Our church has recently been hashing through the relationship of mission and community, and its practical implications for our church body. It sounds like the diagnosis has been made: The American church for the most part has lost its mission, and our communities of faith have reflected that either by neglect of the “Go therefore and make disciples” (more fundamentalist and introverted churches) or by disregard for the “teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you” (more mainline denominational or liberal type churches).
From conversations I’ve had with our pastoral staff, it seems like we are arriving at the point that ”community is the vehicle for mission”. Pushing just a little deeper into the idea, I asked why? The conclusion I arrive at is this: a missional community is the outflow of a covenantal community composed of individuals whose identity is found in Jesus Christ. Perhaps this is evidence of the total saturation of my mind by “individualistic” western thought, but I’m not sure I can see community aside from its composition of individuals. I’ll try to explain where I’m going with this, but it’s not entirely clear in my mind just yet, and I need some help fleshing it out.
I’ve been starting to think through how the Doctrine of Justification and the Atonement fit into this discussion. If we begin to think that community is something more than the sum total of its parts, I think something (to my knowledge, which isn’t incredibly deep) there needs to be something more than simply particular redemption and forensic justification of individuals. It seems like if you affirm that community is something that exists outside the context of individuals, you are almost forced to come up with a view of the atonement which provides for some general redemption. I guess my question runs along these lines: Is our corporate identity as a body with Christ as our head somehow something more than just the composition of individuals whom Christ has redeemed? I realize this may seem semantic and I’m probably not explaining my thoughts perspicaciously, but I think I need some help sorting through the rat’s nest of my brain.
Theologians, help.
Yeah, you probably only want to blog once you’ve distilled your thoughts down into perspicaciousness (seriously, GTB is headed for the Ivy Leagues if you keep up that vocabulary around the dinner table). I’m definitely not a theologian, but I’ll lend a couple anecdotes and you can see if they fit (or don’t) with your theories as they currently exist.
You make my last comment from a couple weeks ago awful prescient, bringing up the missional aspect of church (yes, GTB, listen to Daddy and G-Funk talk…you’ll learn a thing or two for the spelling bee in a couple years). What we’ve experienced out here in SoCal is the utter absence and desolation that arises from a lack of community. I think it is very Western to view community as a conglomeration of individuals because our self-worth is so tied to identity and uniqueness (for Exhibit A, I give you my high school and collegiate wardrobe). Western thinking places the burden of responsibility upon the individual, as he is the author of success, failure, and everything in between. Companies obsess over supply chain management, searching for the mathematical link between A, B, and C as they converge into a finished product.
I think my most recent glimpse into the additive quality of community was the ISI reunion back in April. I was struck by so many things — the incredible passion that Hunter as an individual displayed was overshadowed by his disbelief at what ISI had become (so much more than he envisioned). The current students (faces I didn’t know) summarizing what ISI has meant to them could have just as easily been Jeremy or Craig talking. In short, I hope that ISI continues to be a community whose priority is doing good and growing and enriching more than itself. Never during the reunion night did I get the sense that ISI has become complacent, or uniform, or stale, for which I’m very relieved.
I think community should be about action, adventure, dialogue, and cooperation. It should be individual passions spurring others on to more lofty and noble goals. Community must be greater than the sum of its parts (wikipedia says smart people call this “holism”). Businesses get this right many times, with diverse departments, focus groups, and divisions. Why can’t the body of believers, with its many denominations, liturgies, and ethnic resources capitalize on diversity and create a greater good?
I guess my rebuttal to your question is: if there are only individuals, why the need for common grace? Why not live the life of the ascetic? Ok, that doesn’t really answer anything. My last two years has been the exact opposite (and may shed light on your communal hypothesis) — isolation and lack of community turned me into a less-effective individual and has fragmented my spirit.
I buy into the holistic argument, but my ramblings may not have been enough to convince you. Respond away (or maybe we do just need to get an honest-to-goodness theologian in here).
I’m not entirely sure what you guys are trying to say or explore, but I think a fundamental issue that should be clarified is to address just what an individual is. I will offer some insights via perhaps the best Trinitarian theologian of the 20th century.
Taking his understanding of community and the church from the Trinity, Colin Gunton has noted that, “There is no such thing as a pure individual.” However, to the extent that emphasize our identity beginning with ourselves, as individuals, we define ourselves in terms of “separation from” others.
However, the biblical and Trinitarian paradigm is persons, persons-in-communion. Father, Son and HS never act is separation from one another, but always in perichoretic harmony. Thus, in attempting to understand community or that relational dimension of what it means to be in the “body” of Christ, we should conceive of ourselves as persons, people who define ourselves in terms of relations with others, not by separation. This is more clearly observed in the identity and practices of Israel.
Jdodson. I don’t know you, but I wholeheartedly agree. Perichoretic is indeed the word. Our understanding of oursevles as both persons and the body mirror the eternal communion of selfless love that is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The relational is at the very core of who God is. As Christians we are invited into that communion of selfless love that is the very same love that is between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’m not saying I understand the Trinity completely, it is a great mystery, but the west has had a much too static view of Trinity over the years.
Another great (and short) read on the Trinity from a very pastoral man is Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace by James Torrance. Check it out on Amazon. Also, Augustine’s De Trinitate translated by Edmund Hill has been highly recommened to me by div school friends.
My year at the Trinity Forum Academy was, shock and surprise, rooted in the Trinity. Theologically it is a crucial starting point. Arriving at a more relational view of God transformed the way that I approach just about everything and certainly my understanding of the church.
Jonathan and Matty,
I think you have done a noble job of expounding Trinitarian theology, and I am in full agreeance with you on the perichoretic harmony. I think the question I am more grappling with is how does that flesh out with respect to biblical community, and more specifically to the redemption of fallen humanity as individuals and as communities.
I’ve been reading through Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship lately, and came across this in Chapter 5 (Discipleship and the Individual):
“Throgh the call of Jesus men become individuals…It is no choice of their own that makes them individuals: it is Christ who makes them individuals by calling them. Every man is called separately, and must follow alone.”
and
“He (Christ) stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality”
and
“The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion…now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life…direct relationships are impossible…Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator…We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves.”
I guess what I intend to say by quoting this is that I can’t see community other than through the lens of Christ the Mediator. The Trinity is indeed a picture of what biblical community ought to look like, but it cannot be experienced outside of the individual redemption of a person. Christ alone is capable of creating the community of believers though His atoning blood on the cross.
Do you think this is too individualistic of a picture? If so, can you give me some help with respect to Atonement theology which provides some explanation for how individualism is defined?
Bottom line, our individualism, as I am seeing it, is not defined by relationship to others, but in relationship to Christ, which necessarily translates to others. Does this make any sense?
[...] of my friends responded to the first post by defining individuals in light of how the Godhead expresses individualism — [...]