Toward Post-Christendom

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Christendom is not something totally easy to define. It certainly relates to an era when the church ‘possessed’ the culture that it resided in. The culture was ‘christianised’ as it had some sort of Christian morality shape. Nations could be termed ‘Christian’ or heathen. It relates to an era when Christianity was the religion of the state / empire. This whole scenario became in the west the status quo in the centuries that followed the shift with Constantine, his conversion, and edicts such as the edict of Milan.

It is possible to see the submission of the pagan ruler (Constantine and successors) as a fulfillment of OT hopes, even if we accept the outworking as imperfect. It is probably also OK to feel that we have lost a measure of a moral framework that resulted from the christendom era, the framework that at some level permeated (western) society. In other words, even those of us who are opposed to christendom, who see a resulting fall of the church, do not need to demonise every aspect. The paper I wrote on the redemptive trajectory suggests that in the ever-increasing fall of the life of Israel God was still found in some incredible and glorious ways. Who would not wish to testify that ‘we were unable to stand to minister such was the presence of the glory cloud’? God present in power, yet inside an edifice that Jesus proclaimed could not be sustained beyond that generation.

A wonderful move forward, a mixture, or a terrible downward fall – regardless of our perspective we are moving from a christendom era to a post-christendom one. The pace of that movement and where we are located on the spectrum might vary but I think the movement is irreversible. In the process there will be loss and perhaps the loss of some good elements, but the process is necessary.

What will we think should (when) the president of the USA is not sworn in with hand on Bible, or a UK monarch is no longer anointed with oil at Westminster Abbey and presented with a Bible by senior church leaders as a ‘rule for the whole life and government of Christian Princes’? Post-christendom could certainly mean change to both those practices – and of course numerous other ones that reflect the advance of christendom.

I do not suggest that the territory ahead is easy to traverse, but the shift of seeing the cross as the sign of power to overcome (Constantine, crusades) and rather as the place that re-orients all of life and through the embrace of love offering to one and all an opportunity to lose one’s life, is a journey that we have to engage with.

If there is a general principle that trouble is a sign to look higher (‘when you see these things…’) it is not too difficult to see numerous levels of crises all around. I am sure the dire conflict and loss of life that France has suffered these past few months is only a taste of what is coming to the majority of western nations. This should be no surprise. The idea that the daily slaughter in Syria or Baghdad is ‘somewhere else’ among ‘another people’ is not really tenable. We are in a wake-up call period of time. Isolationism and protectionism will neither isolate nor protect us. They will prove to be hollow promises, and as I wrote recently we have entered a slower but deeper time of the façades being opened up and the core of what lies behind them being exposed. It will indeed be painful.

For years I have been saying that the strength of Islam is found inside a christendom belief. That the source is not simply the quran but christendom. It should be no great surprise that Dayesh believes in Armageddon, with the gathering of the heathen nations (us!!) and although ‘we’ will have numerical and power supremacy, they will be vindicated as Jesus returns to defeat the heathens (us!!). I might find it hard to let go of some of the christendom benefits and privileges but the urgency of the times presses in on me and calls me beyond my comfort zone.

Hence back to where I started – christendom. We have to move on and through the current time. We cannot, though many will, seek to re-establish christendom. To get the church out of the building is a move forward. To call for the church to embrace its place in society and culture is a good call. To use language of ‘mountains of influence’ might be a useful metaphor, but if we see the langauge as more than a limited metaphor I fear it will simply result in a people out of touch with this time. Solomon (my morning reading) might have built for God a great house, but Jesus warned in his day that not one stone of ‘God’s house’ would remain. An era was over. An era is over in our day. We will have to learn how to traverse a land where we do not possess the culture, yet believe passionately that the gospel is this-worldly in application. We will have to learn the difference between wanting the 10 commandments in our court room or the beattitudes of Jesus to permeate our values and to seep out beyond. We will have to learn that the ‘greatest mountain’ will have to go through a NT lens of all mountains being brought down.

We do not have to demonise the past. God has never left us. There are godly vestiges, for after all even the Temple could still potentially act as a house of prayer. But we have to face tomorrow and allow ourselves to be cleansed.

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Art – the gift to expose

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Chris Bourne sent me this link to Doris Salcedo in Bogota. She says ‘Art cannot explain things but it can expose them.’

Very powerful in undermining the oblivion the government sought to place on the people. Opening up the gift of lament to the people.

Art touches the imagination (future), the memory (past) as it engages the people in the here and now. Enjoy! Though that is probably not the appropriate word to use…

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A Christian viewpoint?

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by Martin Scott
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Last year in the run up to the leadership vote on the Labour Party (UK) Corbyn gave a talk in Liverpool. We have just recently come across it, and the part that interested me was his closing statement about what to call ‘a society where everyone matters, where everyone cares for everyone else.’ He went on to say ‘you can call it anything you like. I prefer to call it socialism, you can call it humanism, humanitarianism. You can call it what you want but a society based on the idea that you respect everybody and care for everybody is actually a happier, more prosperous, more successful, more peaceful society’.

Why did he not add ‘you can call it Christianity’? Was it because he simply chose a few possible names from a long list? Was it because it does not represent a Christian viewpoint? There might be many responses we of faith might give, but I think one of the sources for the Labour Party (John Wesley and Methodism) would probably want to shout loudly that the Jesus-following vision is right there behind what he describes.

Here is the video and the part where I quote and reflect is from 15:30 onwards – the last short segment.

https://youtu.be/HDfuPyuhskc

Scripture has a lot to say about money, the limitations on wealth creation and the like. I am wondering if the loss of ‘family values’ is the result of the seed of the anarchic 60s, or whether there is another source all-together.

In 1976 there was an intervention by the IMF in the economic management in the UK. There began a shift from a previously Keynesian economic concensus to something that has been pursued since then (and not just under Margaret Thatcher) to the cutting loose of the market. There was an abandonment of full-employment as a goal, privatisation was pursued and the free market was deified. (I use that term because I believe it is justifiable biblically. When we have phrases such as the ‘invisible hand of the market’ and a belief that it will self-regulate we are ascribing to a set of beliefs akin to those who were subject to the ‘elemental principals of the universe’ that Paul critiques.)

From 1979 – 1997 we have:

  • the proportion of women aged 18-49 who were married fell from 74% to 69%
  • the proportion co-habiting increased from 11% to 22%
  • births outside marriage more than doubled
  • one parent families increased from 12% to 22%
  • by 1991 there was a divorce in Britain for every 2 marriages
  • the number of households in the UK where there was no-one active in work moved from 6.5% to 19.1%
  • the levels of incarceration also greatly increased.

Is there a connection? Well maybe if we prioritise individual choice over any common good it tends to make relationships also provisional. If choice is the highest value what is the difference between initiating a divorce and trading in a used car? The logic of serving this god is that all relationships also become consumer goods.

The breakup of family – the result of the bad seed of the 60s or the economic freedom advocated and practiced from the 70s onwards? I don’t think we can shout ‘family values’ loudly and bow at the feet of individualism and unfettered pursuit of (a false) prosperity.

Of course we might have beliefs about how a corporate economy should be run, who should be taxed and at what levels. Those of my persuasion will of course have our bias. It is something deeper though I am pushing for. The bankruptcy of the West is becoming ever more visible. I think there is now a slower but deeper revealing of what lies behind the façades. Wesley’s gospel had a strong socal dimension to it. Such a shame if the vision of the future can only have the adjectives socialist, humanist or humanitarian attached to it. The great Human has lived among us. We have been endued by his Spirit. (OK another plug for #3 on my ecclesiology ‘thinking out loud’….)

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Hospitality & sharing

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

The sin of Sodom (& Gomorrah)? In Ezekiel it was that of the rejection of hospitality and lack of care for the poor and needy:

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it (Ezek. 16:49,50).

Whatever we make of the commonly highlighted sexual issues, this aspect of social contempt for the stranger is highlighted. Recently it came to my attention that Jesus statement over the cities of Israel:

I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town (Luke 10:12).

is in the context of looking for the cities to give hospitality to the travelling disciples. I had never seen that before and it again underlines the need for hospitality, care, looking after the stranger. Judgement on cities of Israel, and historically a judgement on a non-covenant city (Sodom), hence these aspects stand as an indictment on any city or community.

A few notes that reflect some on Western society, and the statistics referred to could be multiplied many times over:

  • David Cameron (UK Prime Minister) has stepped aside – who would want a role such as that? It is easy to criticise from the side. During his time in office the Trussel Trust provides us with this statistic that illustrates a huge shift: those relying on food banks to supply them has moved from 61,468 to 1,109,309 people in the UK. There is a political divide over whether this is the responsibility of government or not, but the statistic remains as an indictment on society. That 1.8% of the population should be in that situation cannot be something that escapes the eyes of God.
  • In the nation that is perhaps viewed as the most-advanced of Western nations apparently 50% of food goes to waste (Guardian article). Contrast that with the command of God to allow the poor and needy to glean what is left.
  • 1 out of every 3 children in Spain are are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, according to latest EU figures (Reuters).
  • Spain faces major issues as it has failed to meet the figures set by the EU and to pay for debts has ‘borrowed’ on more than one occasion from the social security pot. Latest figures suggest that by 2018 that pot will be empty. While at the same time those assessed to have ‘large fortunes’ has grown by 40% since the crisis of 08.

Coming back to Sodom the kind of homosexuality in view cannot be separated from that of power abuse. Control and domination was certainly part of what is going on and this might be why the sexual activity itself is not commented on in Ezekiel or Luke but the response to and care for the stranger, the poor and the needy is the centre of focus. Power, control, maintaining power; pro-life but pro-war and the death penalty; following a redemptive God and yet having huge populations within non-redemptive-prison-systems…

There will always be solutions suggested, a reviving of an -ism, the repackaging of an old one, or the proclamation of a new one. How different are the two big ones, capitalism (and now in its predominant ugly face of neo-liberalism) or hard-line left socialism? One has the god of the free-market, the other the god of the state. They both promise to reward those who comply but only ‘reward’ a few. Enough have to be rewarded to maintain the status quo and enough can be consumed to keep the machine functioning. And neither escape the eyes of the Lord. That is the imperial spirit. In the old days one of my points on the kingdom and church was that ‘the kingdom produces the church’. If we are to know something by the fruit it produces we have to look long and hard at what is often produced.

I am sure we are headed to another manifestation of the crisis we are in. It is not a new crisis coming, but a fresh manifestation of that crisis. The institutions will be opened again for us to see inside. The outcome? Probably dependent on how like / unlike Sodom we are at the core.

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Thinking out loud

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

“Water to WineWe have begun to read Brian Zahnd’s book Water into Wine. Loving it. Worth it for the following quote:

Over time I began to see the cross in a much deeper way – not as a mere factor in an atonement theory equation, but as the moment in time and space where God reclaimed creation.

We stopped reading at that sentence as it is so full of content. What a reclamation – not the planting of a flag, a show of strength and the killing of the enemy. The cross was planted, there is a total yielding to all hostile powers and the Prince of Life is killed.

Loving the book. So now to my thinking out loud. Brian tells his story of a courageous journey from a charismatic-flavoured evangelicalism to an eclectic embrace where he sees that all versions of Christianity have generally the same amount of truth. We certainly benefited from his understanding, and coming from my sectarian (I use the term sociologically) background a helpful kick up the rear. And it is here that I am thinking out loud… there are many approaches to ‘church’, but I wonder are there three sources of thought? So trying this out.

1) The sectarian approach. This of course is always rampant in all faiths. Judaism had its sects – Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes etc. The nature of a sect is that it shares the world view of the wider group but believes it adheres to the implications of that world view more faithfully. Protestantism broadly fits this and of course the more fanatical we become the more we fit the description. ‘We have studied the Scriptures and now we have the biblical pattern of…’ I must not write too much on this as I feel such a confirmation of how right I am coming on.

2) The church with all its faults is what God has given, with its creeds, history, structures etc., all as part of the richness of the mystery. The church can then be really seen as a sacrament. Ecumenical generosity and finding an appropriate place to dock then would be two very sensible follow-ons. I am not looking to label people, but seems Zahnd, MacLaren, Wright and a whole bunch of other amazing people seem to fit in here. It might be that a number who have been in the sectarian camp find this a very healthy way to grow and express their faith.

3) The church has to find its setting in the world. It is part of the world and responsible for the world. It is not institutional but a movement and therefore contingent. Leading to finding dynamic relationships that might / might not be geographically based; more open to God being involved in a whole set of situations beyond the Christian faith; open to politico-social movements and willing to connect with them. Neither demanding nor negating personal salvation. (OK a rough go at describing a position.)

So thinking out loud, and letting it hang out there. Is the third position just a variation of the first? Is it the first but influenced by elements from the second? Is it the second without some of the sacramental elements? Or is it truly a third way? YES of course it is. OOPS, my unbiased viewpoint shaped by my history and my interpretation that of course I am on the right path nearly came out there. Must remember never to open up as to what I really think and hold all opinions to myself.

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USA – where to?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

The crisis, so evident, in Europe is not limited to that continent. Yesterday I did an interview with a US radio based station. Challenging as very clearly the Lord spoke to Gayle and I a little over a year ago that we were not responsible for the US – others must pick that up. In the light of that I have not commented on events there as the more we take responsibility for something the more we can comment. I do though have a small history across there, in 2005 while there I prophesied that the outcome of the election in ’08 would not be the one that the majority of charismatic Christians wanted, but if they could not embrace that then the ’12 election would be worse from their perspective. I wonder if ’16 only makes starkly real the course of those years.

In my understanding the core of why there would be a divergence between that of the hope of the charismatic believers and the actual outcome was over the belief of where the source of transformation is. The keys are not held in the white house… they are not held at the top. Luke 3 records that: In the fifteenth year of the emperor Tiberius… the word of the Lord came to John in the wilderness. I am convinced Jesus came to release a political movement, the very terms surrounding the gospel suggest this, but he did not come to start a political party. He cannot be boxed as a socialist nor a capitalist. Politicians in Washington, Westminster or Brussels have important roles but I think we are fooled if we think they shape all things. There are powers that they serve, sometimes knowingly but often unknowingly. Those powers are at times incarnated in individuals and power groups but often not. Biblical words such as powers, principalities and even the ‘city’ concept open our eyes to those realities. We also need an understanding that grass-roots is where Jesus is found. He eats with the powerless, the marginalised. It is not that he is not present elsewhere but if he is not found at the margins we will not discern, but distort, his presence elsewhere. Scripture does not confront gifting, entrepreneurship and the like. Far from it. It does however challenge head on the flow of the fruit of that entrepreneurship.

It seems to me that the issues facing us are much deeper than finding a ‘Christian’ politician. Peter Wehner who served in the last three Republican administrations wrote a piece in the New York Times on The Theology of Donald Trump. In it he suggests that the overriding paradigm is that of strength is right, the effect being the dehumanising of all who are weak – or disagree. I would find it hard to give that kind of ideology a vote, and I think for obvious reasons. Maybe some see voting this way as the ‘lesser of two evils’. Maybe. But I struggle to see it as the most redemptive vote possible. At the end of the interview yesterday I was asked to pray. My prayer was for a generation to rise who would take responsibility for the US and with a passion that far from calling God to make the US great, that he might lead her to become a servant to the world.

Our hopes can never be placed in Trump or an alternative. They will always have limited effect. Our hope has to be placed in the disciples of Jesus who, as they embrace the place of weakness and marginalisation (as far as is visible) they will discover that the place of royal priesthood is effective. Then I consider we will see released politicians who are free-er from the powers, and more able to act and release levels of justice. If there is a role as priests to be embraced, my question I am asking is – is the priesthood of the church releasing a political manifestation and if so what does it look like? And the second question is – is the political manifestation that we are too quick to endorse and put our hope in removing our calling to be a priesthood?

My hope is in the body of Christ. The Spirit is present there in a unique way. My hopes at times are dented. Dented, not because people vote the ‘wrong’ way (as if I could be the judge of that!!) but because of our marriage to the belief that top-down power is where it is at. My hopes rise though when I realise that the way God works also means that there are greater manifestations of realities before they come to their appointed end. I guess we are in for TURBULENCE as some very ugly dehumanising powers manifest. The ultimate form of atheism is dehumanisation – and sadly atheism is not limited to those who have no faith.

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The church, Brexits, TPP and… façades

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

This is a kind of follow on from yesterday’s post – at least it is in my mind!

I have posted before concerning this decade and how it relates to two dreams from the beginning of the decade. In this post I will recount the one that highlighted how by resorting to the familiar we close down the time of exposure and change. In that dream I went into a town square and was standing one one side of the square looking at all the buildings on the other side. Somehow I was aware that each of the buildings represented an institution that had shaped the pubic life: the health, education, commerce, entertainment, media, the church were certainly all represented there. At a precise moment the fronts of all the buildings moved forward then up, as if they were on hinges. One could see right inside the buildings to what was taking place behind the façades.

My initial reaction was that buildings like are totally unstable and are in danger of collapsing, so I thought I needed to shout a warning to those on that side of the square to get away from the buildings. However, while contemplating the warning I realised that the buildings were not actually collapsing, they remained stable on their foundations. To my left someone began to sing quietly a worship song, and as there were obviously a few people in the square who were believers a second person added their voice, then a third and so on. What started quietly slowly increased in volume. It never dominated the square but it was there to be heard. Once the volume increased to a certain level the buildings all at the same time shut back down, the façades returning to where they were before.

Then to my right I heard an audible voice that said, ‘It is the familiar that restores the status quo, that brings things back to where they were.’ Now I knew what the issue really was. The warning to be shouted out was not with regard to the instability of the buildings, but the danger of resorting to the familiar. The acuteness of the danger being illustrated by it even being a worship song that could do the damage.

So I cleared my throat and got ready. I shouted, ‘It is the familiar…’ I got those four words out and at that point a person stood right in my face to intimidate me. I stepped to the side, cleared my throat again. Once again I got those four words out and the scene repeated. On the fourth occasion I got my four words out, ‘It is the familiar…’ and the person finished the sentence with the words, ‘…that brings things back to normal.’

Two similar statements with radically different meanings:

  • It is the familiar that brings things back to normal.
  • It is the familiar that restores the status quo and brings things back to where they were.

If the body of Christ carries a weight spiritually and our contribution is to be in the public square, not institutionally but spiritually, then what we do and how we respond, and in particular times more so than in others, is very critical. There seems to be a concensus of the current time as a very critical time. The Brexit referendum, the shift in leadership in parliament (UK), the rise of the right wing parties fuelling an anti-immigration feeling all, within the European context, point in that direction.

There will always be differences of opinion over the right way to go on a referendum such as we have had, but I think at a time of change we have to be thinking about change at much deeper levels than Brussels is big, Westminster smaller so the first must be more imperial. The issues are much deeper than that. We must be careful about pulling along personal interest lines (and I write this as an immigrant in Spain).

While we have been asleep, or maybe we were awake and approved, the whole economic system has shifted to come behind that based on a neo-liberal basis. This has shifted the West to a kind of capitalism that was unknown before the 1970s. Resorting to national boundaries with an appeal to ‘sovereignty’ will not counter what we are up against. If sovereignty outworks as being able to establish, and then dictate, a rule we have to look beyond that of nationalism. (And I write as one who is not nationalistic, and with a perspective that the nation-state is a new idea, considerably beyond the use of the term ‘nation’ in Scripture.)

The trans-national corporations are exerting a new kind of sovereignty that is not subject to the supposed national boundaries within which they operate. They dictate the level of taxation, they reward those who serve and they live from a bio-power resource. It opens up the way for trade agreements that at the surface might be between nations (the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) for example) but are beyond intra-national agreement, and are carving out a path that will, if left unchecked fro example, reduce health care to money over people. (With all the strains on the NHS consider the level of GDP that goes into it in the UK and the level of cover provided, compared to the greater level of GDP that goes into health care across the pond and the numbers left without health care.)

I am not trained to understand many of the issues, even the ones I refer to above, and I am not about to write about how wrong the Brexit was, my plea is let us make sure we are going deeper. We can be fooled at a time when there can be many exposures, many façades being revealed, by resorting to the familiar. A Brexit does not deal with Imperial issues and it was ironic that when Cameron made his visit to Brussels that the concession he was proud to declare was with regard to the city of London. The square mile that already had exceptions was to be safeguarded!! ‘Who runs Britain’ (Peston) might now be a few years old but remains a good read to realise that the critique of Revelation still stands. Economic trade (beast) with a false prophet (the identity of which can be very fluid) continually needs to be exposed. A Brexit might weaken it, though I doubt that. A Brexit, or a non-Brexit, with the church continuing to sing will simply bring things back to where they were, restoring the status quo. What is termed ‘normality’ deifies as always the market. Neo-liberalism, operating in the IMF, the EU, Westminster, Wall Street etc., will continue to march on, and if we think we can stop it by establishing artificial national boundaries we are sadly missing it. We have to push deeper.

I write the above as a non-expert – polite way of saying one who knows almost nothing. That is not an issue to me. When I look at the fruit, the growing divide between rich and poor I know something is wrong. When Spain with all its economic pressures has more millionaires now than before the 08 crisis, when it ‘borrows’ from the pension fund to pay debts, when it has given state aid to help fund football clubs, etc. there is something wrong.

Just for a while I need to stop singing the song. I cannot join in. I have seen the façades open up. I have to warn again and again – beware of the familiar in all its forms. I do not expect to be an expert in the issues of trans-national globalism and its devouring of people as fuel. I do though need to pray and stand for those who will rise up with an understanding and a different voice. I don’t expect to hear them from within the church – that is not our task (to become the highest mountain!). We are here for the world. I expect to hear the prophets rise from within the world. And sadly I expect that many of them will lose their lives. I just hope we are not the new-Nero’s, singing our songs while the city burns. Oh and Nero’s name converted to numbers came out at 666, a number that allowed the person to continue to trade.

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The church – here for the world

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

In a recent set of posts I picked up on the redemptive trajectory toward the calling of being a ‘royal priesthood’ where I suggested that (working backwards) the Temple, the kingship, the priesthood in Israel were all signs of fallenness from the calling to be in the world, among the nations for the nations and for the world. I have put this together in a small ebook:

Redemptive Trajectory

If Israel distorted its election to be one of ‘we are saved, the world is lost’, rather than we have been chosen so that God might be present in all of creation, my suggestion was that this indeed was the purpose of the Incarnation and the continued incarnated life of the body of Christ. The church is not here to bring the world into the church through a ‘born again one by one door’ (don’t leave yet – I have more to say!!) but to be the means by which God is manifest in the world. In one way we might say the calling of the church is to ensure that we actually have a very good world!

A hard-line evangelical approach has a starting point of ‘all are lost except for those who are born again’, which is often taken to be those who have prayed the sinner’s prayer. If that be true then the analogy that everyone by birth is caught up within a burning building and they have to be pulled out by whatever means is necessary is not inaccurate. Building bridges only for the purpose of getting them out of the building can therefore be justified. Of course the majority of evangelicals have a few ‘exceptions’ starting with babies who die before the age of accountability. The further one moves to ‘the church is here to enable the world to be the world’ the further away from the burning building analogy one gets. It leaves for those who place Jesus as central, rather than as a good / best example of humanity, but are on the opposite ends of that spectrum a very uncomfortable overlap, and many times a small overlap, where they can agree and work together:

uncomfortable_overlap

At both ends of the spectrum there will be a viewpoint that Jesus is not genuinely present at the other end of the spectrum, but given the centrality of Jesus there will be some shared core – indeed I would suggest a genuine fellowship in the Holy Spirit. The purpose though of election comes in view as to where on the spectrum one stands.

Part of our challenge is the reading of Scripture – read it as I do and we will agree!! That is the wonderful history of protestantism – the multiple readings possible of Scripture. So where am I standing on this spectrum?

First an approach to election is very key. I see no basis for the ‘God elected some from all eternity’ approach – the election for the believer in Scripture is the election of Christ, and we are elect in him, in other words we are elect when we are in him. This parallels the election of Abraham and therefore all who are in him. I do not view it along individual lines but corporately in the individual chosen – Abraham or Christ. Further election is for a purpose, and the angle I have been pushing is that of the royal priesthood call. To represent God to the world and to represent the world to God. So essentially the church is here so that God’s transforming presence can be in the world – the church being the stewards of the future.

So ‘salvation’? There is a reception of the Spirit of Jesus that is witnessed to within the NT, but I cannot go as far as to suggest all who do not receive the Spirit of Jesus are lost. Indeed I would rather work with the untidy statements of:

  • All who receive Jesus are saved, and
  • all who reject Jesus are lost.

The statements are untidy as those two categories do not account for the entire human family. It also opens the possibility that a number who have prayed the sinner’s prayer have not received Jesus, as they might simply have received a Jesus of our making. Untidy? Yes. But we cannot tidy everything up in this life – there is a tidying up day yet to come.

The previous two posts – the church is here for God was so that God could be present in the world (‘the whole earth is mine’); the second one on being here for one another was not as an end in itself. There is an equipping for works of service that lies at the heart of what we carry in God for one another. The church is not simply here for the world, but that is our incarnational focus. Through our testimony people can be genuinely ‘born again’, even if that is a very limited NT term, and also through our priestly calling this world can move toward the New Jerusalem vision, without fully arriving there.

Incarnational Church

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The church – here for one another

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

The term ‘one-another’ is not an infrequent term in the NT, occurring some 100 times from the ‘love one another, encourage one another, admonish one another’ to the ‘confess your sins to one another’. We are to do good to all, especially those of the household of faith, so the corporate, mutually-beneficial aspect of the body is clear. There is a clear purpose of being there for one another.

If we start with a fixed view – as I was once told ‘the right way to do church’ – then we are likely to assume that the body of Christ is to meet on such and such a time and a service / meeting is to follow that will take a certain shape. If we hold to a sacramental or a protestant-word view this will most likely be our belief. However, if we consider that the Spirit’s activity is determinative we will probably be more flexible. Beyond that we can critique the oft-assumed identification of the ‘local’ church with the church in the locality that we read of in the NT letters, and we could also consider the contingent (incarnational) nature of church. It has to fit where it is situated.

Laying on one side ‘the right way of doing it’ we have to consider the desired outcome, that of enabling one another to move toward becoming who we were meant to be. With the insights of Fowler (stages of faith) we need also acknowledge the limitations of church structure where it facilitates those who are growing through to stage 3, but resists those who are continuing to grow. We do not have to be offended by that nor surprised, even Jesus spoke how there had to be some changes, and a very radical one at that, with his absence being key to the growth stage the disciples needed to embrace.

Discipleship, as per Jesus, was time-limited. Discipleship was never to hold people in a level of dependency. Perhaps by default some of the approach within the new models of church have a tendency in that direction. And further, in setting out where I am headed in the third post, a helping one another to be good church members will almost certainly prevent the third element taking place – the church here for the world. It will also fail to live up to the element I began with – the church here for God.

Over the years I have grown to deeply appreciate the ‘service’ offered by the parish churches in England. Consistently present to offer support, but not looking to own.

In being here for one another, we will find that there are specific ‘one anothers’ that we connect with. This might not be static, but will be marked by those who help us stay on track. Our interaction with them could be regular but should be important. The challenges appear when we simply look at who is there for us so that we can mature, without considering who we are there for to help them mature. In that we might err, but I do not consider that a structure should be the determining factor. The body of Christ can be found inside some very tight structures and also outside any visible structure, but regardless of where it is found it is here to be released, and released for a purpose, to be here for God, who has commissioned the church to be present in the world, his Son praying that his disciples would not be taken out of that world.

So the ‘here for one another’ is rightly wedged between the ‘here for God’ and ‘here for the world’. If the ‘one another’ aspect facilitates that we might be doing something right. If it does not, no appeal to the ‘right way’ will suffice.

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The church – here for God

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Although the term ‘body of Christ’ is my preferred term for ‘church’ due to how the latter word has been colonised I will use the word ‘church’ in these blogs. I am very happy to use the word church as it should carry with it a weight given both the application of the word to the OT people when linked to the purposes of God (normally translating in the Septuagint the Hebrew word ‘qahal’ rather than the less purposeful word ‘edah’ = people), and the Roman context of the political ekklesia in the city. Certainly the Greek word synagogue did not receive any traction when a name was used to describe the NT people. Church then should carry a purposeful sense.

Church then here for God; here for ‘one another’; and here for the world.

In what way would the church be here for God? An obvious error would be to suggest that God needs the church and its worship to ensure his sense of well-being, to make sure that any insecurities were massaged! God does not need our worship, being self-sufficient he has no need for this. (I wondered about using the compound pronoun s/he in these sentences but maybe ‘he’ works better when misrepresenting God, he is not the alpha male in need of affirmation!)

Worship declares the worthiness of God. If there is no worship God is still worthy. Our worship does not change that aspect. It does, however, change us. Some of what we term ‘worship’ or spiritual activities are cultural. I have never been able to meditate. It probably indicates my deep immaturities, having arrived well into the second half of my life I have not yet come close to entering the second half of life. Too much going on to slow down, too much of a belief in my own importance to have things in balance. So with that it is most unlikely I will connect with some very good spiritual disciplines. I can still connect with a good old shout and a holler. Others have disconnected from that as the context of insularity from the world betrays for them whatever the rest of us might be shouting and hollering about. Whatever rights and wrongs are in it all, personalities, stages in life and all the rest comes to bear on the issue of our approach to ‘worship’. Moving on quickly…

Why is the church here for God? It is not here to massage any ego issues, but to align with heaven so that there might be entrance points for heaven on earth. God loves the world, but s/he cannot simply change the world. It is set in a way that reflects the love of God. The ‘uncontrolling love of God’. This is why the term ‘omnipotence’ is purely a philosophical term when we come to the issue God’s activity in relation to humanity. ‘Omnilove’ is the better term.

With the Brexit one person wrote that ‘God is still on the throne’. Nice one. A better comment came from a friend that Gayle and I skyped with yesterday – ‘and true also during the holocaust’. That kind of statement is meaningless if the throne is the throne of omnipotence.

Could God save the world without Jesus? I have to give a resounding ‘no’, and not because of wrath needing to be appeased, but so that all human rebellion (which results in oppression and dehumanisation) could be sucked into the death to end all death. The issues to be dealt with are not issues that deity needs to resolve but that humanity needs to resolve. The incarnation is so key. The ‘continuing incarnation’ is also key.

All that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up

Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

Those three scriptures above identify the body of Christ as Jesus. If we only had those scriptures we might be pushed to say that the church is Jesus. That of course would be a conflation of concepts, but highlights the parallel between the mission of Jesus and that of the church. Jesus himself said:

As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world (Jn. 17:18).

Jesus finished the work the Father gave him to do – that work is finished but the work continues. He unmasked power through the cross and decisively opened the path of life through the resurrection. He showed that sacrifices and offerings were not the desire of God, but a body through which the will of God could be demonstrated (Heb. 10:5-7).

The church – here for God? Indeed, but not as a body that will make God feel better, but to participate with heaven’s transforming agenda. The spiritual disciplines (including meditation!!) will keep us centred in on who this God is so that we do not depart from his omnilove throne. To that extent they are more than helpful. When not calling us to that goal they will prove totally unhelpful.

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