Resuscitation vs Resurrection
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, let’s try riffing off this quote from Jeremy Begbie (from ‘Created Beauty’, an essay in the book ‘The Beauty of God’ ed. Treier, Husbands and Lundin)
… a theological account of created beauty will return repreatedly to the Holy Spirit as the one who realizes now in our midst what has been achieved in he Son, thus anticipating the future. … A Christian account of created beauty is thus charged with promise. It is not chiefy determined by a sense of a paradise lost but of a glory still to appear, the old beauty remade and transfigured, the beauty of the future that has already been embodied in Christ … Here there is much to be said for the ancient wisdom of Basil the Great … for whom the Holy Spirit “perfects” creation, enabling it to flourish in anticipation of the final future.
The key component I want to play with is that the prime model for Christians is not reversion to a past paradise or resuscitation of what we think has been lost, but new creation and resurrection.
So, in our interaction with our surrounding culture and society, our principal goal should not be to to recover the ‘good old days’, or to stop the rot by taking it back to its roots, but to push forward to new things. The new may have continuity with the old, but we are not aiming to go back in time.
For me this meshes with Hauerwas and Willimon’s point in Resident Aliens — they suggest we should act as an alternative community because playing by the wider rules of society compromises our message. I think what I’m saying is a time-orientation equivalent — we mustn’t become so associated with our culture that we want to go back to its glory days; instead we are to looking to a alternative future — redeemed and transformed.
This doesn’t mean we dump things that are important, but that we think about them in fresh ways. So, perhaps as an example we could say that we don’t promote marriage/family because it has been the stable basis for our great society (which is sometimes the impression given), but because the freedom of commitment is true liberation, etc. and this can be an agent of liberating transformation toward a new future. (This is off the top of my head, so it’s not exactly thought out completely…)
Another application for the general theme is worldviews — typically descriptions of a Christian worldview will focus on creation. But we must be cautious that we don’t just look back. We know that the future is a transformed creation not simply a reversion. God is not acting simply to take things back to ‘how they were meant to be’, but on to ‘how He intends them to be’. (Although the past may give indications for the future.) Revelation gives a picture of new creation as something more than that described in Genesis 1-2. Our worldview must reflect this reality.
[Footnote: I am wary that this matches my personal inclination, so I could be reading what I prefer into things. But then, if you don't like it maybe you are doing the same thing?]
Tags: culture, provocations, Resident Aliens, worldview
influencing culture
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve been thinking more about Stanley Hauerwas’ criticisms of how the church engages the world (see, e.g., Resident Aliens). Simon Chan picks up on this in ‘Spiritual Theology’ with the following summary:
…the real problem is that for much of Christian history, the church operated on a monolithic understanding of engagement with the world that was based on the Constantinian model. The church has to take out citizenship in the world in order to exercise influence in it. Then, as a respectable world citizen, the church has to play by the rules set by the world. Stanley Hauerwas put this model of Christian engagement under deep probing and found it wanting. He offered an alternative model for Christian engagement based on the Anabaptist concept of the church as an alternative polis, the church as a colony of “resident aliens” on earth whose real citizenship is in heaven. Hauerwas believes that such a church, far from being irrelevant to the world, can actually challenge the world by offering a “real option” to the world through its own disciplined life (a “community of character”)
My thoughts on this were provoked by reading a letter to a newspaper implying that the church had lost its moral authority. This got me thinking where we get our moral authority from. In the past it was an accepted part of western culture, but it seems that the accepted-ness is now passing.
So, we have a choice. One possibility is to become another pressure group — one slightly out-of-step with the culture. Hauerwas’ problem with this is that we are forced to play by the rules laid down for us. At that point we lose something significant. If nothing else, the rules do not assume a post-resurrection world. It seems to me that the message of new creation gets distorted — lost in translation. It seems like the distorted message often comes out sounding negative and reactionary, rather than positive and new-creation-like.
Another option is to act as an alternative community. To model new creation; to ‘practice resurrection’ (W. Berry). If we really believe that what we have is the true way to live, is really ‘new life’, then should we expect that a community living that way will attract and will find its own moral authority from its fruit. Then, when people come to us, we have a position from which to speak. If you think this is fanciful, then take it up with Isaiah — it seems to me that this is something like what he is describing when he says
In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it. Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.”
It’s not about trying to put our agenda on others, but having fruit sufficiently attractive that others come and ask how it works.
I shouldn’t leave before pointing another sub-option. Discussing Can Church transform the culture?, Graham Tomlin talks about the church being a place where people are formed who can positively influence society. Again, he has Hauerwas and associated observations in mind.
to be continued (probably)…
Tags: church, culture, Resident Aliens
adventure
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
In honour of the new addition to our family, an appropriate quote from Resident Aliens (Hawerwas and Willimon)
It is our privilege to invite our children … to be part of this great adventure called church.
Tags: church, Resident Aliens
Claiborne-Hauerwas mash-up
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve recently been reading two books that make an excellent pair: Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne and Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon. The two make an interesting ‘theory plus practical implementation’ combination.
Resident Aliens is about (amongst other things) the church resisting both ‘total withdrawal from culture’ and a ‘serving the culture’ approaches. In saying ‘serving the culture’, the implication is that we adjust the gospel (and, in particular, political aspects) to fit what is acceptable — so we make sure that we fit the expectations or at least the rational of the culture. We assume “that the key to our political effectiveness lies in translating our political assertions into terms that can be embraced by any thinking, sensitive, modern (though disbelieving), average” person.
For example, we may focus on lobbying as is the acceptable method of political action in Western democracy. But, perhaps in taking this approach we are forced to adapt the gospel to fit the system or persuade those we are lobbying to support our view.
The alternative presented is to be true to the gospel, with church as a ‘Christian Colony’. So that we do act, but we act in radical ways that follow the gospel even when it may not fit the expectations of the culture and its politics.
That which makes the church ‘radical’ and forever ‘new’ is not that the church tends to lean toward the left on most social issues, but rather that the church knows Jesus whereas the world does not. In the church’s view, the political left is not noticeably more interesting than the political right; both sides tend toward solutions that act as if the world has not ended and begun with Jesus.
…we are forever forgetting how decisive, how eschatological, is the event of Christ.
Irresistible Revolution is about (amongst other things) stepping away from the ‘giving to the poor’ model to actually going and living with the poor. And about living as true communities where middle-class Christianity doesn’t normally hang-out. And about living as true communities full stop. It also goes on into creative demonstrations on issues and, really, prophetic actions. It seems that this is one thing that might result if you read Resident Aliens and take it seriously.
(Afterword: I wanted to call this ‘Disruptive Grace’, borrowing (and re-creating!) the idea of Disruptive Technology. I found the term is already taken. But, hey, there are only so many words to go around, so I’m sure we can share. And accidentally stealing from Flannery O’Connor is no bad thing…)
Tags: church, culture, Irresistible Revolution, Resident Aliens
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...