The comment is often made that people have no interest in denominations any more. If the comment means that people outside of the church have no interest that is probably true in the same way that they don't have any interest in many of our newer forms of doing things either. If it refers to people inside the church the statement may well or not be true.
I do think it an interesting comment. It is particularly interesting when put by people who themselves in preference to traditional denominations belong to new groupings and networks. For just as a denomination is a gathering around 'a shared something' so are such newer groupings. In turn various sociological perspectives demonstrate (whether they be social movement theory or more performance based ideas around 'communitas' as recently discussed by Frost and Hirsch)that nearly all groupings have to take on some structured form in to maintain their life together.
To be sure in newer groupings or movements the organisational structure may be lighter or more relational rather than the committee structure of older institutions. On the other side unlike these traditional institutions in new grouping where power lies and how it is exercised and by whom may be more hidden and accordingly less open to question and critique. Issues of hierarchy exist in all all groupings old and new.
I mention the above to indicate that I am suspicious of all institutions whether they be new or old. In my suspicion I look at the reasons why such groupings exist - what they gather around...a charismatic leader, a creed or statement of faith, a set of shared values, a task, or the goal of simply being relational and so on. This is important because this indicates what some have referred to as the 'inner voice' of an institution - the thing that can always push it back to being a movement.
In my own grouping because strictly speaking Baptists in Scotland are not a denomination at the centre is not actually relationality (although we want to be intentionally relational) nor a creed (although we want to be creatively rooted) not even mission (although we want to be unashamedly missional) nor even the Declaration of Principle - but rather at the centre is the one to whom all this points and gets its direction and life - the person of Jesus Christ as borne witness to in the Scriptures. It is to his presence, example and guidance we ever look to deconstruct and reconstruct us in his image. It is because he is central and our understanding of what this means for our way of being the church and bearing faithful witness to him that I am a loyal radical to the 'baptist' way of things as it ever seeks to be a movement.
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