Politurgy

Baptist way of being the church and Scottish Independence

First of all to set the context let me repeat from an earlier post a preamble...

Free Church (ana) baptist Preamble

(with a nod to John Howard Yoder and Body Politics)

The Christian Church is part of society and nation in so far as it is located within that wider concept we call nation and state. Its distinct nature brings a particular 'social expression' into that society. Distinct, the Christian Church has to constantly discern how it will relate to that wider society not least in those aspects that impinge upon the lives of the congregation. The choices open to include: seeking to transform the structures of that society in keeping with Kingdom of God; seeking to humanise the brokeness of that society through care; withdrawing from engagement with that society as witness.

It can be argued that the nature of such church engagement should flow of its own inner practices in so far as they themselves bear witness to the Kingdom of God. I say in so far as they bear witness to the Kingdom of God because historically the practices of the Church have not historically always been on the side of Jesus as borne witness to in the Scriptures. So for example churches that have practiced hierarchical and oppressive structures can hardly be seen as standing in the tradition and practice of the head of the Church Jesus.

Accepting at least the aspiration of the church in its practices to reflect the way of Jesus, as suggested above, the starting point for church engagement with the wider society can be its own practices. To put that dfifferently, in so far as the church practices in relation to the ordering of its human life represent the Kingdom of God, engagement with society can take the form of asking what these would like if implemented in wider society.

Of course there is a problem in the above suggestion. The 'Church' and the 'World' are not the same thing. One seeks to live consciously under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the other does not. Churches not least in the 'free church' tradition do and should recognise this distinction. This notwithstanding this does not rule out 'engagement' as variously described above for a number of reasons:

• Jesus is Lord over all things not just the Church
• The Kingdom life as is expressed in the practices of the Church is the coming reality
• While the World is not the Church there can be places where the practices of the Church at least in a 'thinner' version can be applicable to wider society.

The last point involves making an important distinction between 'thick' practices which are appropriated in all their fulness through faith and 'thin' practices which are ideas that can be applied beyond the Church although not in their full dimensions. e.g. the church may practice through faith 'forgiveness' and as such encourage in wider society approaches of conflict resolution although without the faith dimension and committment to sustain it. The latter though not the church practice of forgiveness based in faith is moving in the right Kingdom direction.

In the light of the above this for me raises the question of what the Baptist way of being has to say in relation to questions on Scottish independence.

The Baptist way of being the church and Scottish independence

Firstly, the Baptist way of being the church breaks down any ideas of 'nationalism' determining a Christians ultimate loyalty. Our first loyalty is to Jesus Christ. Neither a future Scottish nation nor equally the case the present British nation can be given our primary loyalty. Jesus never said: 'your country wrong or right'. He did say 'Come follow me'.

Secondly, if ultimate loyalty is to Christ, believers baptism points to a new humanity that supercedes other loyalties based upon any other criteria including that of 'nation'. 

'For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.'

Accordingly flowing from our allegiance to Jesus Christ this new humanity which supercedes national borders claims our first allegiance.

The above accordingly argue against ideas of independence based upon 'hard' or 'ethnic nationalism' which in any way would regard or treat others as lesser or enemy.

Thirdly, the above points being held, the Baptist way of being the church yet holds to notions of local governance under Christ. To be sure this local governance does not negate principles of 'interdependence' with and a 'concern for' others to whom are also granted this local governance - such is necessitated by points 1 and 2 above. (NB Scottish Baptists are part of British; European, and World Baptist fellowships and associations) 

Yet, it affirms that this local governance is best way in which people can work out what is best for them in context. (NB we have a distinctive Baptist Union of Scotland). The individual letters in the New Testament while having wider implications and application yet indicate the 'local' nature of church life and practice as each sought in context to bear faithful witness.

In the light of this it can be argued that a (thin) projection from the Baptist way of being the church in the world is a sitiation of local accountable governance which does not yet negate the relationship of that 'state?' to other 'states?' in equality, good will, and mutual support.

This being the case from a Baptist perspective one may well resist notions of hard and ethnic nationalism but yet argue for the value of local governance particularly when and where such in its outcomes offers the potential of more participatory, accountable, and just societies.

For me it is in this realm - where Amazing Grace and Freedom Come All Ye meet (not in the popular 'worldy' playground of Mammon) that Scottish Baptists (Christians?) need to have their particular debates and wrestle through their opinions. 

 

denominations other institutions, loyal radicals and Jesus

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.

But what do you mean...by mission

We use language to communicate. Part of the grammar of that language are individual words. Often these words are 'key' to the meaning we wish to convey. The meaning of individual words of course is not simply located in the word and the thing that it signifies. Rather the meaning of the word is found in relation to a variety of contexts...the grammatical use, the context of the utterance...and what it means in the mind of the speaker and hearer. If we do not recognise this we may all be speaking and hearing using the same words but meaning completely different things.

Take the word 'mission' for a start. The concept of mission is an important one. It is important because of our biblical and theological convictions and it is important because we in the 'West' find ourselves in a missionary situation whereby our lands are now among the most demanding 'mission fields' in the world rather than being the Christian nations from which missionaries are sent around the world. Newbiggin got this some time ago but it is taking some time to sink in...

One of the issues here, however, is that while we may be talking more about mission and indeed missional and even agreeing on the need for it we may all be using this language in quite different ways.

An experiment I sometimes conduct with classes and conferences is to ask individuals to identify and name what for them is their key 'missionary' Scriptures. As most of the circles I mix in are evangelical Matthew 28:19ff. comes out top a lot...but there are others OT and NT ranging as recently from Wisdom literature to Prophetic literature, to the gospels, Paul and the other Epistles.

If I have time I then ask folks to unpack what these verses, their key verses communicate about mission...the variety is considerable Matthew 28 and Luke 4 have somewhat different notions of mission going on.

My point in this exercise is simply to highlight that as we use the word mission we all may be referring to Scriptures but these Scriptures highlight different and perhaps even competing claims on what mission is. Indeed even when people are using the same Scriptures we may have different translations and interpretations of the them: e.g. Matthew 28:19 ff read as 'Therefore go' creates as different feel and perhaps imperative from the equally valid from 'As you go' translation.

Of course in such a topic as mission the richness of the various Scriptures is not a bad thing but together can inform us - but bringing these ideas together and wrestling through what 'we mean' involves both tiime and probably a somewhat stable community to work out and interpret not simply how we read these Scriptures but what we hears the living Christ say to us. This takes place as there is shift from an individual to a communal understanding of the words in context.

Establishing meaning takes time and a community committed to the discernment process. The time this takes may be frustrating for us missional activists. Yet, I suggest that greater participation will result from greater ownership created in the time given and taken to learning and agreeing. The alternative may be many words about mission, and enthusisim for mission but in practice confusion, misunderstanding, and inaction from the majority.

 

 

 

Who has power in interactions...

Frost and Hirsch helpfully distinguish between 'attractional' and 'incarnational' models of mission. As a heuristic tool this language allows us to distinguish between those approaches that invite people to come to our events and those where by we go as it were to where people are.

Within a broad misional intent both are valid...in the Gospel of Mark Jesus both presences himself among people and has people enter his presence (great study by Glen Stassen on Incarnational Theory of the Cross).

As I reflect on the difference between these two missional approaches I find myself interested in the question of 'power'. As a minister I have been involved I think in a range of quite adventurous attractional 'out-reach' missional activities. Often these have sought to provide culturally relevant expressions of the gospel 'dance cafe', 'multi-media presentation', 'open-youth club' etc. yet in all of these I with others have retained the power - power of event, power over venue, power over acceptable and non-acceptable behaviour, power of inclusion and exclusion. This power has often been reinforced by the implicit and explicit conventions of the buildings used - or an already established morality.

In contrast to this as I have pursued some social and leisure activities bagpipe playing, learning dancing etc. this has been done in other peoples buildings, where other peoples rules operate, and often in a context where instead of being the person with something to share I have been the person learning and as such dependant on others. These latter activities have demonstrated for me how much power I previously exerted implicitly or explicitly even if only through my socially ascribed status as a 'minister'.

People talk about being vulnerable in mission and this I think relates to questions of power. To be sure we can 'serve' in mission but often we serve from a position of power rather than from the position of 'slave'. In this respect I note that generally we prefer to talk in our translation of the Greek 'doulos' about 'servant' leadership, ministry, mission - rather than 'slave' leadership etc. It seems to me that Phil 2:5-11 etc. resists a notion of 'servant' which retains power.

I am not sure what this means for our mission. It clearly cannot mean avoiding offering compassion and creating confrontation in calling for repentance because both were aspects of the mission of Jesus. (Stassen) Yet both of these were done on the basis of no claimed external authority (power, status, validation) other than that of God inherent in the act. Indeed the external authorities (powers) rejected these claims and crucified Jesus leaving it to God to validate through the power of the resurrection.

What am I saying...risky mission may well be when we lay down all power and throw ourselves into something where we trust in the authenticating of none but God of the compassion we bring and confrontation we cause...

Okay - my question would be - what does that look like in practice...well...go join a club and do something where you are a learner, have no prescribed social status, and just be present working out what faithful witness looks like...and trust in the self-authenticating 'power' of God that embraces death and brings resurrection...

 

 

 

Knitting...

I have made a fuller participation in the comments of this discussion:

http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/?p=3975&cpage=1#comment-965494

 

reading yoder for the substance of discipleship

Anabaptist reading group (Glasgow) restarting on Tuesday 2nd September at Tinderbox Ingram Street at 7.30. If you want to come along and not received an email from me message me and - it can be so.

We will be reading and discussing this book which contains a series of articles by the late John Howard Yoder  and which hopefully makes his thinking more accessible to a variety of readers others than those of an academic bent.

The goal for me will be to move beyond showing our knowledge of Yoder (if we have any) and discussing what he writes to the 'practical' concern of what this 'witness' based on Scripture and centred on Christ means for our own discipleship. If we fail to get there on a night we will have ended up discussing Yoder, the book, and even discipleship but may have failed to allow this witness to 'analysis' and 'discuss' us in the light of what it means to follow Jesus. Oh to be sure there will be the many tangents, moments of nonsense, rants that cannnot be spoken elsewhere than in a safe group, and disagreements but...

In the introduction to the book we are told:

'Where churches have become self-focussed and sheltered, Yoder calls us to be creative and mission-minded. He also challenges us to witness to Christ in every aspect of our lives. Where churches have become judgemental, Yoder calls us to be truly evangelistic, proclaiming the good news of God's offer of abundant life. Where churches have become conversion-focussed, Yoder calls us to be disciple-focussed, being and making followers of the way of Jesus. Where churches have become too political, Yoder calls for a new kind of politics in the body of Christ, embracing forgiveness instead of a finger pointing, conflict resolution instead of a polarized patisanship, and unity in Christ instead of competing interest groups. Finally, where churches have become hypocritical, Yoder calls us to radical Christian discipleship, shunning legalism and self righteousness and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit as we take up the cross and follow Jesus. Yoder's challenge to the church not only addresses surface issues of image, but tackles core issues of substance. He helps us ask again, who is Jesus? And who are we called to be as his followers?'

To be sure these latter issues require to be explored with tough thinking and deep feeling but if they are considered apart from concrete doing - discipleship will once more have been emptied of its substantial content which only exists in embodied lifestyle.

Liminality and Maintaining the Status Quo

As indicated in my previous post 'liminality' is a threshold place. Accordingly, sometimes when people talk about us living in a 'liminal' period in regards to the Church they envisage a period of change between what has gone before (Christendom, modernity, inherited Church etc) and a new future of a new way of doing and being Church. (Note that Frost and Hirsch in 'The Faith of Leap' offer a more sophisticated reading than this).

This idea of passing through 'liminality' to a different future has both problems and dangers. One of the problems is that 'liminal' times, such as rites of passage may be periods of 'threshold' but in fact they are designed not so much to transform the wider society but are contained within it in order to maintain it. E.g. a person moves from child to adult in a rite of passage and returns to the society in a new role but in the same old structure and society. To put that differently, for an individual or group a period of time may be 'liminal' but that very 'liminality' is managed by wider society for its own ongoing self preservation. Turner recognised this reality in his discussions of the 'liminal' particularly in older agrarian societies and accordingly while such periods were ones of novelty and involved the playing with traditional symbols and included the 'potentiality' for change in wider society they need not result in such. He writes 'Thus the tribal liminal, however exotic in appearanc, can never be much more than a subversive flicker. Tt is put into the service of the normativeness almost as soon as it appears.' [Turner, ‘Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology’ in From Ritual to Theatre: The Human seriousness of Play, by Victor Turner (New York: PAJ Publications, 1982), 44-45.]

This potentially limited nature of the 'liminal' period can be compared to the way in which events such as Carnival can be seen and accepted as a place in which people 'let of steam' in order that they then return to the more stable structure and way of things. I recently saw some fairly scantily dressed Carnival dancers led by a singer who on his hat had pictures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus! In turn the limited nature of liminality can also be related to ideas of the way in which the dominant system of Consumer Capitalism can even manage protest against it to self serving ends.

For the Church this limited nature of the concept of the liminal can be instructive:

It perhaps warns that present missional concerns and changes may simply be a letting off of steam which will settle down again.

It perhaps indicates he way in which potentially transformative 'movements' within the Church can be constrained and restrained and perhaps even used to simply maintain the status quo of the Church as ideas and practices are modified according to overaching established normative ideas. E.g. the Emerging Church movement was perhaps nullified as a reform movement from the moment that its ideas and books were being sold in mainstream Christian bookshops under such headings as 'evangelism' or 'Messy Church' can be not a new way of doing or being Church but simply the description for an occassional alternative (all age) service held now and again while 'real' services remain the stable diet and if not the fundamental structure of the institution in its politics remain the same.

At times I engage with 'missional' writers to critique their ideas not because I am against transformation in the church but precisely because I often think that that which is being presented as 'radical' are behaviours ultimately deeply controlled by the normative and inherited ideas of a particular way of being the Church rather than actually changing the status quo.

All of this said the concept of the 'liminal' remains interesting and important for thinking about our present situation as do other ideas associated with Turner. in this respect I think that the ones which are more instructive are 'the liminoid', 'communitas' and 'liminal people'.

 

Liminality and Victor Turner

I first came across the term 'liminal' many years ago in the book 'The Missionary Congregation, Leadership, and Liminality' (1997) by the missiologist Alan Roxburgh. It was a good read and still worthwhile. When I engaged in further studies it was a word that appeared now and then. During my PhD studies in the first stab at what I was going to do (about 2003) the concept was going to figure quite centrally but then got dropped. Actually, I remember, vaguely attending an academic conference where I heard someone mutter that if they heard the term used again they were going to scream! Oh it was popular and not.

More recently it has reemerged into the 'evangelical' and 'missional' discourse through the work of Frost and Hirsch along with the attendant concept of 'communitas' e.g. 'The Faith of Leap'.

Basically taken together people like to talk about us living and carrying out mission in a 'liminal' period. At times some of the comments read a bit 'derivative' that is people quoting people with respect to the concept but not wrestling with the concept. That is okay and I am no expert but (having rediscovered my notes in a clear out) I am happy to share some of my ignorance and lots of my opinions in a few posts. In this I just introduce the idea a bit...

The concept of 'liminality' is generally associated with the work of Scots born anthropologist Victor Turner (1920-1983).

In developing his category of the liminal Turner acknowledged his dependence upon the earlier work of anthropologist Arnold Van Gennep.[1] Van Gennep in his work had explored in ‘simpler’ societies what he described as ‘rites of passage’, that is ‘the ceremonial patterns, which accompany a passage from one situation to another or from one cosmic or social world to another’.[2] These rites he argued could then be broken down into ‘rites of separation, transition rites, and rites of incorporation’.[3] Van Gennep classified these rites as ‘pre-liminal’, ‘liminal’ and ‘post-liminal’ respectively.[4]

In developing van Gennep’s work Turner was particularly interested in the transitional, ‘threshold’, ‘margin’, liminal period.[5] For Turner this ‘betwixt and between’ period is one when participants, ‘threshold people’, enter a period of ambiguity.[6] In such a period they experience community or better ‘communitas’ with the other participants.[7] Such an experience of liminality frees the participants from the normative controlling structures of society where status and institutional arrangements dominate.[8] As a marginal place, from a structural standpoint, liminality is a ‘dialectic’ place that has to contend with existing structures but is yet a place where they are challenged.[9] Accordingly it is a place of potentiality.[10] Acknowledged in his earlier writings Turner developed the notion of the potentiality and creative nature of ‘anti-structural’ liminality in his later work.[11]

While Turner’s anthropological studies were done among societies radically different from the West it can be argued that periods of social change and upheaval made his work appealing because of the parallels that could be drawn from the rituals in these societies and socio-political upheaval in the West.[12]

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[1] Turner, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, by Victor Turner (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1995=1969), p. 94.  

[2] Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, trans. by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960=1908), p. 10, italics van Gennep.

[3] Van Gennep, Rites, p. 11, italics van Gennep.

[4] Van Gennep, Rites, p. 11.

[5] Turner, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, p. 94.

[6] Turner, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, p. 95.

[7] Turner, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, p. 97, italics Turner.

[8] Turner, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, pp. 96-97.

[9] Turner, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, p. 129.

[10] Turner, ‘Liminality and Communitas’, pp. 127-128.

[11] Turner, ‘Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology’, From Ritual, pp. 44-48.

[12] Abrahams, ‘Foreword’, Ritual Process, p. viii.

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No permission needed to engage in public space...

The following blog post has been highlighted by a variety of people: Nick Baines Blog. This blog is are response to an article in the Independent challeninging the Archbishop of Canterbury's involvement in politics. The responses Baines makes to the article are very good. I would, however, want to add a couple of comments:

First of all I think that the issue of the established nature of the Church of England is an important question in relation to this article and would support the disestablishment of the Church of England just as I don't think the Kirk should have 'national' Church status in Scotland.

Secondly, and following on from the above there is a danger that the responses to the article are based upon the implicit assumption that the Church should have a 'recognised' public voice. Recognised by whom? I think that the Church should have a public voice that speaks out and into the reality of society seeking the transformation of structures and the humanisation of ills. Yet, to do that it does not need to argue its 'right' to do so. Indeed to argue for its right to do so assumes that there exists outside of the Church validating criteria and a legitimazing authority which agrees this 'right'. The Church does not need to have anyone to agree to its having a public voice to have one, it just needs to act and speak publicly deriving its authority from the authority of Christ. Methinks (playful old language)  that those who have been prophets have not always argued for their right to be prophets against those who denied them that they right - they have just got on with it and lived with the consequences for the sake of a greater reward...to paraphrase something from Hebrews 11.

Pay Day Loans and the Poor Among Us

Various churches including the ‘Kirk’ have now expressed their clear opposition to the extortionate rates of interest charged by pay day loan companies. Generally this ‘prophetic’ intervention into wider society has been welcomed not least as it has been accompanied by practical suggested alternatives. the latter is required because pay day loan companies do provide help for those who may have no other options and are better than local loan shark operators.

This prophetic intervention, however, has also resulted in some embarassing soul or at least investment seraching to ensure that churches have not been investing, however indirectly, in the sort of companies who engage in such loan activity. In turn , it has been at least interesting to see some of public discussion in relation to how different religous groups including Christianity have traditionally responded to the issue of giving loans and helping the poor etc. Scripture passages of various types have been quoted in the press including in the Herald article by Andrew McKie Churches play a blinder on the scourge of payday loans (my thanks to Doug Gay's tweet for drawing my attention to this).

All of this has to be welcomed. 

Yet this discussion poses the Church with another question. This is the question of how we respond to Scriptures which are concerned primarily with our internal life as a 'community of believers' and which at least suggest some sort of redistribution of wealth as a characteristic of Holy Spirit inspired community Acts 2:44-45; 4:34-35 so that there are no poor among us. To be sure this approach has not been dominant in the mainstream tradition of church - yet it nags away suggesting that the upper limits of some may have to be lowered if others are to be lifted up.

I find this whole thing deeply challenging not least because of my own anabaptist inclinations. Historically as Arnold Snyder argues 'Economic Sharing' was an anabaptist church practice. Radical economic sharing was the the visible sign of ones committment to the community. Sometimes as with the Hutterites this took the form of an organised community of goods. For all, however, it meant caring for the poor, the widows, and the orphans. 

This suggests to me that even as the Church seeks to transform or humanise wider society it has an internal challenge of practicing such care so that members of the Christian community need not resort to either Pay Day loan bodies or Credit Unions but find their immediate help in and from the community of faith.

In this I am not in any way suggesting the old maxim: 'charity begins at home' but rather the idea that 'Judgement begins with the house of God' and that bearing witness requires not simply suggesting a more ethical wider society but also embodying in practice a more ethical community. The salt of the earth also needs to be a light ona  stand, a city on the hill.