Curtis A. Bronzan

We are now prepared to address a significant theological issue in the life of the postmodern church. As we have previously seen, postmodern culture is largely characterized by an “incredulity toward metanarratives.” (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, xxiv) Another postmodern thinker – perhaps the postmodern thinker – Jacques Derrida, put it another way: “There is nothing outside the text” (in French Il n’y a pas de hors-texte). (Derrida, Of Grammatology, 158)

While many Christians have understood Derrida to be a linguistic idealist – meaning there are only words, not actual things – this is not his point at all. Of course, if that were the case, if he truly were a linguistic idealist, that would signal a significant problem for a postmodern Christian faith, as Smith notes:

First, if there is nothing outside the text, then a transcendent Creator who is distinct from and prior to the world could not exist [which] would have to entail atheism. If Derrida is a linguistic idealist, then deconstruction and Christian faith are mutually exclusive. Second, if there is nothing outside the text, then it would seem that what the Bible (admittedly a text) talks about – what it refers to – is not real. (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 35)

These two issues may point to what Hiebert had in mind when he questioned the deconstructive character of postmodernity, though, this is not what Derrida has in mind.

Indeed, this would signal a significant – and problematic – shift for a postmodern Christian understand of Scripture.

What Derrida is seeking to assert, as opposed to linguistic idealism, is the inherent problem within the Cartesian cogito ergo sum, following on the heels of Nietzsche. Derrida’s deconstruction instead builds upon Husserl and Heidegger, and ultimately seeks to “invite us to notice that we are always already in the middle of secondariness, interpretation and flux.” (Shakespeare, Derrida and Theology, 27)

In other words,

“when Derrida claims that there is nothing outside the text, he means there is no reality that is not always already interpreted through the mediating lens of language. Texutality, for Derrida, is linked to interpretation. To claim that there is nothing outside the text is to say… that everything must be interpreted in order to be experienced.” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 39)

While this can seem disconcerting at first, it need not signal the end of a postmodern Christian reliance upon the Scriptures, as some have asserted. Instead, we should first recognize the truth in Derrida’s claim, that truly, we are “like fish swimming in cultural water,” into which we have been born. Furthermore, far from limiting Christian faith in the inspiration of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, this recognition allows us to more fully embrace the Narrative into which we have been grafted. (Romans 11.17)

James K.A. Smith offers an insightful extrapolation, telling the story of Jesus’ crucifixion from the different perspectives of two Roman guards who were present that day. One states, “[a]fter lunch, things did get a little strange,” but concludes “[a]nother cross, another Nazarene, another criminal – one less to worry about.” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 45) The other, of course, exclaims, “[t]ruly this was the Son of God!” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 47) He goes on to question whether Derrida’s claim could resonate with the Reformers cry sola Scriptura! – indeed, there is nothing outside the text! He concludes,

[w]hile the church is governed by the Scriptures, the Scriptures are only properly opened and active within the believing community. To say that there is nothing outside the Text also entails that there is no proper understanding of the Text – and hence the world – apart from the Spirit-governed community of the church. The same Spirit is both author of the text and illuminator of the reading community.” (Smith, Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?, 56-57)

Indeed, as with Lyotard, we can recognize the possibility that, instead of being impossible in a postmodern context, Christian discipleship can be truly rejuvenated through our interaction with it. Furthermore, the demise of the cogito ergo sum can reminds us of our genuine need not to be an island (with our iPods, iPhones, and iPads!), but that we need community – specifically the Community through which we can grow to know Jesus more fully. It is into this community that we were called, when Jesus died for us “while we were yet sinners,” (Romans 5.8) the ultimate Il n’y a pas de hors-texte!

Due in a part to the aforementioned cultural pluralism, many Western, postmodern followers of Jesus are embroiled in a split-level, or two-tiered, faith. In explicating the role of missionaries in cross-cultural settings, Hiebert, Shaw, and Tiénou, argue that a modernist, Enlightenment worldview, which asserted the reality of two worlds, originally created this dilemma.Thus, while Jesus is the answer to

ultimate and eternal questions of life… science based on reason [is] the answer to the problems of this world.” (Understanding Folk Religion, 19)

If this is the case it reveals why split-level belief systems are an extremely difficult issue to engage, since they were developed in a modernist mindset, but have shifted into a postmodern perspective. Again, not uncritically, we can thank Lyotard for explicating the demise of such problematic modernist dilemmas, while we seek to instead uphold Jesus the Lord of Life.

What are needed, therefore, in addressing these issues of faith are emic and etic views of reality that are not divorced from, but rather supplement one another. As W.A. Visser ’t Hooft recognized in the work of Hendrik Kraemer: “the real missionary is one who is completely bound to the Gospel, but who, precisely for the sake of the Gospel, seeks to enter as fully as possible into the spiritual life of the people to whom he is sent.” (Kraemer, From Mission Field to Independent Church, 8)

Thus, precisely because of my being called to the postmodern people, I must seek to not only understand the Scriptures and yearn after a holisitic spiritual life, I must also seek to understand those whom I have been called to serve, that I might lead them into an allegiance to Jesus alone. This dynamic is explicated well by Hiebert:

[p]ast missionaries often understood the Scriptures well, but not the people they served… Missionaries brought with them, not only the gospel, but also Western cultures, and often they failed to differentiate between the two… In missions we just study the Scriptures and also the sociocultural context of the people we serve, so that we can communicate the gospel to them in ways they understand.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues, 10)

A further dynamic of this split-level faith is similar to the cross-cultural setting envisioned by Hiebert, Shaw, and Tiénou in that postmodern followers of Jesus are often victim to the flaw of the excluded middle, which in the West, continues to envision faith “on the basis of rational arguments, not by evidences of his power in the lives of people who [are] sick, possessed, and destitute.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 189) In this way, the church, like Western Christian missions have been “one of the greatest secularizing forces in history.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 197)

This is especially true in the Presbyterian Church (USA), with its reliance on Reformed theology that has emphasized the sovereignty of God so much that it can often seem to veer into a kind of deism. Indeed, as Pablo A. Deiros notes, “[m]ost of the problems in the church, including bad theology, result from a defective Christian spiritual theology that derives from a defective spirituality and the neglect of the spiritual dynamics in ministry.” (Deiros, Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Anabaptist Missiologies in Conversation, 141.)

Instead of fearing becoming “overly spiritual,” as to seem like some kind of blessed-out, self-discovery movement, postmodern Christians need to enthusiastically rely upon their indwelling of the Holy Spirit, yearning and praying for guidance in middle-level issues of faith. In so doing, we can be better prepared to minister to the “spiritual” people around us, who John Drane asserts, is “an unreached people group, to use missiological jargon.” (Drane, Do Christians Know How to Be Spiritual?, 105) He goes on, quoting a traditional Chinese proverb:

Go to the people,
Live among them,
Learn from them,
Love them.
Start with what they know,
Build on what they have.

A final insight from the field of anthropology has been adapted from the field of mathematics, where it was popularized by Georg Cantor. Set theory in Christian anthropological study is similar to the sociological implications of Emile Durkheim’s mechanical solidarity, wherein things – or in this case, people – are defined by their relationship to a particular category. In the modern, Western, Constantinian era, Christians, Churches, and Mission agencies were often defined in terms of well-formed bounded sets, wherein one was either in or out. In our postmodern, postcolonial age, however, a more appropriate understanding has come to the fore: a centered-set approach, where “[c]ommunion with Christ [is] the central focus in the life of the church. Instruction in doctrine and behavior follow.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 127)

Hiebert later argues, “[t]he worldview of Scripture… is based primarily on a centered-set approach to reality. Relationships are at the heart of its message, our relationship to God and our relationships, therefore, to one another.” (134)

This word-picture has become a key component of our community, as we seek to be a place where all can “belong before they believe,” whatever their present trajectory. Due in part to the pluralism of contemporary culture, however, we must be careful not to become a fuzzy set, which can so easily lead to relativism, since “things move in many directions. Even things moving in the direction of the center may move independently from that center and pass by it on their own trajectory to some higher goal.” (Hiebert, Anthropological Reflections, 131) While, in one sense, of course, it is impossible to surpass Jesus, is this not the danger Paul alludes to when he tells the Corinthian community “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”? (1st Corinthians 8.1) Therefore, even our intellectual yearning for Biblical knowledge must continue to be used for others instead of our own gain.

The study and practice of evangelistic mission and ministry in postmodern, postcolonial, post-Christian contexts has resulted in a great deal of resources throughout the past decade, including both the emerging and missional church conversations. While such publications, conventions, podcasts, and blogs may be helpful in examining the macro effects of major shifts in Western cultural perceptions, they can also – rather ironically – undermine their purpose, since such resources seek to “point the way forward” while asserting the dissolution of a homogeneous culture and uncovering the reality of our deeply fragmented society.

When this occurs, it reveals that these well-meaning leaders have fallen into the trap of those who seek to provide a modernist, catchall solution to particular situations, many of whom are deeply informed by “the McDonaldization process which finds its home in Purpose-Driven and Seeker-Oriented churches.” (Gibbs, Eddie and Ryan K. Bolger. Postmodern Forms of the Church in Krabill, Sawatsky, and Van Engen, Evangelical, Ecumenical, and Anabaptist Missiologies in Conversation, 188)

Gibbs and Bolger go on to define this problem as linearity:

[t]he problem with linearity is that it is but one perspective on reality and has the potential for oppression by the one voice or one structure. In contrast, with nonlinearity, multiple messages are communicated through appropriate media. As more voices are heard in multiple ways, the probability for oppression decreases.

In the following posts, then, I will seek to outline postmodernity, pluralism, anthropology, Scripture, and ecclesiology in their relationship to missiology in contemporary culture. (Photo credit: Jonny Baker)

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)