Here is an encouraging article, "Long Live the Organic Church" by Mark Galli.
Here is a response to that article by Bob Roberts, Jr. , founding pastor of NorthWood Church in Dallas/Fort Worth and numerous other church plants.
Here is my response to to Bob's response. (Since I can't post it to Glocalnet, I'll just make do here!) ; )
________________________________________________
I agree, Bob: whether there's an organic, emerging, ancient-future, Greatly Awakened or whatever church doesn't much matter to me. But it DOES matter that the church is Christ's body. So please help me out here. I'm confused by your response to Mark Galli.
Can you please clarify:
1) Exactly what do you mean when you use the word "institution?" What do you mean when you use the word "church?"
2) Do you think that Galli is saying church=institution? Do you think he has the same definition as you do?
3) Are you saying that church should not be an institution?
I wonder if you and Galli aren't speaking two different languages. IMO Galli speaks premodern Realism; you seem to be speaking (post)modern Nominalism. These are two different metaphysical positions, two different hermeneutics. As a result, I suspect that what he means by institution is different from what you mean by it.
I wager that for him, Church = Body of Christ, a la Ephesians; while for you, church is what you call the collection of individuals who each love Jesus. For example, you write, "those are merely LABELS and expressions outwardly." ISTM that for you, church is just a name, a "nomen", not referring to anything real; while for Galli, church is NOT just a name; it DOES refer to something real, some whole which is greater than its parts, (what Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas called a "Form" or a "Universal.") This might explain why you wrote that the church as institution merely means "to be organized, maintained, well-funded, institutionalized." For nominalists, that's all an institution CAN be, because they have no other way of understanding "institution."
But Realists have the metaphysical vocabulary and ontology--"individuals PARTICIPATE in universals; individuals image universals." They are able to speak about deep, real, organic RELATIONSHIPS. These relationships occur only because they are formed and nourished in the womb of universals/institutions.
Nominalists do not have such a vocabulary. Because they do not countenance universals, there is nothing greater than the individuals themselves, nothing in which they might PARTICIPATE. They can only CONNECT.(Again, I suspect you are a nominalist because you use that very language: "Real-time CONNECTIONS - LINKING your job..." Note the difference between "connect" and "participate in") For nominalists, only individuals eare real. Individuals either choose to connect with other autonomous individuals, or they connect randomly. Institutions do not assist in connecting because they are "fictions." If anything, they impede connections, because they falsely present themselves as something real to connect to. ("What's real is Jesus, not the church!)
I'm mystified as to how a nominalist can have anything "deep down inside," simply because individuals are more like atoms, sticking together in masses or bouncing apart. That is not the stuff of intimacy, either with other people or with God. "Deep down inside" implies a more sophisticated, nuanced metaphysic, one which demands participation rather than simply connection. Isn't that why marriage is taken as a major metaphor for our relation with the Lord in scripture, rather than say, oxen being yoked as a team, or a fasces (rods tied together to form a cylinder)?
I'll tip my hand and admit that I am not a nominalist, because IMO nominalism is liable to lead to greater problems than realism, as my blog references indicate below. To put it another way, I'd rather deal with the problem of the church as an institution than the problems of NOT having the church as an institution. (Institution in Galli's sense). I'd rather deal with the problem of marriage as an institution, than the problem of NOT having the institution of marriage.
Blessings IN Christ ; )
Beth
-----------------------------------------------
from my blog,Sat. Nov. 3, 2007:
This recent article appeared...from the Christian Post:
"A Gallup Poll in June found that Americans have less confidence in organized religion. Only 46 percent said they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in church/organized religion which was one percentage short of being the lowest in Gallup's history since 1973.
"I would say that [the drop is] because organized religion is organized and it’s religious,” Batterson said.
Among teens, many are not as interested in learning the traditions of their faith or listening to religious teachings as much as they are in making a connection with God and seeking a better understanding of what they believe, a recent Barna study showed. Most teens prefer a church that teaches how their faith should influence everyday decisions and lifestyle rather than one that teaches the traditions and background of their faith.
And as churches begin to break institutional walls and increasingly reflect the body of Jesus Christ, Schuller sees the Church becoming a 24-hour experience.
"[Church] is going to be experiential and lived out in daily lives,” he stated. “If people ask me ‘Where’s your church?’ I’ll often say ‘What time of the day is it?’ This is a good illustration of my point. So, okay it’s 9:00 Wednesday. Elder John is over at his store selling suits. So part of the church is over there. Sister Mary’s just getting back from dropping her kids off at school, so that part of the church is over there.
"I can go with every member of the church and say that’s where the church is," Schuller said.
"I’m talking about where the church of Jesus Christ is recognized not as an institution, not as a building, but is recognized as the individuals that make up the body of Jesus Christ, living by faith and caring for one another and loving one another," he stressed.
This is the apotheosis of nominalism, the idea that universals are not real, that the only things that are real are individuals. (The Wikipedia article isn't a bad place to start if you need clarification.) Institutions are universals, so automatically they are taken to be unreal and unecessary.
If we follow this metaphysic to its logical conclusion, there is no such thing as the Body, only the collection of individuals that make up the body. There is no Whole, only the sum of the parts. There is no United States, only the census of its individual citizens. There is no Church, only the individuals.
If we follow this line of thinking, we will be forced to conclude that there is no God, only three Persons. Are we prepared to go there? Furthermore, we will have to rewrite John 15, to eliminate all that talk about a "True Vine" and "remaining in me," and just celebrate the collection of the many various branches. Are we ready to do that?
Certainly, a Christianity without universals and their corresponding institutional incarnations will be increasingly appealing for postmoderns, who prize their individual freedom above all else. But we need to do some serious reflection: Is this a place for the Church to be truly countercultural, and display the mind of Christ, rather than the mind of Modernism and Postmodernism? Is there something greater than individual autonomy? Participation is a limiting concept, for it requires accomodating ourselves to something greater than ourselves, something universal. Can there be church and body without participation in Church and Body?
from my blog, June 14, 2007:
Scot McKnight recently posted this riddle:
“Hostile to the church, friendly to Jesus Christ.” These words describe large numbers of people, especially young people, today. They are opposed to anything which savors of institutionalism. They detest the establishment and its entrenched privileges. And they reject the church — not without some justification — because they regard it as impossibly corrupted by such evils. Who do you think said this? [No googling answers.]
It was from John Stott, written in 1958.
IMO it is an oxymoron, but then again I'm not I'm not a good nominalist. A protestant hermeneutic, insofar as it is nominalist, will not be able to countenance universals. An institution is a universal; thus institutions must be opposed. It seems essential to classic Protestant identity to protest, focus on the tension between Christ and church, to always be struggling, to live in the "not yet." Institutions make for broad and handy targets of criticism. Thus for Protestants it makes perfect sense to emphasize the distinction between the two, and assume that somehow one can relate to Christ independently of Church.
[1/8/10: I'm inserting an observation here. One reason I think you may be operating out of a nominalist metaphysic is your frequent use of 1st person singular, as opposed to 1st person plural.
Postmoderns, riding the tsunami of modernism to its inevitable shore, exult in deconstruction and the slaughtering of sacred cows. Institutions invite dismantling-- marriage, church, family, whatever. But some postmoderns (inexplicably) draw a line at deconstructing persons, and so Jesus is able to escape the knife. Thus emergents can relate to Jesus independently of the Church.
But is this faithful to scripture? How does this connect with what Paul writes in Ephesians? Does Paul consider "institution" somehow different from Body? (And even if He does, is Body a particular, or a universal?) Again, a protestant hermeneutic, insofar as it is nominalist, will not be able to countenance universals; an institution is a universal; thus institutions must be opposed.
But what if there is a different hermeneutic, one that is not based on the modernist nominalist metaphysic? What if there are universals, in which particulars participate? (Augustine and Aquinas seemed to think so, calling them "ideas in the mind of God.") Then it will not be so easy to dismiss institutions, or read "Body" as anything except a universal in which particular congregations and persons participate.
As for "me and my house," we take the Church to be the Body of Christ, and that Body is incarnated through the institutional church. So it is a contradiction to accept Christ but reject His Body. Perhaps it is even heresy? ( from Gk. hairesis "a taking or choosing," from haireisthai "take, seize," middle voice of hairein "to choose," of unknown origin.)
Here is a response to that article by Bob Roberts, Jr. , founding pastor of NorthWood Church in Dallas/Fort Worth and numerous other church plants.
Here is my response to to Bob's response. (Since I can't post it to Glocalnet, I'll just make do here!) ; )
________________________________________________
I agree, Bob: whether there's an organic, emerging, ancient-future, Greatly Awakened or whatever church doesn't much matter to me. But it DOES matter that the church is Christ's body. So please help me out here. I'm confused by your response to Mark Galli.
Can you please clarify:
1) Exactly what do you mean when you use the word "institution?" What do you mean when you use the word "church?"
2) Do you think that Galli is saying church=institution? Do you think he has the same definition as you do?
3) Are you saying that church should not be an institution?
I wonder if you and Galli aren't speaking two different languages. IMO Galli speaks premodern Realism; you seem to be speaking (post)modern Nominalism. These are two different metaphysical positions, two different hermeneutics. As a result, I suspect that what he means by institution is different from what you mean by it.
I wager that for him, Church = Body of Christ, a la Ephesians; while for you, church is what you call the collection of individuals who each love Jesus. For example, you write, "those are merely LABELS and expressions outwardly." ISTM that for you, church is just a name, a "nomen", not referring to anything real; while for Galli, church is NOT just a name; it DOES refer to something real, some whole which is greater than its parts, (what Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas called a "Form" or a "Universal.") This might explain why you wrote that the church as institution merely means "to be organized, maintained, well-funded, institutionalized." For nominalists, that's all an institution CAN be, because they have no other way of understanding "institution."
But Realists have the metaphysical vocabulary and ontology--"individuals PARTICIPATE in universals; individuals image universals." They are able to speak about deep, real, organic RELATIONSHIPS. These relationships occur only because they are formed and nourished in the womb of universals/institutions.
Nominalists do not have such a vocabulary. Because they do not countenance universals, there is nothing greater than the individuals themselves, nothing in which they might PARTICIPATE. They can only CONNECT.(Again, I suspect you are a nominalist because you use that very language: "Real-time CONNECTIONS - LINKING your job..." Note the difference between "connect" and "participate in") For nominalists, only individuals eare real. Individuals either choose to connect with other autonomous individuals, or they connect randomly. Institutions do not assist in connecting because they are "fictions." If anything, they impede connections, because they falsely present themselves as something real to connect to. ("What's real is Jesus, not the church!)
I'm mystified as to how a nominalist can have anything "deep down inside," simply because individuals are more like atoms, sticking together in masses or bouncing apart. That is not the stuff of intimacy, either with other people or with God. "Deep down inside" implies a more sophisticated, nuanced metaphysic, one which demands participation rather than simply connection. Isn't that why marriage is taken as a major metaphor for our relation with the Lord in scripture, rather than say, oxen being yoked as a team, or a fasces (rods tied together to form a cylinder)?
I'll tip my hand and admit that I am not a nominalist, because IMO nominalism is liable to lead to greater problems than realism, as my blog references indicate below. To put it another way, I'd rather deal with the problem of the church as an institution than the problems of NOT having the church as an institution. (Institution in Galli's sense). I'd rather deal with the problem of marriage as an institution, than the problem of NOT having the institution of marriage.
Blessings IN Christ ; )
Beth
-----------------------------------------------
from my blog,Sat. Nov. 3, 2007:
This recent article appeared...from the Christian Post:
"A Gallup Poll in June found that Americans have less confidence in organized religion. Only 46 percent said they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in church/organized religion which was one percentage short of being the lowest in Gallup's history since 1973.
"I would say that [the drop is] because organized religion is organized and it’s religious,” Batterson said.
Among teens, many are not as interested in learning the traditions of their faith or listening to religious teachings as much as they are in making a connection with God and seeking a better understanding of what they believe, a recent Barna study showed. Most teens prefer a church that teaches how their faith should influence everyday decisions and lifestyle rather than one that teaches the traditions and background of their faith.
And as churches begin to break institutional walls and increasingly reflect the body of Jesus Christ, Schuller sees the Church becoming a 24-hour experience.
"[Church] is going to be experiential and lived out in daily lives,” he stated. “If people ask me ‘Where’s your church?’ I’ll often say ‘What time of the day is it?’ This is a good illustration of my point. So, okay it’s 9:00 Wednesday. Elder John is over at his store selling suits. So part of the church is over there. Sister Mary’s just getting back from dropping her kids off at school, so that part of the church is over there.
"I can go with every member of the church and say that’s where the church is," Schuller said.
"I’m talking about where the church of Jesus Christ is recognized not as an institution, not as a building, but is recognized as the individuals that make up the body of Jesus Christ, living by faith and caring for one another and loving one another," he stressed.
This is the apotheosis of nominalism, the idea that universals are not real, that the only things that are real are individuals. (The Wikipedia article isn't a bad place to start if you need clarification.) Institutions are universals, so automatically they are taken to be unreal and unecessary.
If we follow this metaphysic to its logical conclusion, there is no such thing as the Body, only the collection of individuals that make up the body. There is no Whole, only the sum of the parts. There is no United States, only the census of its individual citizens. There is no Church, only the individuals.
If we follow this line of thinking, we will be forced to conclude that there is no God, only three Persons. Are we prepared to go there? Furthermore, we will have to rewrite John 15, to eliminate all that talk about a "True Vine" and "remaining in me," and just celebrate the collection of the many various branches. Are we ready to do that?
Certainly, a Christianity without universals and their corresponding institutional incarnations will be increasingly appealing for postmoderns, who prize their individual freedom above all else. But we need to do some serious reflection: Is this a place for the Church to be truly countercultural, and display the mind of Christ, rather than the mind of Modernism and Postmodernism? Is there something greater than individual autonomy? Participation is a limiting concept, for it requires accomodating ourselves to something greater than ourselves, something universal. Can there be church and body without participation in Church and Body?
from my blog, June 14, 2007:
Scot McKnight recently posted this riddle:
“Hostile to the church, friendly to Jesus Christ.” These words describe large numbers of people, especially young people, today. They are opposed to anything which savors of institutionalism. They detest the establishment and its entrenched privileges. And they reject the church — not without some justification — because they regard it as impossibly corrupted by such evils. Who do you think said this? [No googling answers.]
It was from John Stott, written in 1958.
IMO it is an oxymoron, but then again I'm not I'm not a good nominalist. A protestant hermeneutic, insofar as it is nominalist, will not be able to countenance universals. An institution is a universal; thus institutions must be opposed. It seems essential to classic Protestant identity to protest, focus on the tension between Christ and church, to always be struggling, to live in the "not yet." Institutions make for broad and handy targets of criticism. Thus for Protestants it makes perfect sense to emphasize the distinction between the two, and assume that somehow one can relate to Christ independently of Church.
[1/8/10: I'm inserting an observation here. One reason I think you may be operating out of a nominalist metaphysic is your frequent use of 1st person singular, as opposed to 1st person plural.
Postmoderns, riding the tsunami of modernism to its inevitable shore, exult in deconstruction and the slaughtering of sacred cows. Institutions invite dismantling-- marriage, church, family, whatever. But some postmoderns (inexplicably) draw a line at deconstructing persons, and so Jesus is able to escape the knife. Thus emergents can relate to Jesus independently of the Church.
But is this faithful to scripture? How does this connect with what Paul writes in Ephesians? Does Paul consider "institution" somehow different from Body? (And even if He does, is Body a particular, or a universal?) Again, a protestant hermeneutic, insofar as it is nominalist, will not be able to countenance universals; an institution is a universal; thus institutions must be opposed.
But what if there is a different hermeneutic, one that is not based on the modernist nominalist metaphysic? What if there are universals, in which particulars participate? (Augustine and Aquinas seemed to think so, calling them "ideas in the mind of God.") Then it will not be so easy to dismiss institutions, or read "Body" as anything except a universal in which particular congregations and persons participate.
As for "me and my house," we take the Church to be the Body of Christ, and that Body is incarnated through the institutional church. So it is a contradiction to accept Christ but reject His Body. Perhaps it is even heresy? ( from Gk. hairesis "a taking or choosing," from haireisthai "take, seize," middle voice of hairein "to choose," of unknown origin.)
1 comment:
Wow! How do you avoid feeling like a minnow pushing against the bow of an oil tanker? Saying: "Noooo! You're supposed to be going this waaaaaay!"
Our hope is in the Lord, with him all things are possible. I guess the most encouraging thing is what was said about being obedient, leaving the transformational stuff up to God.
Beth, thanks for challenging me today. God bless you!
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