Institutionalization and Individualism
I'm furiously trying to finish two papers by 5:00 tomorrow, but I came across this and thought it would be perfect for our discussion. The following is an excerpt from Darrell Guder's The Incarnation and the Church's Witness. I would feel bad for posting two pages of his book on the web, but it's out of print and VERY hard to find.The church's sense of itself as an incarnational community is focused on its purpose established by its Lord. This obvious statment has many implications for the way that the church has come to understand itself, particularly in the Western tradition. As we struggle today to develop a missional theology for the West, there are two major challenges raised for us by the communal character of incarnational witness.
First, incarnational mission is a challenge to the institutional church of Christendom, in all its forms. If Christ's calling defines the church's purpose, and if the called community is to incarnate the good news, then, to put it bluntly, neither the institution's existence nor its maintenance is to be its priority. The church is not the ultimate and intended outcome of God's grace. Christ did not die only to save Christians, nor to form a church of the saved, but to bring God's healing love to the world. The formation of the church and the salvation of its members are the "first fruits" of God's desire for all creation. Mission, therefore, must not be reduced to institutional preservation, or, in terms of today's crisis of the church in the West, its survival. Its faithful witness takes place as the church submits to Christ's lordship and carries out his work wherever he sends it. The curch does not point to itself, but to Christ, following the model of John the Baptist: "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30).
It is an unavoidable dimension of real historical existence that institutions are formed and continued. The formation of God's people is necessarily an institutional process, both in Israel and in the church. If this were not so, then the calling and sending of God's people would be a docetic, nonhistorical "spiritual" process with little relevance to the world God loves. The problem is not that the church is institutional but how it is institutional. From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus challenged the institutional forms of God's elect people because, in many ways, they had become a betrayal of God's mission. Whenever we read about the religious leaders of the Jewes in the Godpel accounts, we should put ourselves and our church leaders in their place. Jesus' polemic agains the religious leaders revealed the great diversity of ways in which the institution then and now can reduce and distort its incarnational mandate. Jesus' message to those who hear responsibilty for the "religious establisthment" is a constant call to repentance.
The institutional chruch has a sublte but powerful interest in bringing the gospel under control and making it manageable. This has always been true. As defenders and beneficiaries of the instittuon, we are challenged by the mandate of incarnational mission to examine how we function critically,. The questions that the incarnational understading of mission places before the institutional church is this: Is our communal institional life a embodiment of the good news? Does the way we live, decide, spend mondy and make decisions as organizations reveal both the character and puposes of God for humanity?
Second, incarnational mission is a challenge to the individualism that dominates Western culture. If the gospel can be incarnated only in and through a community, then the individual Christian must be defined and understood in terms of his or her membership in that community. The individual Christian is constituionally dependent: he or she is part of an organic whole that lives and functions only as all its parts exercise their mutal interdependence. This does not discount the distinctive gospel experience of the individual Christian. But that experience is rooted in God's preceding action through the community and must enrich that community. We believe as individuals beacause God has been at work in the community of faith through the ages to bring the gospel to us and us to the gospel. Further, God's Holy Spirit weaves each individual's fatih story in to the story and witness of the entire community. In the New Testament, the gospel is addressed to the plural "you" to the community that is called, that has responded, and that continues to be sent as a missionarly people. If we are to witness to the gospel incarnationally, then we will take very seriousy the way in which we relate as individuals to the corporate church. We will take just as seriously the need to reflect critically and repentantly on the way the institution relates to its members.
posted by Wayj @ 9:12 PM
7 Comments:
two things i thought of as i read this.
first. the fact that the organization called the church has continued to serve its own interest in power and stability, leads me to awe that the Bible, as i believe it, is still in tact with the original message. it seems that through all the church does to establish a less dangerous message, it was never able to rewrite the pages of the dangerous book their ideas come from. this message is dangerous to everyone who thinks they are someone on their own, or in a self-dependent group.
second, i thought of whether or not i want to fight for or with the name of Christianity as it stands today. if we are a dependent group, leaning on each other for serving His purpose as a mission to the world, there is a world of refining to do before i would put my name on that organizations list. don't get me wrong, i know that community is necessary. i believe it was part of the way we are made. we can't do it on our own. but if i am choosing to live a life connected to God and His definition of me, i would rather not be lumped in with the "church". can i choose my own community?
In my early church history class, the professor ended the quarter by saying that he thought the institutional form the church took in the 4th century was necessary for its survival at the time, but there is no reason to think that the shape it took is the one shape forever and ever.
I think we need to constantly allow the Word to read us as we read it and to allow the dialogue to determine the shape of our churches.
I know what you mean about identification (or not) with the "church". I don't know if you "can" choose your own community, but I know that we do it all the time. I think there's a line between us being too individualistic and quitting on community too soon and communities becoming too binding and even abusive. What do you think? Do we choose a community, does it choose us? Does God choose and lead us together?
I think the call is clear that no matter which community we are a part of, we are to be the prophetic voice there and also to love the people who are placed in our midst.
community choosing us or us choosing community. difference of perspective and a difference in experiences. i do not know the answer and i could see how both are right. maybe what you were doing was making a rhetorically pensive question that has no true answer.
one thing though about the communities we belong to, they can not be exclusive or even semi-exclusive. it needs open arms, trusting newcomers to get involved and feel like they also belong. it is the outreach of the group that keeps the group from going so internal that they miss the big picture of life. (a.k.a. bakersville or waco davidians) then sometimes the community gets to large to exist as it is, and we choose to make structural, methodological, changes to keep the essential value of belonging intact. we all dred change, but ignoring the need can get us to missing the big goal.
but what does all this mean if you apply the word "communion"?
I think that outlook (literally) is what distinguishes actual community from cliques. At work, we had a professor come in and talk to us about conflict resolution and appropriate paths. We took a test showing our patterns of conflict engagement. Long story short, mine showed that I knew how to resolve conflict, but my first inclination was almost always to avoid it. The professor, Dr. Augsburger, said that it was because I lacked any real role models in this area.
I think the relationship is similar for many of us and community. We avoid it because we haven't seen it work. We've seen exclusive cliques and crazy cults, but we've rarely seen a functional community of grace and true love.
It's a blend of inward focus and outward focus, but it seems that many of our churches can't distinguish which one goes where. I think we need to spend some serious time working out when we should focus inward and when we should focus outward.
I'm thinking specifically of "ministers" who are not allowed to have community because they are perceived as being "exclusive". I don't think they should be exclusive, but I've seen many pastors of all ages burn out because they weren't allowed to have any real friends. They get caught in bad dating relationships or even bad marriages, but those were the only types of people (girlfriends/boyfriends or husbands/wives) they were allowed to hang out with for extended periods of time. Anyone else and they were accused of being a clique.
I think Thomas' introduction of the concept of communion is appropriate here. It is the coming together of the church and should be much more of a focus (in the Baptist church, anyway) than it is now. It is the physical reminder that we are one body, one people, and that we are permeated as a people with the Spirit. We come together in Jesus and share that.
This Fall, I (hopefully) will get to spend some time in the UK with a group/church that I think has this community thing down. They're called Tribal Generations (http://www.churchnext.com) and they have based their entire church strategy around hospitality. I think I may make this a new thread, but I think this is a key concept we need to learn (especially in the Fundamentalist wings of Christianity): It's ok to be nice to "unsaved" people.
the word communion has a slightly different taste to me. let me know if i am completely off track here. communion is symbolic of the most loving act that God could have ever done for this world. it is God-centered to the core because to dwell on this gift is to be grateful and glorifying to the Creater of the gift.
so why are we as a church, so exclusive about who should take the symbols? it should be only "the church", which in reality is a member of an organization, and only those who have made right with their neighbor and God the things that hinder the spiritual relationship. yes i think is of the utmost importance to take the symbols as a community and to remember the meaning of what we do, but what about those who are in our midst who are not "the church"? i think that if this is a God-centered act conducted in a manner that holds this value, then the symbol is not just for me, but for my neighbor as well. i think of whom Christ came for and i can't exclude anyone.
Sorry for the late response, it's the first week of the quarter and pretty crazy over this way.
I see what you mean about communion. When I was at the Highlands, they were very big on communion being for everyone, too. I think it can work on multiple levels for everybody present and see no reason to keep anyone from taking it. At the same time, we inherit a lot from the church in its first centuries of existence, when they were persecuted heavily and needed to hang on to a distinct identity. When it creates solidarity is great, but when it specifically excludes those of a genuine heart it goes very wrong.
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