‘Gus: Dear Lord man, you may be the most unsystematic
thinker I know!
Chris: How so?
‘Gus: I’ve been poking through your “blog” and I wonder how
you’ve not noticed you have all the pieces to think deeply about the faith for
the world as it is, in order to get a sense of what the Church shall be.
Chris: I what now?
‘Gus: My Lord… you’ve done a lot of work on thinking about
how a
piety centered on what happens in worship can widen out into the day to day
life of Christians. You even created a
prayer book devoted to the idea. At the same time, you’ve also diagnosed a
few trends in the world where this faith is to be lived—your “3Ds.”
Chris: Oh, you mean Decentralization, Demographics, and… oh, I never remember the third one…
‘Gus: Disestablishment!
Chris: Yeah, that’s the one.
‘Gus: Your 3Ds that will shape the church have shaped the
church before. In fact, they were all bubbling up in my world too.
I wrote City
of God in response to the reality that disestablishment was happening, that
support of Church by State was deeply in jeopardy. The Church saw in the Roman
Empire the culmination of the Kingdom of God, we’d fused the two, we’d become
an established church. The sack of Rome called all that into question, it was a
kind of shock disestablishment.
There was plenty of decentralization of authority—by what
authority were the Donatists making their divisions? Pretty soon any ass with a
quill—I think especially of Pelagius of Brito—could make a claim on Christian
doctrine.
For that matter, demographic shift within Christianity is
not new—though in my day the weight was shifting from South to North, instead
of North to South, as it is now. I mean, what were we to do with all these non-Mediterranean
Christians? They had their own culture, and ideas, which of them were amenable
to the faith and which were not?
Chris: So, nothing new under the sun.
‘Gus: I wouldn’t go that far… my point was that the church
faced deep changes, and we made it through faithfully, and so can you. Some of
it is just asking the right questions, and that’s what I think we should take
some time with tonight.
Chris: Shoot.
‘Gus: Look at this chart:
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Disestablishment
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Decentralization
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Demographics
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Gathering in Community
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How do we gather without the explicit
approval of our society?
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What does gathering look like in a
scattered world?
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How do we gather in
a racially ethnically and economically diverse world?
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Confession and Forgiveness
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How do we confess and forgive in a
disestablishment world?
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How do we confess and forgive in this
decentralized world?
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What especially needs to be confessed and
forgiven in these new demographic realities?
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Baptism
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What parts of our baptismal identity
shine through differently in a disestablished church?
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How can we be centered in our Child of God-ness
in a decentralized world?
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As racial and
economic identity shifts in our society how do we affirm our baptismal
identity—in what ways does it shift or stay the same?
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Word of God
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What themes in
scripture draw attention to themselves when read from outside the cultural
mainstream?
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How may the Word of God be preached and
trusted in a decentralized world?
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How do we hear and
respond to the Word of God differently when we are ethnically and
economically different than we were a generation ago?
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Thanksgiving
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For what aspects of
disestablishment ought we give thanks?
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What new ways can we give thanks when
everything is decentered?
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What methods of thanksgiving are found in
non-Eurocentric cultures?
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Meal
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In what ways have we wed Holy Communion
to the powers that be in our society?
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Where do we have the holy meal in light
of decentralization?
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What aspects of Holy Communion can be
expressed differently for a wider variety of cultural contexts?
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Sending
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Who have we neglected to go to in order
to impress the powers that be?
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Where and how are we sent when we’re
already dispersed?
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How are we sent differently to the new
demographics in which we live?
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Chris: Oh, wow, I can start answering those questions… for
example,
How do we gather
without the explicit approval of our society?
Gathering in community is harder when there are no blue
laws, and employers aren’t embarrassed making their employees work on the
Sabbath, and being a good sports ball player is now as important to being a
good citizen as being a Sunday school attender or weekly confirmation student.
‘Gus: Sports ball player—is that what they call them these
days?
Chris: Maybe…
‘Gus: But yes, those are the kinds of questions and thoughts
that this should raise, but also the positives. For example, what opportunities
arise from being community when its not the norm?
Chris: Okay, let me try again, when we think about
What does gathering
look like in a scattered world? We can note some plus sides. We learn the
ways technology can help, even as we stay aware
of its potential negatives. Can we do online church? Does our society’s
propensity toward decentralization mean small groups are a necessity, not a
luxury? How does worship need to change to change with the times? Does it
require decentering the pastor… any authority figure? How can egalitarian
church be done?
‘Gus: How about:
How do we gather in a
racially ethnically and economically diverse world?
Chris: Yeah, I mean do we lean into multiculturalism, and
try to ensure all churches are diverse, or does it make sense to invest in
communities of non-white backgrounds, even if they are mono-culture? For that
matter, there is the economic angle, what it means to be middle class is not what
it once was, we are more time and money poor… but could that mean our gathering
together could look less like a hobby group and more like people seeking
salvation together?
‘Gus: You’re getting the idea… but maybe you just need to
sit with those 21 questions, otherwise you’ll shoot from the hip, and that’s
likely to put an eye out. So just pray on those questions for a while.
