Janine, a commenter on the last string, asked a wonderful question. It's such a wonderful question, in fact, that I'm bumping it to the top of the pile. There's still a good discussion going on about spiritual gifts on Tara's thread (I've got a comment I want to throw in there after my last papers are in on Monday) so keep checking there, but Janine's question looks like a great way to look at another important topic. Here it is, have at'er:
I’m wondering if any of you could elaborate on the community aspect of salvation. If salvation is about “being part of communion with the Triune God in Christ together with all the saints, as sort of a first outpost… of the Kingdom of Heaven”, what does that look like? Community can be about conforming and unquestioned loyalty. If Christianity is about more than me and my Bible and God, more than being good and more than my Decision, what do I do with my intense desire to learn and debate and question in a Church community that seems happy to float along on entertainment?
9 comments:
Great great question.
To me it probably needs to be said that while salvation is ultimately about a new community (a new creation) made in Christ, it involves both the individual/personal and the communal experience. Both dimensions are important and biblical. But when we talk about salvation being more about community we probably are addressing and responding to the HUGELY LOPSIDED over-emphasis in evangelicalism in the other direction.
It is like we're trying to correct an imbalance, but every day in our own ingrained minds and every week in churches we feel we are up against insurmountable odds (especially since our consumer culture gives us plenty of impetus for individualism on top of it all). I'm saying we here, but maybe its just me.
Anyway, I don't think the answer is some sort of feng-shui balancing act but is individuals who take their personal relationship with God seriously and submit it to the community for the benefit of others and it is communities who look out for the individuals and celebrate diversity in their unity and in the expressions of the Body of Chrits.
But the gifts are ultimately for the Body, not for self-fulfillment, even though we can speak of "self-fulfillment" in the most biblical sense of the word in this regard. But it isn't some detached method of finding oneself and then going with it. It is found in relationship with God that is primarily communal.
I think in the end the way we are the true church is not through a conflict-avoidance type communism-of-the-powers-that-be but through entering into reconciliation with GOd with one another. This involves communion in diversity (but not a communion of pluralism) in Christ, with its members speaking the truth in love and forsaking even their private piety if it means reconciling with a brother or sister in the family.
That's my starter thoughts. I'd love to hear from others.
One more thing I'll throw in there though. To me the Shack is the epitome of evangelicalism. To get with God you gotta go to a shack and have an individual vision where he adapts himself to your imagination to speak to you. I think this may happen once in awhile and certainlyl makes for a good story. But if you wanted to talk about the actual God we serve you'd have a story where the man found healing as God spoke to him through intimate community of truth-telling love and grace.
this is a GREAT question! I have wondered the same thing myself. Good points Jon.
I think our north-american culture simply does not lend itself well to us understanding what true salvation in the context of community means. We are an individualistic society... but I suspect God is far more community minded than we are.
I remember reading OT stories and being absolutely horrified that God would allow judgement to fall on whole countries or communities or even families because one man screwed up.... it just doesn't seem fair that I would be held in any way responsible for someone else's actions...
and yet... we ARE responsible, if even in a small part, for those around us- do we listen when God asks us to confront someone or love someone without judgement? Either can be very difficult. Do we give our stuff to people if God asks us to? Do we invite people into our homes and into our lives even when we desperately wish for some privacy? These are not easy things to do but are definitely asked of us.
I remember hearing an excellent speaker talk about "the Deeper Life" which is an emphasis in the Alliance denomination (in theory). Anyway, part of the talk was about how we consider salvation to be that moment someone believes and then that's it. But really it is a process. It is more than that moment where we decide we don't want to go to hell... it is our journey into the deeper life and into truly knowing God more. We can't do that on our own... so perhaps that is what salvation in community terms means= we are continually being saved (so to speak) as we get to know Jesus and His people more each day.
Wow. What a brilliant question and what really thoughtful responses.
I only want to add to what has been said, not critique. I think it is important—crucial, even—to state at the outset that Christian community is not of our own making. Instead, Christian community is constituted in the person of Jesus Christ by the Spirit. It is the body of Christ, the fellowship of the Spirit.
Christian community is not the social project of Christians that they undertake with their own political/moral resources. It is not the coming together of like-minded religious people for the purpose of forming a voluntary society. Neither is Christian community constituted on the basis of mutual affections through which our differences are overcome by some transcendent impulse within ourselves. Christian community is a gift of God, in Christ, by the Spirit. It is marked by the sacraments of baptism of Eucharist. It stands under the authority of the one in whom it is constituted: Christ as witnessed to by the Scriptures. Christian community was inaugurated at the incarnation and blossomed at Pentecost, but it won’t be consummated and fulfilled until the great marriage feast of the Lamb.
What does this mean? It means that Christian community is an object of faith (“I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, the communion of saints”), a derivative of faith in the Triune God (“I believe in God the Father”… “One lord Jesus Christ”… “and the Holy Spirit”). As such, Christian community is ultimately taken out of the hands of Christians (thanks be to God!). It also means that Christian community is inevitable: we don’t get to choose Christian community, it is simply “given.”
Does this absolve Christians from certain social behaviours? Not at all! The fact that Christian community is a gift means that Christians participate in it as they do in Christ: in faith. This faith entails obedience and love. Christian faith overflows and works out in Christian community in that faith and love and hope: in reconciliation, as Jon pointed out. So, we go to church, we give to the church, we serve one another in the church, we witness in the church, and we participate in the sacraments and worship of the church…. in faith, in obedience, and in love. In this we all stumble along in our sinful, half-attempts. As such, the Christian community we see is lame and weak and more often than not, toxic. Someday, all that is said of Christian community will be seen by us. It will be seen to be the one, sanctified, truly catholic, and faithful community that it already is in Christ.
Wow, thanks! I was trying to remember why I should interrupt my 7-month-old's morning nap, pack him up and take him to church so that I could miss half the service in the nursery feeding him - but now I remember. Dustin's point about community not being our doing but God's bears more thought.
Tara, I had been thinking lately that some of the "atrocities" in the OT are hard for our current culture to take because of individualism but I'm still working that out in my head. I find that I hate the idea of anyone else being responsible for my actions or me being responsible for anyone else's but I guess that goes right back to Cain and Abel (Cain not his brother's keeper?).
I appreciate you taking the time to discuss my question. And now for a redirect: If the NA church is hugely lopsided toward individualism because of our culture, am I responsible to try to fix it or just join in as best I can?
Janine
excellent excellent point Dustin, so true.
And Janine? Excellent question about whether to fix or join in... I don't have an answer... I'm hoping someone else does though :)
I'm usually to lazy to actually comment on blogs (sorry Tara I know that drives you nuts) but to Janine's second question I must respond. My answer to you would be yes on both accounts. Yes we all need to be involved with the fixing but we can't do that without being involved.
If there is anything about my/our generation that disturbs me it is that there seems to be a tendency to retreat and try and create something new rather than staying engaged with the church and christian communities we are a part of and actually having an influence. Do I agree that the church in general misses the point? Yes! But I can't change or influence that without engaging the people where they are at, the people dealing with some of the very misconceptions that each of us has or is working through.
I'm good with people being unsettled, bitter, angry, sad or whatever other emotion the church brings out of us (I'm pretty sure it should bring joy, peace, love also but those aren't the first ones that come to mind) but what I can't handle is when we don't do something to change it for the good. If we keep doing this (which I think the church has done for years) we foster the individualism that we hate and any hopes for true community built on the love of Christ and the reconciliation he points us too.
Dave
I completely agree Dave!
Great question! And great replies. Thanks everyone.
Here's my two cents:
One aspect not touched upon yet is the question: why is salvation a communal reality?
First, we were created to be relational beings - beings who have their center and source (life, orientation, etc.) outside of themselves in God. As other-centered beings, we were also created to be in relationship with other human beings. We were created to be interdependent, to call the best out of each other, to share in stewarding God's creation together through our unique gifts, creativity, abilities, etc.
Second, we are fallen. We (Adam/Eve and all of us) usurp the center and try to make ourselves the source of life, purpose, and of good and evil, etc. This fundamentally distorts our nature and our experience of reality. Rather than having an orientation toward others, we have hearts turned in upon themselves (to use Luther's phrase). We now exist in a state of being-for-self, rather than being-for-others. We have made ourselves ultimate subjects and ends - and everything else (including God, other people, and material things) become means to the end that is ME.
So, I think Christ came to deliver us (in part) from self-captivity, and so Christian community becomes a redemptive community in which our full humanity as relational or other-oriented beings (in relationship with God, others, creation) is cultivated (new humanity, new creation).
We have trouble with the difficult tension of being both individuals (having eternal value, as individuals) and being one with others. So, we must be on guard against the constant temptations toward either individualism with a diversity amounting to relativism (the McChurch thing) and collectivism with a unity amounting to uniformity (we are not the BORG). We are neither "rocks/islands" nor drops of water to be absorbed into the ocean of Being. Or, as Bonhoeffer more practically put it, "Whoever cannot be alone should beware of community . . . whoever cannot be whoever cannot stand being in community should beware of being alone" (Life Together).
I think it is helpful to think of the church community in terms of metaphors that emphasize interdependence and relationality. Too often, we think in consumerist or contractual terms. In the former, we come to church as consumers of products, services, or experiences (like going to a movie, concert, or self-help seminar). In the latter, we come together because of a common interest, cause, or activity (like a book club, service club, or gym). In both cases, church is something secondary and extrinsic to who we are. It's something ultimately for our own self-improvement.
In contrast, the church is more like a live production (in which we are all actors) than a movie; more like being in a band than going to a concert; more like being on a sports team than going to the gym; more like a family than a business; etc. etc.
I do have another question, though: Is there a difference between "Christian community" and "church". What is the difference and how are they related?
Hmmm... salvation as liberation from the self to the other. That is helpful, Patrick.
I really do think that the Christological nuance is indespensible. So, yes, Christians have been saved for communion/fellowship/community with God and other human beings BUT that communion/fellowship/community is ONLY a mediate one, namely through Christ by his Spirit. Christian community is a Christological reality. What I would want to be very careful to avoid is any notion of Christian community that is "naturalized" and "immediate". The mediation of Christian community--both divine and human--is through Christ, who is both human and divine. Christian community is only as real as Christ is real... but certainly no less real. (Thus, as I said above, we approach its reality in faith.)
About the difference between Christian "community" and "Church": I have treated them as interchangeable. Do you see anything in Scripture that would suggest we should distinguish them?
As an aside, I have been intrigued at how the Luther translation of the Bible regularly renders the greek term "ekklesia" (church) with the German term "Gemeinde" (community) rather than "Kirche" (church).
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