Curtis A. Bronzan

At the outset of the third and final portion of our study, we remind ourselves of Jesus’ proclamation in the first century Temple, which informs our ongoing thesis:

And as [Jesus] taught them, he said, “Is it not written:
‘My house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11.17)

Jesus’ statement, it should be noted, is a joint quotation of Isaiah 56.7, which features YHWH looking forward to the day when eunuchs and foreigners would worship in the temple; “these I will bring to my holy mountain, and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations” and Jeremiah 7.9-11, where YHWH questions, “‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe” – safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD.”

Central to Jesus’ proclamation – as well as his counter-cultural ministry – is the assertion that the Kingdom of God is now at hand, and as such, those previously excluded from the Temple system are now included in this new eschatological movement of God’s people. This is seen from the outset of Mark’s gospel, as seen in the first chapter of Mark: “After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. ‘The time has come,’ he said. ‘The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!’” (Mark 1.15) Though it seems entirely obvious at this point in our study, we must remind ourselves that the heart of Jesus’ mission and ministry centered not upon a program or personality (even His own!), but rather the worship of YHWH.

This reality forms the primary church practice for renewing the Western church toward an increased missiological engagement. As we turn our attention toward renewing church practices, we should be careful to note that the difficulties of deconstructing church hierarchies looks different in each setting. As Van Gelder states, “it is hard to read the materials of the New Testament on their own terms and come to any clarity of how to proceed with matters of leadership practices and organizational structures. Power gets institutionalized within structure, and once structure is in place it is quite difficult to reform.” (The Ministry of the Missional Church, 124) Thus, this concluding post will, at best, hope to broadly sketch some possibilities for renewing the church in the West.

Though we have previously recognized the difficulty of relying upon the preached Word as the primary means of communication inherent in Quitting Church and Essential Church?, their authors rightly recognize it as a means by which congregations are able to commune with God. Duin states that pastors who rely upon “[t]ime alone, time spent with God, time spent in the Bible… [and] fight for this time manage not only to produce better sermons but also to keep their personality centered on God. When they slip off that center, that’s when the worst problems arise.” (Duin, Quitting Church, 133) Of course, this cannot simply be the focus of the pastor, but must become the focus of the entire congregation. And in light of our study, this must become the focus of the congregation’s communal gatherings, even reshaping the structure of our gatherings. In his study of nominality, Gibbs rightly recognizes the role of worship in the life of a community;

Religion becomes secondhand when a generation arises which refuses to hear from God or to whom God has become silent… The important issue is to recognize that as soon as the second generation becomes the dominant group in the life of the church, nominality becomes a growing problem, unless that generation has its own authentic experience of God.” (In Name Only, 44)

Instead of allowing worship services to remain in an attractional role, truly missional communities should begin seeing such gatherings as opportunities to incarnationally translate the gospel into a particular culture. Darrell Guder puts it this way:

What we have received from our traditions must be empowered by God’s Spirit so that it can be “passed on” (traducere – tradition), and we are to be the agents of that translation. This becomes very concrete: the language we use, the forms of communication we adopt the music and symbolism, the liturgies – all of this can and must be translated for the sake of the witness we are to be and to do. Our worship services are to be missionary events, invitations to follow Christ. (Guder, The Continuing Conversion of the Church, 46)

Gibbs agrees: “The worship of missional and emerging churches is God-focused, rather than seeking to enhance the celebrity status of the preacher or worship leaders – it is “the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future.” The Gospel and Our Culture Network, “Empirical Indicators of a ‘Missional Church,’” The Gospel and Our Culture 10, no. 3, in Gibbs, ChurchMorph, 45-46)

Indeed, this realization is a necessary step toward renewing church practices, as worship is not a mere program, but is central to the heart of a faithful community, as proclaimed by Jesus in the first century temple. Without reforming the theology and structure of church gatherings, increased missiological engagement thus runs the risk of becoming another program to do for church, instead of a way to more fully be church. Craig Van Gelder writes,

Interestingly, the missional church conversation has introduced a new dimension into the discussion of the identity of the church. At the center of this conversation is the relationship of the church to its context in light of a different understanding of the nature of essence of the church. In this conversation, mission is no longer understood primarily in functional terms as something the church does, as is the case for the corporate church. Rather it is understood primarily in terms of something the church is, as something that is related to its nature. (The Ministry of the Missional Church, 85-86)

Central to the desire to reform our worship gatherings is to recognize the churches calling to engage faithfully within their particular cultural setting. We have previously noted the mid-century reconception of the local church as a community center which features basketball courts, swimming pools and fellowship halls, thus becoming “the centralized, hierarchical, and stabilizing organization, the life-giving replacement for, and integration of, all that had been lost when urbanization and automotive mobility ripped us away from a common imagination.” (Tickle, The Great Emergence, 90)

Though it is easy to criticize these offerings as a misstep, we must also recognize these churches inherent desire to engage with their neighborhoods. A more faithful way of engaging, however, is explicated by Van Gelder, who notes that congregations led by the Spirit have a dynamic relationship with their surrounding communities, as they seek to join God in what He is doing, instead of imparting their own vision. Thus, there are elements of relying upon the community’s resources and elements of seeking to serve the community in needs not yet met. He asserts:

The primary way of theorizing this relationship is from the perspective of “resource dependence theory.” Congregations must be aware of the resources they need to draw from their environment in order to carry our their purpose and accomplish their vision. The types of information that a Spirit-led congregation should be interested in gathering about its community include such things as population trends, demographic profiles, transportation patterns, residential location of membership, organizations serving the community, business development and employment, and so on. It is important not just to gather such information, but… to read this information from a theological perspective. (Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church, 85-86)

Gaining such information allows an increasingly mission-minded congregation toward engaging with the realistic needs of their community, instead of building gyms and swimming pools in hopes of attracting more giving units. (We are further reminded of the missiological orientation of Jesus’ temple act by Matthew, who highlights his prophetic judgment in light of those who came to him immediately following; “The blind and the lame came to [Jesus] at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they were indignant. ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him. ‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, ‘have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise’?’” (Matthew 21.14-16)

Previously in our study we alluded to the research of Donald McGavran, who discussed the “homogenous units” principle, which – due to misappropriations of his writing by the church growth movement – has led to increasingly ethnically segregated churches in the West. Without oversimplifying, we should recall Solomon’s prayer that foreigners would be drawn to the temple because of God’s holy name and Jesus’ assertion that the holy place was to be “a house of prayer for all nations.” (Mark 11.17) Thus, while we can recognize and appreciate McGavran’s findings, we must question any church growth strategy that would purposefully exclude others, due to their “otherness.” On the contrary, Van Gelder asserts that

a Spirit-led congregation is reminded that they also were once strangers and foreigners and that they can actually grow into a deeper understanding of the reconciling powers of the gospel as they become relationally connected to the other. The biblical and theological issues is that cultural diversity needs to be understood as a gift from God to be celebrated rather than as a problem to be solved. (Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church, 51)

It is not only for “our” sake that we include the “other,” however. Van Gelder later notes “it is often through contact with the other that new insights into how to participate in God’s mission in the world come into focus.” (157)

Therefore, instead of ignoring our differences, an increasingly mission-minded church must seek to become a place where our diversity is an opportunity whereby we can more fully represent the worldwide Body of Christ and more beautifully serve those in our community, looking forward to the day where all tribes and tongues will join together in glory. Van Gelder, again; “The church is therefore a sign to the world that the now is already present, a foretaste for the world of the eschatological future that has already begun and an instrument to share this good news with everyone everywhere.” (The Ministry of the Missional Church, 111)

We have thus asserted that to renew church practices in the West, ecclesiological leaders must recognize the importance of the congregation as a worshipping community who engages with their surrounding community, purposefully including the “other,” in hopes of meeting God in His missio Dei. Though our study has focused upon the perspective of those in leadership, these changes must also reform the institutional implications of each congregation, especially in light of the upside-down Kingdom Jesus sought to inaugurate in His ministry and prophetic temple action. Greene and Robinson similarly assert that Western culture presently offers “the ability to effect dramatic change from the bottom up, rather than (as the privileged custodians of the knowledge industry had previously opined was necessary) from the top down.” (Green and Robinson, Metavista, 52)

Though this will, as aforementioned, look different in every congregational setting, recognizing – and living into – this reality is central to any congregation embodying faith in a postmodern, post-Christian culture. While there are those who mourn this as a loss, (See, for instance, Rainer, Thom S. and Sam S. Rainer III. Essential Church? Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts, 2008) we should instead recognize that our 2.0 culture presents us with an opportunity by which we can reform our respective congregational lives to more closely mirror the intentions of Jesus. Notice, for instance, Matthew 23.8-12:

But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

We began this series by noting the new conversation taking place in contemporary ecclesiology, which has shifted away from church growth into a renewed understanding regarding the church’s purpose. We then noted the issues at the heart of Jesus’ prophetic temple action, ways in which those issues are mirrored in modern, institutional faith structures, and church practices that could help renew local congregations toward increased missiological engagement. We conclude by recognizing the importance of this ongoing conversation, albeit recognizing that our words must now become flesh:

The presence of the Spirit and the Spirit’s teaching and leading the church give birth to a church that is missionary by nature. The Spirit-led church’s very existence in the world has to be understood in missionary terms. The church cannot help but participate in God’s mission in the world. This is part of what it means to be the church. To do less would be contrary to its nature [though] the Spirit’s presence in the church means that this reality is always there to be cultivated and lived into. (Van Gelder, The Ministry of the Missional Church, 41)

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)

I was reminded of these videos created as a final project for a course last fall with Ryan Bolger – Church in Contemporary Culture – when someone made a comment on them via YouTube. Watching them again is like reading an old paper or listening to an old sermon, remembering where I was at and what I was reading back then.

The religious gathering I serve is continuing to journey through different spiritual disciplines as a part of our Sunday morning gatherings. This week we thought together about serving others.

After playing Janet Jackson’s brilliant music video for her hit “What Have You Done for Me Lately?”, our primary text was Mark 10.35-45, which tells the story of two brothers, James and John, who were also disciples of Jesus. It concludes with

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

So we thought together a little bit about the backgrounds of James and John; their father’s name, Zebedee (which means Thunder!), their background as fishermen (which is reappropriated in Jesus’ invitation to fish for people) and their social economic status (which may have taken a nosedive after they left their father (Thunder!) and his hired men to follow Jesus and fish for people instead.

Then, we thought together about the ways in which we can fall into the trap of ruminating on the things we may have “left” to follow Jesus instead (certain relationships, business practices, Sunday morning football?).

We concluded with Darrell Guder:

The act of Israel’s election was itself rooted in God’s gracious love. God chose Israel not for people’s merit but as an act of mercy… That calling, however, was not for Israel’s benefit alone. God’s missional intention was that all the world should be blessed.” (The Continuing Conversion of the Church, 78-79)

And we recognized that our “coming to Jesus” really had little to do with us in the first place. However it happened, it was not so much about our “decision” and more about His preemptive gracious act. And His calling is meant to be not only about us, but about how He uses us for others.

Of course, a lot of religion ends up being about us and our needs. But the stories of the Scriptures really are different. They’re about the God who meets us where we are and uses us to meet the needs of others. Which influences what church is supposed to be about.

And in light of how the majority of the American population views Christians, getting back to those Scriptures could do some good.

Amidst countless books and conferences devoted to church growth throughout recent decades, adherence to traditional Christian ecclesiologies in the West continues to weaken.

In their book Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination, Colin Greene and Martin Robinson note the bleak reality:

In the past 50 years, mainline historical denominations of every kind have experienced a catastrophic numerical decline in terms of church attendance and active participation in church life and ministry, so much so that it is calculated that if this trend continues, some denominations will actually go out of business by the middle of this century. (Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination, xvi)

Thom and Sam Rainer, likewise, state,

[m]ost churches are dwindling… The population in the United States is exploding, recently surpassing the three hundred million mark. But the church is losing ground. We are in a steep decline. The American church is dying. (Essential Church? Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts, 8)

As such, the church growth movement – originally pioneered in part by the late Donald McGavran and Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Mission (now the School of Intercultural Studies) – has given way to a rather different conversation. Instead of investigating methods through which pastors are equipped to build bigger churches, the books under our examination address how to best live into the church’s original missional calling. (Greene and Robinson offer a helpful examination of the Church Growth Movement in light of missional ecclesiology in Metavista, 177-178) The purpose of this essay, then, is to analyze recent literature addressing missional ecclesiology in light of Jesus’ temple act as a model by which we are called to reform our ecclesiological understanding.

Jesus’ action in the temple is reported in each of the four canonical gospel accounts, though slight variations occur between them. For this reason, we will rely primarily upon Mark’s account, which is believed to be the earliest by the majority of contemporary New Testament scholars. According to Markan Priority, then, this earliest gospel account forms the basis for the other two synoptic gospels – Matthew and Luke – which interpret the temple event in light of their particular contexts. Mark 11.15-18 states:

On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written:
‘My house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.

However, reading this passage without reference to its place within a Markan “sandwich story” betrays its ultimate function in the text. A Markan sandwich story is composed of a simple chaism, consisting of A-B-A¹, whereby the elements on the story’s beginning and end help clarify the meaning of the middle, thus making an even larger point than if the middle story stood on it’s own. Therefore, factoring in the “figless” fig tree in verses 12-14 (A) and the same tree withered the next day in verses 20-21 (A¹), we see that Jesus’ temple action is more than a cleansing.

For this reason, we must ultimately disagree with Greene and Robinson when – in their earnest desire to combat individual Christianity composed of “those who want to reconceive Christianity without the church at all” – they state “Jesus never abandoned either the synagogue or the Temple,” in Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination, 185.

Jesus’ action thus reveals the Temple’s eschatological destruction in favor of the coming Kingdom. Guder asserts that instead of the common Jewish understanding that “God’s claims had a geographical magnetic point,”

[i]n [Jesus’] interpretation of the law, his critique of the religious leaders of the day, and his actions toward the marginal and the non-Jewish, he demonstrated the universal scope of the kingdom drawing near. He challenged the very heart of the restrictive view of God’s saving work when he cleansed the temple… He taught his disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom “on earth” and not just in Judea, and he sent them out “to make disciples of the nations.” (The Continuing Conversion of the Church, 78-79. As aforementioned, we should question his use of the term cleansing.)

This realization that the temple is no longer serving as a light to the nations is heightened by alluding to the original purpose for the temple, as prayed by King Solomon:

[a]s for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name – for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm – when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name. (1^st Kings 8.41-43, see also Metavista: Bible, Church and Mission in an Age of Imagination, 124.)

Few would question the legitimacy of the original purpose of the Temple, though, in examining its historical development, it could be argued that what Jesus was objecting to in the Temple was its “institutionalization.”

As has been clearly seen, the purpose for – and understanding of – the Temple in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is as varied as the texts that address it. We can thus affirm both positive and negative elements of the gathering place in light of the mission of God. While it has been asserted that YHWH was content simply “tabernacling” with His people in the wilderness, Solomon’s desires to build a temple where the nations could gather to praise the God who has both “a mighty hand and outstretched arm,” are at least justified, and at best a continuation of YHWH’s desire that His people be a “light for the nations.”

It is, of course, centripetally conceived, though, the Temple worked in the other direction as well, sending Isaiah out to proclaim God’s message. Ultimately, however, the Temple itself was judged both in terms of its injustices by the Hebrew prophets and eschatologically by the greatest Prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh.

This second Person of the Trinity, we are encouraged to read in John 1 and Philippians 2, did not remain in the divine, transcendent community, but rather, recalling the Exodus and Wilderness Wandering, “tabernacled with us.” After pronouncing judgment on the Temple, He was crucified for our sins, though the Temple of His body was raised again three days later.

Because of this New Creation, we are able to receive His Holy Spirit, through which our bodies are made into His Temple. Thus, in the Divine Story, we have become the emissaries of the Living God, the actual place where God’s Spirit dwells. And so we return to our original question: What is the role of gathering places in light of our mission to contemporary culture?

As we have done throughout our study, we must answer this question by looking to the Scriptures. Hebrews 10.19-25 states,

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

The anonymous author of Hebrews clearly reveals here the original – and continued – purpose for gathering together, as proclaimed throughout Scripture: to encourage one another toward love and good deeds. Or, in the words of the Abrahamic covenant, we gather so can “go” and “bless.” Indeed, as Newbigin asserts

[i]f the local Christian congregation understands its true character as a holy priesthood for the sake of the world, and if its members are equipped for the exercise of that priesthood in their secular employments, then there is a point of growth for a new social order. (Truth to Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth, 87)

Newbigin puts it in other words in his landmark work The Gospel in a Pluralist Society:

I confess that I have come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seek for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 227)

This gathering of any truly Christian congregation is meant to fulfill the original intent of the temple, which “looked backward to [God’s] presence in Eden, and forward to His ultimate presence among all nations in a renewed creation.” (The Mission of God, 334) May we indeed continue to live into the purposes of God the Creator, the covenant He established with Abram, the prayer of Solomon, and the (centripetal and centrifugal) prophecy of Micah:

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 peoples will stream to it.
Many nations 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.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (Micah 4.1-2)

After the exile and destruction of Solomon’s Temple in 587 B.C., the Israelites returned to Jerusalem fifty years later and immediately began rebuilding the Temple. Written around the same time period, Isaiah 56.4-7 looks forward to the fulfillment of the LORD’s purposes for the Temple:

To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant –
to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.
And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
to serve him,to love the name of the LORD, and to worship him,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant –
these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations.

This prophecy anxiously awaits the eschatological age when none would be excluded from the gathering place. Christopher J.H. Wright imagines the shock of Israelites upon receipt of this message:

Foreigners will be brought to the holy mountain.
That’s close enough surely?
No, God will give them joy right in the temple.
But in its outer courts, perhaps?
No, they can bring their sacrifices right up to the altar.

He concludes,

[n]othing that was available to Israelite worshipers will be denied to foreigners willing to commit themselves to Israel’s God.” (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 494)

While our study has revealed that similar – if not identical – hopes were expressed at the inauguration of Solomon’s Temple, Israel’s election had, in some ways, precluded their understanding of “being a blessing” for other nations. This text points forward toward the fullness of the church catholic, which is “a completely open fellowship, with its doors always spread wide, with its members’ minds and hearts open to all. The church catholic is not to diminish its universality by exclusivism, be it social, economic, racial, gender, cultural, or national.” (Mission on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology, 113)

In spite of the shock Isaiah 56 must have caused for its initial hearers, it is by no means the most scandalous statement against the Temple. Indeed, nearly 500 years later, One who proclaimed to be greater than the Temple itself pronounced a judgment which would bring about His death. In fulfillment of Zechariah 9.9, Jesus of Nazareth purposefully entered Jerusalem on a donkey, received the praise of the crowds, and pronounced destruction upon the Temple system.

Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written:
‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’?
But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’ (Matthew 21.12-13)

In quoting Isaiah 56 as well as Jeremiah 7.11, Jesus is placing Himself in a line of Hebrew prophets who questioned the role of the Temple in the true worship of God. While it has been asserted that Jesus was simply seeking to halt the exchange of goods in the Temple, this perspective is shallow, at best. Careful research will reveal that though there were certainly financial implications regarding Jesus Temple action (including a possible, but most likely rather minor, slow down in the buying and selling of over priced sacrificial animals), the true impact of Jesus’ action was meant for the entire Temple system, which helps explain why Mark presents Jesus cursing an out of season fig tree (turn to Mark 11 and cue up David Bazan’s record Curse Your Branches).

N.T. Wright argues that Jesus’

deepest belief regarding the Temple was eschatological: the time had come for God to judge the entire institution. It had come to symbolize the injustice that characterized the society on the inside and on the outside, the rejection of the vocation to be the light of the world, the city set on a hill that would draw unto itself all the peoples of the world. (The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, 54)

If this is the case, it carries vast implications for the Temple system itself, which had again become unjust, ignoring the plight of those who it was meant to serve. Matthew’s account even asserts that after His prophetic judgment, Jesus healed the blind and the lame in the Temple courts, purposefully subverting the present structures. (see Matthew 21.14-17 for further explication of the missiological elements of this behavior, see The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 310)

After the Israelites had been set free from Egypt by the hand of YHWH, they entered the wilderness wandering where the presence of their liberator God was experienced in the Tent of Meeting. Ultimately, however, the leaders of Israel sought a permanent place of worship, a goal realized during the reign of King Solomon.

Of particular interest for our study are the verses which imply a powerful missiological emphasis for the Temple. After questioning whether God would dwell on earth and later asserting that even the highest heavens cannot contain God, Solomon prays

[a]s for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name – for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm – when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name. (1st Kings 8.41-43)

Though this portion of Solomon’s prayer is both preceded and followed by requests for God’s special providence on behalf of His chosen people, we must also recognize the gravity of Solomon’s request. Solomon here offers a centripetal view of the Temple’s role in bringing other nations to the worship of YHWH. Wright notes further the significance of Solomon’s assumptions: “It is assumed that people will hear of the reputation of YHWH. It is assumed that people from afar will be attracted to come and worship Israel’s God for themselves. It is assumed that Israel’s God can and will hear the prayers of foreigners.” (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 229)

Isaiah’s vision in the temple records a number of interesting similarities with Solomon’s perspective. He asserts

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6.1-3)

In this now familiar text, Isaiah asserts that even in the midst of the temple, with the Lord “seated on a throne”, the seraphs were proclaiming one to another that the glory of YHWH is extended throughout the earth. A number of contemporary worship songs envisage this setting, encouraging worshippers to sing to God of His holiness, though this is quite different from what takes place in the text. In Isaiah’s account, it is the seraphs who are proclaiming God’s glory – and they are doing so one to another. Isaiah, conversely, responds in fear, until his sin is atoned for. This text is of even further missiological significance, however.

Isaiah recounts “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’” Thus, Isaiah records an interaction with YHWH in the temple where he not only had a powerful “worship experience,” but was commissioned in faith to go out centrifugally to proclaim God’s message. Darrell Guder asserts “[t]hat Isaiah was unworthy was not an obstacle to the gracious self-disclosure of God, who called Isaiah into his service. In spite of his uncleanness, Isaiah could confess with that important ‘yet’ that he had seen God.” (The Continuing Conversion of the Church, 75) The content of Isaiah’s message, however, was not as hopeful as his call into service.

Isaiah’s proclamation, like many of the other Hebrew prophets, was a message of judgment. The Word of the LORD delivered by Jeremiah in front of the temple itself was quite similar:

Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless. (Jeremiah 3.1-8)

Of particular interest here is Jeremiah’s assertion that God’s chosen people have begun to think of the temple as a fortress in which they can hide from the foreigner whom they have previously mistreated, an obvious divergence from Solomon’s prayer cited above. Furthermore, the Israelites are pictured as ignoring the needs of the fatherless and the widow, as well as treated one another unjustly. Still, forgiveness is available. J. Andrew Kirk insightfully notes

[s]ometimes the ‘prophetic voice’ is heard only as condemnation. But the announcement of judgement (sic) is also a word of graciousness, for the prophets always provide both a warning of the disaster that will happen if the people do not change and the opportunity to admit the fallacy of their policies, turn to God again and receive the blessing of doing his will. (What is Mission?: Theological Explorations, 113)

This dichotomy between social justice and the role of the Temple is not the only issue for the Hebrew prophets.The prophet Ezekiel asserts that the Israelites have trusted not only in deceptive words, but also detestable idols.

I myself am against you, Jerusalem, and I will inflict punishment on you in the sight of the nations. Because of all your detestable idols, I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again. Therefore in your midst fathers will eat their children, and children will eat their fathers. I will inflict punishment on you and will scatter all your survivors to the winds. Therefore as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your vile images and detestable practices, I myself will withdraw my favor; I will not look on you with pity or spare you. (Ezekiel 5.8-11)

Indeed, in this scathing passage, God’s wrath is poured out upon His own chosen people in sight of the nations they had been empowered through Abraham to bless as well as the those whom Solomon had prayed would come to know God through their place of worship! Ironically, YHWH is pictured as scattering His people from Jerusalem (i.e. the Temple) and into exile because of the detestable idols and practices that filled His holy place.

Wright notes paradoxically, “the victory of Nebuchadnezzar was not a victory over YHWH, but a victory of YHWH… With the Lord on their side, Jerusalem could not be destroyed. With the Lord against them, Jerusalem could not be defended.” (Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God, 96) A similar passage from the prophet Micah envisions God judging the Israelites from within the Temple they had defiled. (see Micah 1.1-7)

As the church of Jesus Christ progresses further into the twenty-first century, it continues to address issues both new and old. While church membership is growing exponentially throughout many parts of the 3^rd world, it continues a rapid decline in the post-Christian West.

Charles Van Engen comments upon this reality when he notes

[w]e are all aware that the center of gravity of the Christian Church has shifted from North to South, from West to East. This shift does not only impact the numbers of Christians in the world, the languages they speak, and the location where they may be found. This shift also means that mission-sending is now polycentric: cross-cultural missions send their missionaries from everywhere to everywhere. (Missiological Constraints in Critical Contextual Theologizing, Van Engen)

Simply the names of a few recently published books reveal the impact of this seismic shift: They Like Jesus, but Not the Church: Insights from Emerging Generations, Quitting Church: Why the Faithful Are Fleeing and What to Do About It and unChristian: What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity. As such, we in the West must follow the guidance of Van Engen (see, for instance, Mission on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology, 207-229), Lesslie Newbigin and many others who call the Church in the West to re-evangelize its increasingly secularized culture.

An interesting element of this dilemma is that many who are leaving the church in the West do so not out of a loss of faith, but rather, they assert, in order to save it. This reality is explored in personal narratives, like Barbara Brown Taylor’s Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, as well as practical guides seeking to reverse the trend, such as Essential Church?: Reclaiming a Generation of Dropouts. Though the perspectives these books offer are important for church ministry and missiological practice in the West, I seek to dig deeper, ultimately presenting a theological understanding regarding the role of gathering places in the life of a faith community.

In doing so in this and posts to follow, I will holistically engage the whole of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, seeking to explicate an eschatological, missional understanding of the role of the the Temple(s) and the Church(es) as a basis for church involvement in contemporary culture. In so doing, I will utilize the positive elements of an evangelical narrative theology, recognizing that the biblical narrative is “not merely the recital of events in historical sequence. Rather, [it] seeks to convey a deeper meaning, a deep-level revelation of the nature and purposes of God who breaks into human history.” (Mission on the Way: Issues in Mission Theology, 52)

Lesslie Newbigin puts it thusly:

The Christian church testifies that in the actual events of this finite, contingent, and yet rational world of warped space-time there are words and gestures through which the Creator and Sustainer of the world has spoken and acted. It is not that the events are anything other than part of the unbroken nexus of happenings within space-time that can be analyzed and classified along with all the rest. They are not ‘interventions’ by someone who is otherwise absent. (Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture, 88)

We start, therefore, at the Beginning. At their outset, the Hebrew Scriptures assert the primacy of God, not as an “Unmoved Mover,” but quite the opposite, as Creator who exists in divine community. Indeed, Scripture boldly proclaims not simply the existence of God, but in addition His creative power: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”Noting that we ought speak not so much of the doctrine of Creation, but rather the Creator, Karl Barth rightly asserts a theme integral to our study, that humanity “was in a pre-eminent sense created for the service of God, created to be the ‘image of God,’ not only as theatre, but as active and passive bearer of that glory.” (Credo, 33)

Not long after this idyllic Creation in the Garden, however, Scripture records an escalating crescendo of sin that begins with the first couple and their children, and continues throughout the first eleven chapters of Genesis. In Genesis 12, then, God starts over, by instead – as Wright puts it – calling “an elderly, childless couple in the land of Babel… [making] them the fountainhead, the launch pad of his whole mission of cosmic redemption.” (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 199.)Indeed, Genesis 12.1-3 states

The LORD had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.
I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”

As has been noted by Wright, (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, 199.)what we encounter in God’s calling of Abram can be categorized into two corresponding halves, each established by an imperative, “go” and “be a blessing.” These are each followed by three corresponding outcomes, which reveal the results of the commands, that is blessing for all peoples on earth. Thus, thiis new beginning should be understood not in terms of God completely starting over as much as God seeking to fulfill His original purposes inherent in the original Beginning. With the implications of the Beginning and new beginning at the forefront of our minds, then, we are now able to proceed onto our missiological investigation regarding gathering places throughout the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures.