include useful pieces of theological reflection, Global Ministries would like to lift up four ways in which the document could go further or explore more theological territory than it does. These four areas are the role of laity, the church’s relationship with the world through mission, the church’s nature as a community, and the church’s nature as an institution.
Community
Community is an important term for WLP. One of the three core theological convictions that shape the document is, “The saving love of God creates community.” Global Ministries appreciates and affirms this focus on the church as a community. Nevertheless, we also felt there were important ways in which this focus on community could be extended and given additional Wesleyan theological grounding.
Such additional grounding could be achieved by noting the connections between the three theological emphases of WLP: that the saving love of God is for all, that the saving love of God is transformative, and that the saving love of God creates community. Put another way, WLP could enrich its discussion of community by focusing on community as not merely a static state, part of the unchangeable essence of the church, but by focusing on community as an active entity, the body that carries out the works of the church. Such an active understanding of community would highlight the connection between community and mission (related to the first emphasis) and between community and discipleship (related to the second emphasis).
We have already noted the need for a greater mission-orientation in the ecclesiology presented in WLP. In addition to the already given reasons for doing so, such an orientation could help uncover important insights into the nature and activities of the church as a community. The church as a community is always invitational. It is perpetually reaching beyond itself, seeking to bring new members into itself. Even in the face of rejection, the church continues to extend the invitation of Christ to the world, thereby participating in God’s mission of redemption.
Yet to say that the church is (or should be) such an invitational community is to make a claim that sets the church apart from many other communities. Community of any type presumes some level of similarity. All too often, however, similarity implies group boundaries, and those boundaries make it difficult for those outside of a group to join it. In our world today, we see the tragic consequences of such an approach to community formation in nationalism, racism, ethnocentrism, tribalism, and sexism. These chauvinistic forms of community wound the world and the church. The church is called to bind these wounds inflicted by false understandings of community and to seek reconciliation in such conflicts.
The church can most effectively do so when it remembers its missional, invitational nature as a community. For the church, unlike almost any other community, the commonality that brings us together also impels us to reach beyond ourselves, rather than focus within or on precisely drawing the boundaries. The saving love of God in Jesus Christ is the commonality upon which Christian community is built (as WLP recognizes). Yet our experience of that saving love must, according to Wesleyan theology, lead us to respond by seeking to share that love with others. Thus, any community that is not actively engaged in God’s mission to share the saving love of God in Christ cannot claim to be a fully Wesleyan expression of the church. We recognize that we as a United Methodist community are still, as WLP puts is, “in pursuit of God’s gift of community,” and thus imperfect in living out this task, but the task should be named.
Just as Christian community cannot be separated from active participation in God’s mission, so it also cannot be separated from the process of forming individual believers as disciples. As WLP notes, “the saving love of God is transformative,” and as it further notes, “growth in love and in the other fruits of the Spirit is possible only in community.” Yet given the emphasis that Wesley and other Methodists have placed on this practice of social holiness – growth in discipleship in community – it is disappointing that WLP does not spend more time discussing this aspect of the church as a community. Classes, bands, and other small fellowships have been central Methodist means to make disciples in community, and it would be nice to see such groups lifted up in the document.
Moreover, a discussion of the relationship between community and disciple-making would be an opportunity for WLP to bring additional Wesleyan theological insights into the conversation. In particular, WLP could talk about the communal practices involved in Wesley’s means of grace. Methodism as an expression of church originated in just such a setting – believers joining together in class meetings and bands to hold one another accountable in their process of growing as disciples. By acknowledging the importance of community as a context for experiencing the transformative love of God, WLP would have an opportunity to exposit key Wesleyan ecclesiological concepts such as discipline. Such a discussion could help laity better understand such historically important practices of Methodism, commend them to Methodists today, and emphasize the practical nature of Methodist ecclesiology.
Furthermore, a discussion of the communal means of grace could further enrich WLP’s exploration of the relationship between koinonia and ekklesia. The two Articles WLP cites from United Methodism’s theological affirmations both mention the sacraments and the word of God. Wesley mentions the importance of both communion and Bible study as communal works of grace. While sermons are certainly not the only means for studying the Bible, they are a means. Affirming communion and group engagement with the Bible as elements of both koinonia and ekklesia would make an important connection between the two, one that highlights our Wesleyan theological heritage.
There is much to be appreciated and affirmed in “Wonder, Love and Praise,” the United Methodist Church’s ecclesiology document drafted by the Commission on Faith and Order (CFO). Global Ministries is grateful for the work of CFO is preparing this document for comment by the church. This piece is intended as a response to that call for church-wide feedback, and is offered in hope that other United Methodist individuals and entities will also heed the call.
While “Wonder, Love and Praise” (WLP) does include useful pieces of theological reflection, Global Ministries would like to lift up four ways in which the document could go further or explore more theological territory than it does. These four areas are the role of laity, the church’s relationship with the world through mission, the church’s nature as a community, and the church’s nature as an institution.
Community
Community is an important term for WLP. One of the three core theological convictions that shape the document is, “The saving love of God creates community.” Global Ministries appreciates and affirms this focus on the church as a community. Nevertheless, we also felt there were important ways in which this focus on community could be extended and given additional Wesleyan theological grounding.
Such additional grounding could be achieved by noting the connections between the three theological emphases of WLP: that the saving love of God is for all, that the saving love of God is transformative, and that the saving love of God creates community. Put another way, WLP could enrich its discussion of community by focusing on community as not merely a static state, part of the unchangeable essence of the church, but by focusing on community as an active entity, the body that carries out the works of the church. Such an active understanding of community would highlight the connection between community and mission (related to the first emphasis) and between community and discipleship (related to the second emphasis).
We have already noted the need for a greater mission-orientation in the ecclesiology presented in WLP. In addition to the already given reasons for doing so, such an orientation could help uncover important insights into the nature and activities of the church as a community. The church as a community is always invitational. It is perpetually reaching beyond itself, seeking to bring new members into itself. Even in the face of rejection, the church continues to extend the invitation of Christ to the world, thereby participating in God’s mission of redemption.
Yet to say that the church is (or should be) such an invitational community is to make a claim that sets the church apart from many other communities. Community of any type presumes some level of similarity. All too often, however, similarity implies group boundaries, and those boundaries make it difficult for those outside of a group to join it. In our world today, we see the tragic consequences of such an approach to community formation in nationalism, racism, ethnocentrism, tribalism, and sexism. These chauvinistic forms of community wound the world and the church. The church is called to bind these wounds inflicted by false understandings of community and to seek reconciliation in such conflicts.
The church can most effectively do so when it remembers its missional, invitational nature as a community. For the church, unlike almost any other community, the commonality that brings us together also impels us to reach beyond ourselves, rather than focus within or on precisely drawing the boundaries. The saving love of God in Jesus Christ is the commonality upon which Christian community is built (as WLP recognizes). Yet our experience of that saving love must, according to Wesleyan theology, lead us to respond by seeking to share that love with others. Thus, any community that is not actively engaged in God’s mission to share the saving love of God in Christ cannot claim to be a fully Wesleyan expression of the church. We recognize that we as a United Methodist community are still, as WLP puts is, “in pursuit of God’s gift of community,” and thus imperfect in living out this task, but the task should be named.
Just as Christian community cannot be separated from active participation in God’s mission, so it also cannot be separated from the process of forming individual believers as disciples. As WLP notes, “the saving love of God is transformative,” and as it further notes, “growth in love and in the other fruits of the Spirit is possible only in community.” Yet given the emphasis that Wesley and other Methodists have placed on this practice of social holiness – growth in discipleship in community – it is disappointing that WLP does not spend more time discussing this aspect of the church as a community. Classes, bands, and other small fellowships have been central Methodist means to make disciples in community, and it would be nice to see such groups lifted up in the document.
Moreover, a discussion of the relationship between community and disciple-making would be an opportunity for WLP to bring additional Wesleyan theological insights into the conversation. In particular, WLP could talk about the communal practices involved in Wesley’s means of grace. Methodism as an expression of church originated in just such a setting – believers joining together in class meetings and bands to hold one another accountable in their process of growing as disciples. By acknowledging the importance of community as a context for experiencing the transformative love of God, WLP would have an opportunity to exposit key Wesleyan ecclesiological concepts such as discipline. Such a discussion could help laity better understand such historically important practices of Methodism, commend them to Methodists today, and emphasize the practical nature of Methodist ecclesiology.
Furthermore, a discussion of the communal means of grace could further enrich WLP’s exploration of the relationship between koinonia and ekklesia. The two Articles WLP cites from United Methodism’s theological affirmations both mention the sacraments and the word of God. Wesley mentions the importance of both communion and Bible study as communal works of grace. While sermons are certainly not the only means for studying the Bible, they are a means. Affirming communion and group engagement with the Bible as elements of both koinonia and ekklesia would make an important connection between the two, one that highlights our Wesleyan theological heritage.
Thursday, September 18, 2014
Servants among the Nations: John Nuessle on Grace Upon Grace: A World Transformed by Grace
Today's post is the latest in a series of posts that are re-examining the mission document of The United Methodist Church, Grace Upon Grace (Nashville: Graded Press, 1990). Various United Methodist mission professors and practitioners are re-examining this theological statement and how it can inform our corporate life in The United Methodist Church today. This piece is written by Rev. Dr. John Nuessle, retired from the leadership staff at the General Board of Global Ministries. Dr. Nuessle is commenting on the tenth section of the document, "A World Transformed By Grace." Use the
"Grace Upon Grace" tag to identify other posts in this series.
Servants defined as agents of God’s liberating and reconciling grace among the nations. What a fantastic statement of Christian calling! I could say quite a bit about what it means to be agents of liberation and reconciliation. I think, however, that the real essential genius of this passage, if not of the whole of Grace Upon Grace, is the recognition that transformed people in a transformed world are not simply a collection of nicely converted individuals, but rather our goal is to transform whole “people groups,” or in the Biblical term, “the nations.” We are called to serve as agents of God’s liberating and reconciling grace among the nations, meaning that our call is to whole ethnic communities and affinity groups of God’s people. All our efforts and focus as Christians should be toward offering grace to both whole people and whole nations – to all the persons in a self-identified cultural context, who thus see themselves as a unique whole.
So often our well intentioned efforts and strategies in mission and evangelism are focused on the old…and very theologically incorrect…idea of “winning them one by one.” This style of Christian mission results either in total failure (very often), or in the creation of a strange type of Christian church in which everyone is out to get to heaven on their own good behavior, a perverse style of faith expression that is all too common in the United States. Heaven help us if we continue to promote individualistic believers who only worship a God who is like themselves.
The call of this section of Grace Upon Grace is the same call to our mission and evangelism work that is found throughout the Scriptures. That is, to call groups of humans into Christian community this is interconnected with all other Christian communities. This is the New Creation Paul preaches. This is how we relate people to their contexts and with interconnected contexts globally, a real witness to the whole Body of Christ, not a collection of body parts.
The work of the General Board of Global Ministries, in cooperation and collaboration with mission-supporting annual conferences and congregations globally, is toward development of new faith communities – church growth if you will – and is always an effort to establish the church in a whole nation or among an entire ethnic-based contextual setting. We have not gone forth seeking “individual converts” that would make “individualistic Christians,” a clearly un-Biblical notion. We sought to call groups – families, villages, affinity groups, etc – into gathered Christian worshipping and serving communities of faith. These localized communities would always be quickly interconnected with other similar bodies in nearly areas, as much as possible. As the call of Christ in Acts 1:8, witnessing to the whole Word of God for the whole people of God, in Jerusalem (local), Judea and Samaria (nation), and to the ends of the Earth.
In all this we are servants of the community of God, known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose grace is unreservedly shared with all who would be open to receive this new life. Transformed; reconciled; leaving behind the old ways and old life of personal gain, individual seeking, and privatized faith. We move into a bright new world of servants seeking to serve God and one another with justice, mercy, and forgiveness.
Is this an easy process? Not on your life, new or otherwise! It is likely the most difficult series of tasks and responsibilities we can encounter. And this is partly because the cultural ground – the contexts of living – for all of us keeps moving and changing. Just when we think we are on solid footing with our church plans and programs, with our strategies and methodologies, we discover that none of these any longer work. We live in a dynamic world which requires our constant reassessment and evaluation of our life of faith and engagement in God’s Mission.
That’s why we have grace. God loves us unconditionally, and then calls us to keep at it. What a Mighty God We Serve! What powerful Grace is ours, heaped Upon Grace.
Servants defined as agents of God’s liberating and reconciling grace among the nations. What a fantastic statement of Christian calling! I could say quite a bit about what it means to be agents of liberation and reconciliation. I think, however, that the real essential genius of this passage, if not of the whole of Grace Upon Grace, is the recognition that transformed people in a transformed world are not simply a collection of nicely converted individuals, but rather our goal is to transform whole “people groups,” or in the Biblical term, “the nations.” We are called to serve as agents of God’s liberating and reconciling grace among the nations, meaning that our call is to whole ethnic communities and affinity groups of God’s people. All our efforts and focus as Christians should be toward offering grace to both whole people and whole nations – to all the persons in a self-identified cultural context, who thus see themselves as a unique whole.
So often our well intentioned efforts and strategies in mission and evangelism are focused on the old…and very theologically incorrect…idea of “winning them one by one.” This style of Christian mission results either in total failure (very often), or in the creation of a strange type of Christian church in which everyone is out to get to heaven on their own good behavior, a perverse style of faith expression that is all too common in the United States. Heaven help us if we continue to promote individualistic believers who only worship a God who is like themselves.
The call of this section of Grace Upon Grace is the same call to our mission and evangelism work that is found throughout the Scriptures. That is, to call groups of humans into Christian community this is interconnected with all other Christian communities. This is the New Creation Paul preaches. This is how we relate people to their contexts and with interconnected contexts globally, a real witness to the whole Body of Christ, not a collection of body parts.
The work of the General Board of Global Ministries, in cooperation and collaboration with mission-supporting annual conferences and congregations globally, is toward development of new faith communities – church growth if you will – and is always an effort to establish the church in a whole nation or among an entire ethnic-based contextual setting. We have not gone forth seeking “individual converts” that would make “individualistic Christians,” a clearly un-Biblical notion. We sought to call groups – families, villages, affinity groups, etc – into gathered Christian worshipping and serving communities of faith. These localized communities would always be quickly interconnected with other similar bodies in nearly areas, as much as possible. As the call of Christ in Acts 1:8, witnessing to the whole Word of God for the whole people of God, in Jerusalem (local), Judea and Samaria (nation), and to the ends of the Earth.
In all this we are servants of the community of God, known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whose grace is unreservedly shared with all who would be open to receive this new life. Transformed; reconciled; leaving behind the old ways and old life of personal gain, individual seeking, and privatized faith. We move into a bright new world of servants seeking to serve God and one another with justice, mercy, and forgiveness.
Is this an easy process? Not on your life, new or otherwise! It is likely the most difficult series of tasks and responsibilities we can encounter. And this is partly because the cultural ground – the contexts of living – for all of us keeps moving and changing. Just when we think we are on solid footing with our church plans and programs, with our strategies and methodologies, we discover that none of these any longer work. We live in a dynamic world which requires our constant reassessment and evaluation of our life of faith and engagement in God’s Mission.
That’s why we have grace. God loves us unconditionally, and then calls us to keep at it. What a Mighty God We Serve! What powerful Grace is ours, heaped Upon Grace.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
The church as witnessing community: Joon-Sik Park on Grace Upon Grace: A World Transformed by Grace
Today's post is the latest in a series of posts that are re-examining the mission document of The United Methodist Church, Grace Upon Grace
(Nashville: Graded Press, 1990). Various United Methodist mission
professors and practitioners are re-examining this theological statement
and how it can inform our corporate life in The United Methodist Church
today. This piece is written by Dr. Joon-Sik Park, E. Stanley Jones Chair of World Evangelism at Methodist Theological School in Ohio. Dr. Park is commenting on the tenth section of the document, "A World Transformed By Grace." Use the
"Grace Upon Grace" tag to identify other posts in this series.
Paragraph 59 “Incorporation” is a part of the section titled “A World Transformed by Grace.” Central to Christian mission is our witness to the transforming grace of Jesus. We proclaim the gospel and invite persons to decision for and commitment to Jesus and his reign. This paragraph calls attention, first, to the fact that the invitation is also to the fellowship, which is not only with God but also with one another. Second, those who are incorporated into the Body of Christ have different functions and diverse gifts, yet they above all share in the mission of Christ.
When the gospel is shared, the lives of the witness and the one invited to Christian faith are also to be shared. Important questions in Christian witness then are whether we are willing to share our lives with others and to share in the lives of others, and whether our community of faith is willing to be a home for all even with a place for strangers. Churches unwilling to extend community to people of differences would end up practicing what Charles Van Engen calls “a separation between church and mission.” Do United Methodist congregations, engaging in mission, seek to build relationships across racial, cultural, and socioeconomic differences? Or do they pursue exclusive forms of Christian witness and church formation?
When persons are incorporated into the Body of Christ, the demands, as well as the promise, of the gospel are to be made clear. The church in every generation has to grapple with a question about the ethical content of conversion. Authentic conversion involves a fundamental reorientation of life based on a radical commitment to the teachings of Jesus; there cannot be a separation between faith and obedience or between belief and practice. The gospel-sharing in the New Testament is always a call to repentance, belief in Jesus as God’s Son, and commitment to follow Jesus and his way. Do United Methodist congregations seek to be concrete in their communication about the meaning of Jesus’ teachings for the life-context of those hearing and responding to the gospel? Or are they content to live with abstract and vague Christian discipleship?
Paragraph 59 rightly says that “all who are ‘in Christ’ share in the mission of Christ.” As the International Missionary Council at Willingen well put it, “There is no participation in Christ without participation in his mission to the world.” When persons are incorporated into Christian fellowship, they are also called to participate in Jesus’ mission, embracing God’s purposes and priorities for which Jesus was sent. Yet, we often fall into the error of separating “personal salvation (one’s receiving the benefits of salvation) from the missional purpose for which we are called and saved” (Darrell Guder, The Incarnation and the Church’s Witness, 16-7). Our experience of the transforming grace of Jesus should, however, lead to our becoming witnesses to that grace.
For the genuine recovery of the church’s mission, there has to be a radical transformation in ecclesiology. Mission should no longer be understood as a program of the church, but as integral to its identity and calling. The church is a missionary community by its very nature and vocation; mission is intrinsic to the very life and calling of the church. The church is called to participate in mission not for institutional survival, but for the kind of community it has been created to be. Only when members of a Christian community understand mission in relation to their basic identity, can the biblical sense of mission be recovered. Do United Methodist congregations view mission as central to who they are? Or are they occupied only with the benefits of salvation?
When the church understands itself as a witnessing community, mission cannot be disconnected from the corporate life of the church. This is so because the concrete life of a believing community is an essential expression of the credibility of the gospel to which it bears witness. Mission is thus practicable and feasible only when there is a community whose life reflects authentic differences from the rest of the world. A future United Methodist mission statement should help the church be aware of and overcome reductionisms: separation between church and mission, separation between faith and obedience, and separation between personal salvation and the missional call.
Paragraph 59 “Incorporation” is a part of the section titled “A World Transformed by Grace.” Central to Christian mission is our witness to the transforming grace of Jesus. We proclaim the gospel and invite persons to decision for and commitment to Jesus and his reign. This paragraph calls attention, first, to the fact that the invitation is also to the fellowship, which is not only with God but also with one another. Second, those who are incorporated into the Body of Christ have different functions and diverse gifts, yet they above all share in the mission of Christ.
When the gospel is shared, the lives of the witness and the one invited to Christian faith are also to be shared. Important questions in Christian witness then are whether we are willing to share our lives with others and to share in the lives of others, and whether our community of faith is willing to be a home for all even with a place for strangers. Churches unwilling to extend community to people of differences would end up practicing what Charles Van Engen calls “a separation between church and mission.” Do United Methodist congregations, engaging in mission, seek to build relationships across racial, cultural, and socioeconomic differences? Or do they pursue exclusive forms of Christian witness and church formation?
When persons are incorporated into the Body of Christ, the demands, as well as the promise, of the gospel are to be made clear. The church in every generation has to grapple with a question about the ethical content of conversion. Authentic conversion involves a fundamental reorientation of life based on a radical commitment to the teachings of Jesus; there cannot be a separation between faith and obedience or between belief and practice. The gospel-sharing in the New Testament is always a call to repentance, belief in Jesus as God’s Son, and commitment to follow Jesus and his way. Do United Methodist congregations seek to be concrete in their communication about the meaning of Jesus’ teachings for the life-context of those hearing and responding to the gospel? Or are they content to live with abstract and vague Christian discipleship?
Paragraph 59 rightly says that “all who are ‘in Christ’ share in the mission of Christ.” As the International Missionary Council at Willingen well put it, “There is no participation in Christ without participation in his mission to the world.” When persons are incorporated into Christian fellowship, they are also called to participate in Jesus’ mission, embracing God’s purposes and priorities for which Jesus was sent. Yet, we often fall into the error of separating “personal salvation (one’s receiving the benefits of salvation) from the missional purpose for which we are called and saved” (Darrell Guder, The Incarnation and the Church’s Witness, 16-7). Our experience of the transforming grace of Jesus should, however, lead to our becoming witnesses to that grace.
For the genuine recovery of the church’s mission, there has to be a radical transformation in ecclesiology. Mission should no longer be understood as a program of the church, but as integral to its identity and calling. The church is a missionary community by its very nature and vocation; mission is intrinsic to the very life and calling of the church. The church is called to participate in mission not for institutional survival, but for the kind of community it has been created to be. Only when members of a Christian community understand mission in relation to their basic identity, can the biblical sense of mission be recovered. Do United Methodist congregations view mission as central to who they are? Or are they occupied only with the benefits of salvation?
When the church understands itself as a witnessing community, mission cannot be disconnected from the corporate life of the church. This is so because the concrete life of a believing community is an essential expression of the credibility of the gospel to which it bears witness. Mission is thus practicable and feasible only when there is a community whose life reflects authentic differences from the rest of the world. A future United Methodist mission statement should help the church be aware of and overcome reductionisms: separation between church and mission, separation between faith and obedience, and separation between personal salvation and the missional call.
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