Changing Orthodoxy?

So, while I have a fairly "high" view of orthodoxy, I do believe that God calls us to constantly evaluate and, if necessary, adjust our beliefs and practices in order to realign ourselves with His will.

But how is this done?

When it is simply a matter of an individual changing his/her beliefs/actions that is one thing... but what about when it is the/an entire church that needs to change their "orthodoxy?" What then?

This is where a number of passages (ie. Matt 16 & 18), but particularly Acts 15, come into play.

I would encourage you to take the time to read this chapter (here). If you have time, reading chapter 14 is also helpful for context.

The gist of what's going on in this chapter is that while Paul & Peter have been proclaiming the Gospel to everyone (including Gentiles) they clearly have not been requiring them to, upon conversion and baptism, begin adhering to the Mosaic Law (particularly after the whole Acts 10 deal: here).

Obviously this is a HUGE break in orthodoxy. Those Pharisees who have become Christians can't handle the idea that God wouldn't require Gentiles to follow the "Old" Covenant and begin debating with Paul and Barnabas on the matter.

So the Church convenes a council to address the matter.

The "orthodoxy" at issue: the practice of circumcision and adherence to the Law of Moses (15:5)

Due process is followed including:

- a gathering of the leaders of the Church (vs. 6)

- debate (vs. 7)

- reports of God's work as pertaining to the issue at hand (Peter, vs. 7-11; Paul & Barnabas, vs. 12)

- The leader of the Church (in this case, James) proclaims the judgement as reached in the council (with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, vs.28).

In this case the answer is, No!, Gentile Christians do not need to be circumcised (the sign of the Old Covenant) nor do they need adhere to the Mosaic Law save on several points (vs. 29).

The precedent set by this situation is an excellent one, especially as far as changing orthodoxy goes. In my reading of this passage (and other key texts) I would say that no one person has any right or authority to change what orthodoxy is.

It is only when God's people gather together under the proper leadership that God has put in place and, led by the Spirit, they discuss, debate, and ultimately decide what orthodoxy is that orthodoxy can amended.

And, as we can see in this situation in Acts, this sort of orthodoxy making has the definite ring of authority.

Obviously, as I said above, the implications of all this are huge.

What sort of implications does this have?

What do you make of this? Why?

The Weight of Orthodoxy

How much weight does orthodoxy hold for you?

With post-modernity seemingly having its way among many circles within western Christianity I generally see two approaches of "deconstructing" (and presumably reassembling) our faith:

1) disassembling our current belief structures and attempting to "start from scratch."

2) a reinvestigation of what the Apostolic Church believed.

I'm sure there are more approaches than these and you can feel free to add them to the comments below, but these are the ones I've seen most often.

Which of these do you lean toward? Why/why not?

I believe that orthodoxy has a certain amount of weight. By this I mean that the foundational, central beliefs of the church throughout the past 2,000 odd years have a certain amount of authority.

Yes, of course, different denominations have various "distinctives" or unique beliefs that set them apart from other denominations. There are a lot of these: child-baptism vs. believer's baptism; just-war vs. pacifism; hierarchical vs. congregational; etc... There are lots of different "distinctives" and they are of varying significance. All of them are "Biblical" in the sense that they are based on a certain interpretation of the scriptures.

But that's not what I'm talking about when I talk about orthodoxy. I mean catholic (small "c") orthodoxy; universal orthodoxy. There are certain beliefs that 98.2% of the church has always believed (yes, I just made up that percentage). I could list off some of the things that I think are included in this category, but in the name of participation and interaction I'll ask you instead:

What beliefs do you think fit into this category?

The reason why I have great faith in Christian orthodoxy is because I have great faith in the Spirit of God. I believe that God is guiding His church in order to accomplish His goals for His church. After all, Jesus Himself said "... I will build my church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it" (Mt. 16:18).

No, this doesn't mean the church is infallible. Obviously there have been mistakes made, from the mildly disappointing to the near catastrophic, but in the midst of it all God continues to move and to guide His Bride. After all, when things get too out of line events like the Reformation happen which bring us back... which bring us closer God's intention for His church.

All of this is to say that when I see people going out and trashing the church or tossing aside orthodoxy as if it has no significance I can't help but think: don't you have any faith in God's guidance of His people and His history? Can you really set yourself against or above 20 centuries worth of Spirit guided followers of Christ?

But that's just my take.

What do you think?

Gathering & Committing

Today I am going to conclude our discussion on "church." It's been a long, much interrupted, series of posts but I hope you have benefited from them. I know I have.

When it comes right down to it, church is all about getting together and committing to something. We've talked about the meaning of the word church. The basic meaning of church is an assembly or a gathering. In its secular context a church (secular def'n of ekklesia) is a decision making assembly. When we look at the OT church (see LXX) we see a similar pattern. Whenever the people of Israel gather together in corporate worship and it is described as an ekklesia there is also a call to respond: they are covenant gatherings (ie. a call to renew the covenant). When the people leave the church (assembly) they have committed themselves to fulfilling their part of the covenant with God.

I think this is what church needs to be. When we assemble for corporate worship it is church. However, for it to truly be church there needs to be a response; we cannot leave church without having in some way committed ourselves anew to the cause of Christ & the Kingdom.

Now, some of you might balk when I use the phrase "leave church" but I use that phrase intentionally. I think there has been a fair bit of confusion over the years over what is the church and what is the body. [I acknowledge that what follows is probably an overly simplistic explanation but I think it holds true. If you take exception to it we can discuss it in the comments.]

The church is an assembly. Hence, once the assembly disperses you are no longer part of the assembly. The assembly is only an assembly when it has assembled... duh. So, when we are talking about the church as the local gathering of the Body of Christ then it is very simply what we have already described: a decision making gathering of the people of Christ.

However, regardless of whether we are assembling or not, we are all members of the Body of Christ; the Universal Church. I think the term universal church is a bit of a misnomer because it really isn't a church... or at least not yet. The entire Body of Christ has never assembled, nor will it until Recreation. That's something to look forward to!

So anyway, this conclusion is hardly revolutionary but I always think the journey's worth the work. Maybe we already knew when we started what the destination was but the hike is worth the work-out.

We may all be a part of the Body of Christ, but God has called us all to be a part of the local expression of the Body: the church.

I think as we gather for church, whatever that might look like, we need to keep in mind the OT Worship/Covenant gatherings. If we walk away from a gathering not having committed ourselves again to the grand purposes of God then we have missed the point.

Also, I find it compelling that Jesus said that "... the gates of hades will not prevail against..." the church (Mt. 16:18). When we assemble and these assemblies are times of worship and commitment the very gates of hades tremble.

That says something about church.

So, what do you think?

What else would you add to the discussion?

Is this the same or different than you've thought of church?

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And if you only visit my blog for amazing YouTube clips, here's another DC*B video from last year's Dove Awards. The sound might bite, but it's a great song and I like the idea of what they did with the set. Enjoy.

The church, our Mother

Once again, I'm feeling kinda swamped and don't have the leisure to do too much abstract thought. But I want to keep up (and wrap up) our ongoing discussion about "church."

Most of you know that I have a great admiration for N.T. Wright. I think he's one of the most progressive, pragmatic, and biblically grounded theologians in recent history. And so, what I have to offer you today is an excerpt from his book "Simply Christian" (pg. 210-212):

"If God is our father, the church is our mother." The words are those of the Swiss Reformer John Calvin. Several biblical passages speak in this way (notably, Galatians 4:26-27, echoing Isaiah 54:1). They underline the fact that it is as impossible, unnecessary, and undesirable to be a Christian all by yourself as it is to be a newborn baby all by yourself.

The church is first and foremost a community, a collection of people who belong to one another because they belong to God, the God we know in andthrough Jesus. Though we often use the word "church" to denote a building, the point is that it's the building where this community meets. True, buildings can and do carry memories, and when people have been praying and worshiping and mourning and celebrating in a particular building for many years, the building itself may come to speak powerfully of God's welcoming presence. But it is the people who matter.

...

It is within the church, even when the church isn't getting everything quite right, that the Christian faith of which we have spoken is nourished and grows to maturity. As with any

family, the members discover who they are in relationship with one another. Churches vary enormously in size, from scattered handfuls of people in isolated villages to enormous congregations of many thousands in some parts of the world. But ideally every Christian should belong to a group that is small enough for individuals to get to know and care for one another, and particularly to pray in meaningful depth for one another, and also to a fellowship large enough to contain a wide variety in its membership, styles of worship, and kingdom-activity. The smaller the local community, the more important it is to be powerfully linked to a larger unit. The larger the regular gathering... the more important it is for each member to belong also to a smaller group...

So, what do you think?

What do you agree with?

What do you disagree with?

Synagogues and Churches?

As I've been thinking through all of this ekklesia stuff my mind keeps on coming back to the Jewish synagogue. This is because I have heard (I don't remember where) that as the ekklesia spread it modelled itself after the synagogue.

So how did ancient synagogues function?

In what ways is that similar/dissimilar to what we see in the early church?

Synagogues (literally, assemblies... like ekklesia it is a gathering of the people not a building) began during the Babylonian captivity. With the temple destroyed and the people in captivity the Rabbis of the day came up with a way for the people of God to have worship gatherings without the temple. Initially, these gatherings began as meetings in homes and then as they grew and became more established they built their own buildings, appointed elders to lead the gatherings, and hired rabbis to teach them and their children. Eventually, each community had its own synagogue with it's own elders and rabbis. Sound familiar?

These synagogue assemblies centred on the scriptures and prayer. Scriptures were read, a rabbi would explain the text, and debate/discussion would follow. Times of communal prayer also

took place. I have read nothing to indicate that music was a part of these synagogue gatherings but we all know how important the worship arts were to the people of Israel... that's for another

day.

Anyway, I don't know about you, but to me all of this sounds very similar to how the early church operated. [The picture is of the Synagogue in Capernaum]

So, how is this connected to our current discussion? In "Pagan Christianity" Viola makes the argument that the bulk of how we "do church" has its roots in Graeco-Roman paganism rather than in the scriptures. I would agree that much of how we do things is based on tradition and not the scriptures. But I'd say that today's church owes just as much (and I'd argue much more) to the Jewish synagogue than to pagan religions.

You guys are bright, intelligent people. What do you think?

What am I missing?

Do you know of other similarities (or dissimilarities) to synagogue worship?

And for those of you who really don't care about any of this:

Here's the newest trailer for the upcoming "Astro Boy" movie!

descriptive or prescriptive?

I think it goes without saying that all churches claim to be Biblically rooted, so I always think it's kind of funny when people say things like, "well, we're just trying to get back to the way they did it in the Bible." First of all I think it's funny because it comes across as more than a little pretentious (as if the rest of us aren't "biblical") and secondly... well, that leads me into the bulk of this post:

Whenever we're dealing with hermeneutics (interpretation of the scriptures) there are a number of questions that need to be asked. One very important one is this: is the text we are looking at descriptive or prescriptive? In other words, is the text we are looking at simply describing stuff that took place (with little or no bearing/obligation upon us to respond to it in a given way)

or is the text clearly stating something in such a way that it demands a specific response from us as we read it?

Our discussion on "church" is the perfect example. What we see in the NT is this:

1. Christians gathering at the temple/local synagogue to hear the scriptures read (no Christian would have their own copy of the scriptures).

2. they would then leave these rather large gatherings and meet in necessarily smaller groups in their own houses in order to discuss what they heard from the scriptures, pray, and break bread.

Now, the whole house church movement (backed up by Viola, Barna, the Dales... which started

this set of posts) is centred on #2. They see the descriptions of meeting house to house and say that the truly Biblical model is based on small groups of Christians meeting not in church owned buildings but in homes.

But I don't know if they asked this important hermeneutic question: is what we see in the NT (when it comes to ekklesia) descriptive or prescriptive?

When the NT writers recorded what the ekklesia was doing was it simply a description of how they chose to meet? Ie. there is no obligation for future generations of Christians all around the globe to meet in this precise manner.

Or when the NT writers recorded what the ekklesia was doing was it prescriptive? Ie. how the early Christians met is the way that God requires all of us to be meeting.

Let's have a discussion around this.

What do you think?

What is church anyway?

Coming out of last week's post I think it might be good to do our own re-evaluation of what "church" really is. If we want to "do" church in the way that we believe the Holy Spirit is directing us through the scriptures then it can't hurt to crack the case wide open and take a good look. Please join me as I work through this. I firmly believe in community hermeneutics so I cherish your thoughts.

First of all, let's throw out the word "church"... for now. The history of the word "church" is slightly convoluted and even misleading. It has a whole lot of connotations wrapped up with it and no small amount of baggage. However, once we've rid ourselves of "church" (the word, not the concept) what we are left with is this: ekklesia (also sometimes spelt ecclesia; either way it is a transliteration of the Greek word, εκκλησια).

Ekklesia is the word used in the NT that we usually have translated for us as "church" (Acts 19:32 is the exception; here ekklesia is used in its secular context... see def'n below). However, there is a lot of stuff packed into this one word. From Mounce's Expository Dictionary...:

"church is derived from ekklesia ('to call out'), so the church is the 'called-out ones' of God. In

its secular use ekklesia refers to the gathering of the competent citizens of a city-state in order to decide issues regarding laws, office appointments, and public policy. But the prototype of the NT ekklesia lies not in Greco-Roman history but in the assembly of God's people in the OT (cf. Acts 7:38) which developed into the Jewish synagogue as the gathering of the community of God..." (my emphasis).

In the Greek translation of the OT, the Septuagint (henceforth abbreviated as LXX - if you are unfamiliar with the LXX it may be worth while checking out one of my previous posts here), the word ekklesia shows up quite often (see, for example, 1 Chron. 28:8, Deut. 31:30, Micah 2:5, Neh. 7:66). In these cases that I found, ekklesia is always translated as assembly; and not just any assembling of a group of people, it is always the assembly of the people of God. In fact, the phrase the church of God comes not from the NT but the OT; from the LXX.

So, the roots of our word for "church" actually come from the OT assemblies ("ekklesias" LXX) when the people of Israel were "called out" for God's purposes. This is the basis for what would become the Jewish synagogue. And the Apostle Paul (who uses the word ekklesia more in his letters than anywhere else in the NT combined) used the basic synagogue structure when planting churches. Also, as a semi-connected tidbit, it was Paul's branch of the pharisees that believed that the LXX was equally inspired and authoritative as the Hebrew scriptures.

SO WHAT?

First: Contrary to popular belief "Church" is not just a NT thing. It has deep roots in the OT worship/covenant gatherings. When Jesus used the word ekklesia (Matt. 16:18; 18:17) he wasn't coining a new term. The people of Jesus'/Paul's day knew the word and what it meant; namely, the gathering together of God's people for God's purposes.

Second: Ekklesia is primarily a gathering/assembly of like-minded people. Recently I have heard a lot of people and read a number of books that are trying to combat the idea that the church is a building by saying, "you can't go to something that you are." This is partly right... but I want to draw a distinction here. I am not the ekklesia; we are the ekklesia. "Church" cannot, by definition, be attached to anyone or anything singular. I, by myself, am not the "church"; I can't gather/assemble with myself . A Christian standing by himself/herself is just that: a lone Christian. The ekklesia, as Paul describes it, is a body with many parts. A finger severed from the hand is just a finger; when attached to the hand it is part of the body. So, if you have any illusions that you are the "church" get rid of them. You are not the ekklesia; but we are.

I think that's enough for today. I'll be continuing with this exploration over the next few weeks so please add your voice to this discussion.

In your mind what aspects define "church?"

What aspects of today's "church" life do you think are scriptural?

What aspects are cultural (man-made/society imposed)?

WHAT! A new post?

Yes, it's true; I've posted again!

So, what has caused me to break my silence? The short answer: George Barna.

Now, I've never been a big Barna fan. Even though he and the Barna Group have done some great things for the Western Church he's always just rubbed me the wrong way. It all started when I had to read "The Habits of Highly Effective Churches" as a text in College. It ticked me off that he even attempted to measure "the presence of God" (pg. 84) and put it on a pie chart.

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the stats that the Barna Group have come up with... they truly can be quite helpful. But really? The presence of God on a pie chart!?!

Anyway, apparently Barna's newest gig is co-authoring books. I've recently been reading a couple of books on which his name has been slapped: "Pagan Christianity" (written by Frank Viola) and "The Rabbit and the Elephant" (by Tony & Felicity Dale). Both of these books were written by their real authors and Barna "co-authored" them by adding some statistics and a forward. I guess it doesn't take much to be a co-author these days.

I'll leave poor ol' George alone now.

My real beef with both of these books is that... well, let's just say that Viola could have had Dan Brown co-author this book. I think they'd get along pretty well.

Both of these books relish in vilifying the "traditional/institutional" church. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a good little post-modernist; I enjoy deconstructing institutions as much as the next guy but I just believe you have to use your brain while doing so.

If you are going to attack God's Bride you had better have your ducks in a row.

The basic premise of both of these books is that the "New Testament model" for church is that of house churches. We horrible, evil, brainless Western Christians have corrupted God's church by making them corporations. The only true church is the small, dynamic house church.

Now, I should say that The Elephant and the Rabbit doesn't put things quite so aggressively as that, but that is the underlying tone.

And in the case of Pagan Christianity, I think Viola mistook including copious amount of footnotes as real research.

My real frustration with these books is that I want to like them. Honestly, I agree with 75-80% of what these people have to say... but:

1. Their arguments are filled with pride. Rarely is there a hint of humility which says, "you know, this is what we believe and here are the reasons why we believe this, but we know that other intelligent, God-loving, Christians have come to other conclusions and we believe the Holy Spirit knows what he's doing and will guide the church." Instead, people who are a part of "institutional" churches are described as "well-intentioned" and "mis-guided." Really? I don't know about you but I find that a touch patronizing.

2. Oh, the hypocrisy. In the introduction, Barna accuses the institutional-church of using the Bible and "proof-texting" (pg. xxviii) defenses for our way of church (and there's some truth in that). And in the first chapter Viola warns the reader that he/she is about to "be confronted by unmovable historical fact" (pg. 7). And yet, to anyone who knows even a smattering of Church History, it quickly becomes very clear that Viola has been doing a grotesque amount of proof-texting in his research. He simply found all of the books that push his perspective and included them in his footnotes. Not only is that mildly dishonest... it's just straight-up bad scholarship!

3. Bad Theology. I think one of the things that really damages Christianity in the Western world is a poor theology. This is reflected in both of these books. The problem is that people have no idea how the OT and NT fit together. There is very little sense that God's plan flows and weaves its way through human history as a seamless tapestry. People are so confused by the OT that they have no clue what to do with it. Thus, they (I'm assuming very unintentionally) push the OT to the back of their minds and say that Jesus fixed all of that crazy OT stuff. Even though that simply isn't true (X fulfilled the OT; it didn't require fixing) it has huge implications... like in ECCLESIOLOGY: the study of church.

You see, the OT has a lot to say about how people gather together to worship God. I can't get into it all now (this post is already WAY TOO LONG... sorry) but my frustration with these books is that they don't even think of considering OT ecclesiology.

For example, Viola loves to attack (often rightly) Constantine. But he takes it to the point

where it doesn't even make sense: "Constantine is also noted for bringing to the Christian faith the idea of the holy site, which was based on the model of the pagan shrine" (pg. 20).

Is this the only possible explanation for the early Christians revering specific places as "holy"?

Oh, just wait, there's like a million places in the OT where monuments and shrines are set up to be remembered by future generations. In fact the term "holy ground" (Ex 3:5) not only comes from the OT, but the whole idea is initiated by God Himself!

But Viola states his "facts" so confidently ("ooh, and it's even backed up by a footnote... it must be accurate!") that the reader is lead to believe that this is the only logical explanation. Oh, man, does stuff like that tick me off!

I'm going to wrap things up here.

Both of these books make idiotic leaps like this all of the time. It's like they wrote their books all in one sitting without giving them to an editor who had a brain.

And the frustrating thing, like I already said, is that I want to like these books. I agree with a lot of what they say... it could just be said so much better by people who could make real arguments for their stance. Instead a lot of people become mis-informed and even mis-lead.

That's it. I'm done.

148

How big is too big?

This is a question that every growing church or organization has to ask itself. This is especially an issue in churches (like mine) where one of the "growth engines" is relationships or fellowship or community or however you want to describe it. It's kind of ironic that people are drawn to community yet the more people that are drawn the harder it is to maintain; the very thing that draws people to the church is endangered by them being drawn into it.

As I've been thinking about these sorts of things over the past year or so, I keep coming back to Dunbar's Number: 148. Robin Dunbar is a British anthropologist who has stated that 147.8(usually just referred to as 150) is the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships." Of course, he has done a crazy amount of research pointing from primate colonies to hunter/gatherer groups and tribalism, to military organizations (Ancient Rome's military units were 150 strong), etc...

Dunbar has given a pretty large margin of error for his number but has a "95% confidence interval of 100 to 230." As our church attendance nears 200+ I begin to wonder, "what do we do now?" This last year I met a pastor from BC whose church had planted several times. He said that once they got close to 150 they began preparing to split and plant a new church. I have no idea why he chose 150 but it does line up with Dunbar's number.

The fact is that the bigger a church gets the more likely (and maybe even necessary?) it is that cliques form in order for people to maintain a sense of closeness and connectedness with at least some people in the church. After all, if you can't get to know everyone you have to know someone.

Outside of the church there is a movement called "Neo-Tribalism" which is partially based on Dunbar's Number. This is a movement of people who say that, with the increase of globalization, the foundations of society have fallen apart. To combat this they have formed "tribes" of people who live (literally or even virtually) together. They base many of their principles on the teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and others.

Christian Anthropologist David W. Shenk describes in his book, "Global Gods" the strengths of African Tribalism. He says that tribalism can be summarized as "'I am because we are, and we are because I am.' The person can exist only in community, and community can thrive only through the harmonious involvement of the person. The relationship between the person and the community is reciprocal, creative, and life enhancing."

I think it is safe to say that life in our contemporary society is far from "reciprocal, creative, and life enhancing."

What do you think?

So where does that leave each one of us?

What about the church?

How big is too big?

What do you think about Dunbar's Number?

What do you think of Neo-Tribalism?