Curtis A. Bronzan

I ran across an article this morning by James K.A. Smith in response to John Caputo’s What Would Jesus Deconstruct?: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church. What would be better? Not much, except maybe Caputo responding to Smith’s response!

The Calvin college professor and prolific author starts out by asserting that he is “already clearly on record as a friend and fan,” but seeks “to push the conversation further, taking the spirit of Jack’s book seriously enough to disagree with it.”

After affirming that the church is deconstructible, Smith goes so far as to affirm that the Kingdom itself is deconstructible as well, since Jesus characterizes the Kingdom “to come,”  revealing it’s “contingency, particularity and finitude.” As such, he asserts that “Catholic orthodoxy actually makes a more radical affirmation of deconstructibility than Caputo’s Derridean Jesus.” Here’s his conclusion:

And here’s the crucial difference: the Trinitarian God of Catholic faith is not scared off by contingency, particularity or deconstructibility. Unlike the Wholly Other of the Derridean Gospel, the Incarnate God exhibits no allergy to the deconstructible. Indeed, this is the very distinctive logic of incarnation: God does not call for the deconstruction and dismantling of the deconstructible on the basis of or with a view to some undeconstructible and impossible kingdom; rather, God condescends to inhabit the deconstructible. If we want to ask ourselves what Jesus would do, we might consider what Jesus did. The Incarnation is the mad story of the undeconstructible God who did not consider undeconstructibility as something to be grasped, nor did he despise deconstructibility, but rather taking the “human, all too human form” of a servant, he humbled himself to the point of inhabiting the very deconstructible structures of human law and culture—even to the point of suffering death at the hands of these institutions. But he did so not with a view to eviscerating the deconstructible, but rather to rightly ordering it such that the contingent, particularity of this deconstructible creation might reach its proper telos (a loose paraphrase of Philippians 2:5-11). It’s not “deconstructibility” that’s the problem; it is the particular, wrongly-ordered configurations of the deconstructible that are at issue.

The scandal of Catholic ecclesiology is that this logic of incarnation then extends to an institution, the church Catholic, which is now configured as the body of which Christ is the head. The same Spirit that inhabited and empowered the incarnate Jesus (e.g., Luke 4:1, 14, 18) is given to the ecclesial community (Acts 1:8). This continues the logic of incarnation: the undeconstructible God continues to condescend and inhabit the very deconstructible institution that is the Church. Far from being infallible or perfect, nonetheless the institution is an extension of this logic and bears within it all the resources it needs to make sense of its own failures. Indeed, two of its most significant seasons (Advent and Lent) are seasons of penitence; it gathers as a community weekly to confess its failures (when was the last time the Democrats got together to do that?!). But in contrast to the logic of purity that seems to motivate the Derridean critique of deconstructibility as itself a problem, the logic of incarnation testifies to a God who inhabits, affirms, and takes up all the messiness of a deconstructible institution. The Catholic affirmation of the institutional church is rooted in this logic of incarnation which is a continuing testimony of what Jesus did.

Some thoughts to ponder. It makes me wonder why Smith questioned David E. Fitch’s use of Žižek’s “lack” for the reformation of the church at the SBL conference last year. Maybe I don’t understand his criticism fully.

The aforementioned moral implications regarding managing for efficiency have influenced the church not only in its hierarchical power structure, but also its gospel message. Over time, this structure has seeped into each and every aspect of church life, thus resulting in a dangerous reductionism wherein the church primarily addresses the needs of individuals over community and organizes for efficiency rather than mission. Guder locates this dilemma early within church history:

As the gospel proclaimed by the church has been reduced to individual salvation, that salvation has itself become the purpose and program of the church. When the church went through the paradigm shift from its initial shape as a movement to its continuing shape as an institution, its focus was more and more upon the administration of the salvation. (Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church, 133)

Ultimately, then, it might be helpful to question the role of Jesus’ prophetic, eschatological temple action when addressing the role of the Church as an institution throughout history, though doing so is outside the focus of our present study.

This emphasis upon individuals and efficiency is closely mirrored, of course, in the first century Temple where the buying and selling of sacrificial animals had been reduced to a science, whereby individuals were promised the forgiveness of sins. In this sense, both the first century Temple as well as contemporary Western churches have missed the importance of being a “house of prayer for all nations;” (see Mark 15.17) the latter of which having done so at least in part by a misappropriation of Donald McGavran’s “homogenous units” principle.

Phyllis Tickle also examines the result of churches marketing themselves to meet the “needs” of church shoppers in her recent book The Great Emergence. She notes that beginning in the middle of the 20th century

[c]hurches began to have more building programs for basketball courts and swimming pools and fellowship halls that for sanctuaries and naves. Hugely expensive to maintain as well as to build, none of those courts and pools and meeting halls has as much to do with spiritual or religious growth in faith as they did with effecting a uniformity of social experience and formation that would be conducive to a uniformity of belief. (The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, 90-91.)

Julia Duin, religion editor for The Washington Times also notes the change in perspective. Following a discussion with a couple in Norfolk, Virginia, she writes “[t]hey were tired of how every church they entered was involved in some kind of building project. ‘Why is small bad?’ Diane asked as we chatted in an ethnic restaurant near one of her art shows. ‘Why does everyone want to be the Crystal Cathedral?’” (Quitting Church, 60) This prizing of the large over small is a further development of the two sacred cows, individualization and efficiency. As Fitch notes, “when numbers reach a certain level, a further increase in numbers may deter achieving the goals of being the body of Christ.” (The Great Giveaway, 29)

A final dilemma of contemporary Western church life is not as clearly seen within the first century Temple as previous aspects have been, though this does not minimize it’s problematic nature for contemporary ecclesiology. An over-reliance upon those in church leadership is also built upon the modernist ideas of individualism and efficiency. Fitch asserts that “effective leadership”

subtly trains pastors to act and behave as if they are in control of the church. These CEO-pastor-leaders do not serve, they lead; they do not submit to the community and the mutual gifts of the Spirit, they direct the organization; they do not see the church as an alive organism in which the Spirit moves to discern the future, they discern the future… Such pastors cannot help but become more controlling, authoritarian, and bottom-line oriented. (The Great Giveaway, 82. He continues: “When you take such pastors, formed as they are into effective leaders and trained into a scientific understanding of Scripture, you have a double recipe for heavy-handed despotism and future church splits.”)

As aforementioned, this is not precisely mirrored in the first century Temple, though it’s underlying current can be seen if we carefully factor in Jesus’ assertion that God’s house is to be a place wherein people can commune with God, as opposed to simply receiving spiritual goods and services, administrated by an authority figure. (See Mark 11.17)

A subset of this demand for “effective leadership” can also be seen in the unnecessary dependence upon preaching. Though thorough examination is outside the realm of our study, it should be noted that the Greek word kerusso, found through the New Testament and commonly translated at “preach”, should be more accurately rendered “communicate.” If recognized by churches, the preached word could more appropriately take it’s place among numerous ways of communicating the Word, which could also help diminish the capacity with which sermons can become passive shows in which the congregation must be entertained.

Fitch insightfully examines how an over-reliance upon the preached Word can reinforce a passive, individualistic faith. Referring to it as “The Lecture Hall,” he asserts “[t]he orientation of the worship service is toward the sermon. The goal is maintaining orthodox scriptural doctrine.” (The Great Giveaway, 97) This, he argues, worked when the dominant culture was in line with the church, though in a postmodern, post-Christian culture, such a rationalistic, individualistic means of communication cannot be called upon to effectively transform the congregation as it once did. This reality is completely missed by both Thom and Sam Rainer, authors of Essential Church?, as well as Julia Duin, in her otherwise helpful book, Quitting Church.

We have addressed both the first century temple system and Jesus’ action within it, as well as ways in which the contemporary Western church has “given away” what it means to be church, and next will turn our attention to renewing practices that could help the Western church rediscover it’s role as a community for the nations.

Alongside Jesus’ critique of the first century Temple, our contention is that the Western church has, to use David Fitch’s terminology, “given away” what it means to be church. Fitch boldly states,

it is our own modernism that has allowed us to individualize, commodify, and package Christianity so much that the evangelical church is often barely distinguishable from other goods and service providers, self-help groups, and social organizations that make up the landscape of modern American life. (The Great Giveaway, 13-14)

One glaring element of this complicity is the contemporary church’s over-reliance upon a capitalist framework, in many ways similar to the “buying and selling” encountered by Jesus in the first century Temple. (see, for instance, Mark 11.15) We ought to be careful, however, not to imply that all such buying and selling was in error, even in light of Jesus’ overturning of the tables, as the first century Temple was much more than a place of worship, but also market place. Jesus’ frustration with those buying and selling was instead due to the ways in which it had overtaken the Temple system, thus distracting others from the centripetal gathering for the worship of the God of Israel in response to their interaction with God’s chosen people.

Capitalism, however – and the consumerism it can engender – has become an integral element of Western culture, especially on this side of the Atlantic, causing a commotion that continues to distract those who would seek to gather in worship. In his recent work ChurchMorph: How Megatrends Are Reshapring Christian Communities, Eddie Gibbs reveals how this has been true since the start of the colonies. He states that

[t]he entrepreneurship of capitalism found its most dynamic expression in North America. This dynamism was not confined to the business and industrial worlds. It also created a “can-do” climate in the church that witnessed the birth of scores of denominations and hundreds of independent religious movements. These continue to proliferate even today. Thus Protestantism in general and evangelicalism in particular were shaped and stimulated by the spirit of competitive capitalism. They were the religious equivalent of “big business” operating with the same hierarchical structures and controlling leadership style. (ChurchMorph, 22. Interestingly, later in his study Gibbs devotes an entire chapter to examining the current role of megachurches, including significant time discussing the self-survey done by Willow Creek Community Church, Reveal: Where Are You?, see 87)

Of course, what Gibbs refers to as a “‘can-do’ climate” has led not only to births of denominations and independent religious movements, but countless work in and for the Kingdom of God, which should not be so easily dismissed. What is of concern to our study, however, is not capitalism per se, but rather how the hierarchical structures and controlling leadership styles so prevalent in a capitalist culture have and continue to negatively influence the Body of Christ.

The height of such a business-oriented approach is most noticeable in America’s megachurch movement, which informs its attractional model of ministry. Gibbs rightly notes,

the megachurch movement is largely a Boomer-generated phenomenon… [though] younger generations are looking for a different kind of church that is less program-oriented and event-focused, and more relational, empowering, incarnational, and community engaged. They challenge the attractional model of ministry as being the last hurrah of modernity, a throwback to the Christendom mentality.” (Churchmorph, 91)

In The Great Giveaway, David Fitch asserts that the megachurch concentration upon numbers and institution size is “rooted in two of America’s sacred cows: the autonomy of the individual and the necessity to organize for economic efficiency.” (Fitch, 33) He elsewhere asserts,

Numbers miss measuring how well as church is functioning as the body of Christ. Numbers often miss measuring the progress of discipleship in a church. Numbers do not reveal how a church group is functioning internally, whether people are building up each other, ministering to each other, and ministering in the outside community as the body of Christ. In short, numbers, on their own, say nothing qualitative about what is going on in the church when viewed as the body of Christ. (Fitch, 29)

By engaging with Alasdair MacIntyre, Fitch reveals how the project of modernity has influenced these aspirations in the church;

Choosing to manage for efficiency is a choice with moral implications. It presents values and purposes all on its own that may conflict with what it is we are trying to organize for. Such organizational efficiency relies on its own social scientific narratives for its legitimacy, and can in fact be used to masquerade as social control. (Ibid, 38-39.)

As is perceived in the above quote, inherent to this critique is the understanding that the church exists not only to gather for Sunday services but rather to facilitate a community wherein the Body of Christ may be continually built up.

Instead of being viewed as a gathering of people wherein the many members build up one another through the use of their spiritual gifts, contemporary church life has become an institution whereby passive participants consume spiritual goods and services. In his book The Ministry of the Missional Church, Craig Van Gelder insightfully addresses this development by discussing the role of the Established and Corporate Churches. The “established church,” he argues, is one where the church’s “self-understanding is that it serves as the primary location of God’s presence and activity in the world.” (72) This, it could be argued, was the primary means by which the first-century temple system viewed itself and may in fact continue to influence the self-understanding of many mainline American churches. Others, however, function as “corporate churches”:

At the core of their identity, what might be labeled as part of their genetic code, is an organizational self-understanding related to purposive intent. This tends to lead to a functional or instrumental view of the church where a congregation’s primary identity is related to it being responsible to accomplish something. (Ibid, 72)

What concerns us at this juncture, however, is not whether contemporary ecclesiologies seem primarily established or corporate, but rather the way each have been adapted into a capitalist, consumer-driven culture, led by highly hierarchical, controlling structure. Greene and Robinson state,

The goal of all this activity is movement – not for its own sake but for the sake of the world. Movements require flat structures and are genuinely lay in their driving force. They tend to emphasize relationships, especially among leaders, and, rather like a virus, a successful movement will mutuate many times to meet the local conditions that it finds. (Metavista, 193)

David Fitch offers some helpful thoughts on the Miss California debacle:

To me this Ms California episode is an irruption of the Real (in a Zizekian sense) for us evangelicals. It reveals the horror of who we are in the eyes of the gay/lesbian peoples. For she is a symbol for how we project onto gays/lesbians our own sexual sin thereby making ourselves feel better. By saying what she said about gay unions, moments after the swimsuit competition, she was basically telling the world “we do the same things, but for gay people it’s sin.” We have duplicity personified as Miss California says “lust is good, objectifying my body is normal, the fulfillment of all desire is good” on the one hand, and then with the other says to the gay and lesbian world, “but you can’t do any of this – because you’re different you are not allowed.” In the process she becomes a glaring symbol of how by pointing out someone else’s sin, we can ignore the empty cheap frivolity of our own sexual lives and still feel better about ourselves. We do not need to fess up that our own sexual habits are so badly skewed, our desires so poorly oriented. We can keep on ignoring the emptiness of our own sexual sanctification by displacing our lack of “enjoyment” onto “the others,” the gay and lesbian people. This too often has become the nature of our witess in society. As such, I believe such an episode reveals the inner contradiction of our own sexual life and politics as evangelicals. And the gay world just looks on with a snicker.

Considering the overwhelming hypocrisy of this episode, I would be ecstatic with only a snicker. I am convinced the gay community’s perspective on the evangelical church is much worse. And justifiably so.