community

I don’t think I’m grossly misrepresenting the book if I say that Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistible Revolution is basically an impassioned, iconoclastic, mischievous challenge to the modern church to do what the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-30) so famously failed to do - sell everything it has, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus into life-changing solidarity with the disenfranchised and destitute. So Claiborne’s is another powerful and increasngly fashionable voice calling the church to be a radical Jesus movement again (see also ‘Being a disciple of Jesus is not enough’). But it still seems to me that this desire to revert to the pattern of Jesus-discipleship arises essentially as a reaction against the excesses, hypocrisy, idolatry or ineffectiveness of the modern American church; it is of only limited value for the larger task of reconstituting the people of God following the collapse of the Christendom paradigm.

In the context of the current renewal of missional theology the suggestion that the church is essentially ‘prophetic’ in its nature is contentious for a number of reasons. On the one hand, it is likely to raise concerns about the relationship between emerging theologies and the modern charismatic movement. So for example, prophecy has typically been understood by charismatics as an individualized gift of the Spirit rather than as an attribute of the church as a corporate entity; and for many the idea may carry uncomfortable memories of the trivialization of divine speech or of the abuse of authority. On the other hand, the prophetic has been associated in other traditions with forms of direct social-political critique and action that may be difficult to reconcile with evangelical notions of mission. The challenge, then, is to ground the notion of a ‘prophetic community’ in the biblical narrative in a way that moves us beyond the limiting charismatic model of prophetic speech without breaking the link with a core and sustainable definition of mission.

I think that insofar as we are trying to re-think what it means to be a follower of Jesus or a Christian, then we would all benefit by not worrying about the problem of “relativism” and its ugly cousin “absolutism.” We live in real communities where there are limits, but those limits are not set in stone. We have to read what the Bible says and integrate it into our lives as best we can. Relativism and absolutism add layers of modern, metaphysical and philosophical baggage, and so they are superfluous to this process.

There are right tools…for the right job. Tools are designed to make jobs easy and more productive. Using the wrong tools can oftentimes be counterproductive and sometimes hazardous. You wouldn’t want to use the sole of a shoe as a hammer, nor a kitchen knife as a screwdriver; but the truth is, we probably have. We did it because the tools that we needed; at that moment, were simply out of our reach or unavailable. So, we proceeded with what we had.

The Church would do well to explore the differences between organic and organizations tools.

This thread seems to be circling around some very important issues of first principles in the formation of Christian communities. I’d like to sketch out what I see to be these first principles.

Vynette, it’s good to see that despite the lack of support from traditional theology, you are willing to forge ahead. As long as your position produces a viable reading of both scriptural and other evidence, I wouldn’t worry about the lack of conformity too much.

Theology is not some external thing that has to be conformed to. In the final analysis, theology is what you believe about God!

Lee, your comments on the ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ theme are to the point and very helpful. I’m not sure I can take the analysis very much further, but here are some rather condensed and erratic thoughts.

Are You Longing for Involvement With a Fresh, Authentic Expression of Christian Community? Are you sensing a need to uncover new ways to express Christian community? Are you wanting to discover how to be more authentic in Christian living? To experience a greater depth of worship that flows through all parts of our lives?

I believe that a fresh, new approach to Christian community living can begin to be imagined and lived out by understanding some of the principles of “Open-Source” – a new way of thinking and co-operating that is powering new technologies and resource use, throughout the world – the most prominent example being open-source software – the kind of software that increasingly powers the Internet.