“There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators”. But they went on with the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven”, and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated”. They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

“Things are different now. The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.

“But judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century.” (Dr Martin  Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail...to evangelical pastors April 16, 1963).

King's prophetic message is still current for the church today. Have we learned anything from it in the over 46 years since he first wrote this to the Church? Did we take his message seriously? What do you think about its relevance for today?

The following observations in “Against the Current”, Leadership, Fall 2009 p.15 challenges the popular assumption that everybody needs small groups in order to develop an organic and relationally intimate community. They were made by a couple of pastors talking about their challenges in establishing a multi-ethnic Church in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighbourhood:

Context question: What assumptions do white people carry into [your] church?

Arloa Sutter (pastor of community life): “When I came I said, “Let’s just start small groups! Everybody wants to be in a group, right?” The fact is small groups aren’t as important to other ethnicities as they are to white people”.

Context question: Small groups are a white church thing?

Daniel Hill (Pastor/Church Planter): “White people rely on small groups to connect. Other ethnicities from community more organically, more relationally. Immigrant communities find fellowship within extended families. In a city a lot of community happens on the front porch or sidewalk. So non-whites aren’t as eager to set up structures and systems like small groups”.

Carlos Ruiz (coordinator of community groups): “I think whites really value efficiency”.

Antione Taylor (director of Sunday morning ministries): “And releasing that value is really hard for a lot of them. They perceive other ways of operating as inefficient or disorganized”.

Jennifer Ikoma-Motzko (elder): “They say it’s not the right way to do church. And I respond bluntly by saying: “You mean it’s not the white way to do church”.

What that conversation illustrated to me is that the “one size [system, formula] fits all” premise for building a relationally healthy, nurturing and growth-oriented church doesn’t necessarily work within all cultures.

To me, the issues Hill and Taylor raise also imply that whites (I am also white) value not only efficiency, but also the emotional safety, privacy and comfort, and sense of being more in control that being in a small group tends to provide them. They tend to gravitate toward small groups for those reasons and feel less relationally comfortable within larger community settings which disorientate and challenge them culturally, and are more chaordic by general nature.

However, something Arloa Sutter says later in the conversation I think has some bearing on why larger community gatherings can be just as important as those small ones we may feel so comfortable in:

“We believe that being together is more important than being comfortable”.

 One of the main influences which frequently our choice of the church group to attend is our wanting to be with people we like, who are just like us, and who we want to be just like.

Unfortunately, in the real world it just doesn’t usually work out to be like that.

The reason why is described very ably by Eugene Petersen (2005). Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, p. 226:

“Christ plays in the community of people with whom we live, and we want to get in on the play. We see what Christ does in creation and history and we want in on it firsthand with our families and friends and neighbours. But difficulties arise. Soon[er] or late[er] those of us who follow Jesus find ourselves in the company of men and women also want to get in on it. It doesn’t take us long to realize that many of these fellow volunteers and workers aren’t much to our liking, and some of them we actively dislike – a mixed bag of saints and sinners, the saints sometimes harder to put up with than the sinners. Jesus doesn’t seem to be very discriminating in the children he lets into his kitchen to help with the cooking”.

Community is complex. Being in community in the way Jesus forms it – with so many people from different backgrounds culturally, economically, ethnically, politically and socially – can, and inevitably is very challenging and often poses difficulties for us.

You can observe that throughout Mark’s Gospel in the number of fights which occurred among The Twelve over who would be first once Jesus had departed from them: very factional, rivalries, posturing for status against each other (e.g. Mark 10:35-45). They were all Jewish, but from quite divergent sub-cultural religious, social and political backgrounds. And they fought time and time again with each other about things like religious control, even after the Spirit came upon them all at Pentecost (e.g. Acts 15:1; 15:39; Gal. 1:18-21)

But if we are to honour Scripture and Jesus, we need to accept the fact that there should be no unfair discrimination against others on the basis of gender, race, social or cultural background. Gal. 3:28-29 puts it fairly plainly: “Faith in Christ Jesus is what makes each of you equal with each other, whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a free person, a man or a woman. So if you belong to Christ, you are now part of Abraham’s family, and you will be given what God promised”. 

Our journey along the Jesus Way was never designed to clone us into a faith community of identical sameness. Our oneness is not about loss of our individuality. But nor is about what Petersen calls “the highly vaunted individualism of our [predominantly Western] culture” (ibid). There is no getting around it, “there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself” (ibid).

To go with Jesus where He goes in mission means being prepared to plunge intentionally into a community of relationships with people of His choice, not necessarily those of our choice. It also means intentionally seeking out and including non-judgementally and in  goodwill those into our table-fellowship those whom Jesus would include in it, rather than running away from or ignoring that call and responsibility in mission and faith community building.

5000 filled Bellies: Magic or Miracle?

I’m not about watering down Jesus’ miracles. Amazing miracles occurred such as the healings of lepers and restorations of sight to the blind, raisings of the dead and so forth in the Gospels. And I believe those were creative miracles – miracles done by the Creator, Jesus Christ. Genuine miracles as far as I am concerned! However, when we read about Jesus’ miracles, I think we also need to read carefully and critically between the lines of what is possibly also being described from within any subtexts underlying those Gospel accounts. Doing so to some extent can demythologize what occurred, but does not render it any less miraculous as significant human-divine spiritual encounter in any event.

Take for instance, the feeding of the 5000 in Mark 6.

I once saw a Hollywood movie about this miracle which depicted endless fountains of fish and bread pouring out into the baskets the disciples distributed...what seemed to the film makers at least enough to give dramatic effect  to the impression that it would feed around 5000 people. But that’s not what I think really happened in real history when the feeding of the 5000 occurred.

Jesus was no super-magician or trickster, even if some Christians to day appear to think (mysteriously) that he was. Perhaps that’s why so many so-called miracle-worker charlatans can get away with their trickery and fool thousands of gullible Christians – because those Christians misidentify their magical tricks and illusions for genuine miracles of God?

Instead, I imagine that it happened a bit more like this....

It was getting late, they (the disciples and Jesus) were way out in the country where there were no cafes or shops, and a huge crowd of 5000 followers had followed them to be near to Jesus either to hear him speak, witness a miracle, get healed, or in some other way be exposed to what ever it was he had to offer them.

Overwhelmed by it all, and a bit claustrophobic by being surrounded by so many people – many of them highly needy people probably - the disciples had come to Jesus to do something religiously symbolic to appease the crowd and bring closure to this gathering . Ultimately they wanted to disperse and get rid of the large crowd whom they found rather challenging to deal with. They just wanted to go home. “Enough was enough”, they thought. And, “But how to talk Jesus into it?

The disciples use the `convenient’ excuse that the crowd is getting hungry, they have no food for them, and just enough barely for themselves. Their underlying implication to Jesus is that this hungry crowd will become a highly restless and perhaps hostile crowd if things were allowed to continue the way they were going now. They basically might just as well have told Jesus, “Send them on their way, before things get out of hand”.

So, knowing their hearts, fears and motives, what does Jesus do? He tells the disciples to do something practical and extremely challenging. He asks them what food they have – “Only 5 loaves and 2 fish. Jesus then doesn’t let them cop out with that further excuse, but says: “Feed them with what you have”.  

So presumably somewhat  miffed, and somewhat embarrassed and bemused by Jesus’ reply to them, the disciples then reluctantly offer up whatever food they have for sharing out and then Jesus blesses their food and the intended recipients through a prayer.

There are three keys to understanding this miracle here. 1) Jesus says something, in prayer, to God and presumably in the crowd’s hearing. We don’t know what he said. It simply isn’t recorded. But it seems highly likely that the crowd heard it and it deeply moves them. 2) His disciples decided, under Jesus’ instruction, to offer all the food that they have, however scant it was, to be shared among the massive crowd of people. 3) What wasn’t said, but implied by Jesus’ call for them to share what they had with the others.

I guess they also waited for the inevitable backlash they expected from a highly dissatisfied and still hungry crowd whom they presumed would react angry about the token nature of their offerings to them.

But the disciples got it so wrong (as they seem to do so often in Mark’s Gospel). It resulted in a massive food sharing party, not the angry riot or the mass protest they had come to expect from easily disgruntled Jewish religious crowds.

I think the disciples completely misread the collective attitude of this crowd.

The story goes that they distributed that to the crowd and that none of the crowd went hungry. In fact, once it was all and done and everybody was fed – it says “all ate their fill” - it was enough for all the whole 5000, and there were 12 baskets of left-over food to boot.

Now we are led to believe that by some creative miracle, God some how magnifies those few fishes and loaves into more than enough for 5000 people and more!

And what I believe how we commonly interpret this miracle is quite wrong. I don’t for instance believe God somehow turned the baskets used into fish factories and bakeries which operated like the Tim Tam biscuit packet blessed by some genie from bottle to magically never run out like in the ad we sometimes see on TV.

That’s how I think we often see it. Like Jesus, the penultimate genie in a Gospel (and not in a bottle), chanting something mystical to God to get Him to work some great magician’s trick to make a couple of fish and loaves into thousands. What a great magical feat!

No. I think that’s wrong. That’s not how I interpret this miracle at all.

What I see Jesus doing is using this dire situation – this problem – to challenge the disciples into becoming practical problem solvers.

You see a real need. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to be part of the problem or part of God’s solution to it?

It’s also a test of their faith. Can you trust God enough to somehow do what you cannot possibly do, given your limited resources? Are you prepared at least to give it a go, and to trust in God to somehow help you handle the rest?

Jesus calls upon them to give their all in terms of what food they had. But somehow after he blesses it in a prayer of thanksgiving to God, the food gets somehow multiplied – enough to fill up and satisfy the whole of the 5000, including themselves. How did that happen? What actually happened?

I think we need to look more closely at what Jesus said during his prayer to God, before he distributed the food to the crowd.

Now we need to understand that just because there were 12 baskets of leftovers doesn’t mean there were only 12 baskets circulated among the crowd to distribute the food. I think, given the amount of food that became multiplied, there were probably a great many more baskets going around to make the distribution more workable.

Okay. So where did those baskets come from. Obviously from among the 5000, silly! Surely many of these people came with things like baskets, and uh! Oh! Maybe some food and water themselves? After all, we’re not talking about the whole lot being absolutely incapable of catering adequately for themselves and planning for a days outing. Most of them were adults. And most adults do have a capacity to think ahead when it comes to travelling away from shops, home etc. when it comes to packing a picnic lunch or evening supper.

Yep. The disciples said the 5000 had no food. But I don’t think they were really all that interested in canvassing the crowd to find out what they really did have. They just assumed that. It was a very convenient excuse to bring to Jesus because they were intimidated by the crowd and how it may look to the spies of the Jewish and Roman authorities, and they really just wanted Jesus to disperse them promptly before something controversial happened which upset the governing religious and political powers operating locally.

The real miracle that happened I think was one of changing hearts.

It happened when under Jesus’ leadership the disciples were helped to face their fears by sticking with it and ministering practically to the crowd.

Jesus put them, and Himself, on a spot.

Jesus as their leader tells them to give everything they have to meet the crowd’s practical need. That means giving away all their food. Given the remote situation, that took an act of trust in Jesus, and his ability to supply all their needs. It was also a costly act of self-sacrifice and a great demonstration of generosity.

By taking it up and asking God to bless the food in prayer, Jesus takes on the responsibility as a leader for what is to come. The crowd would have focused heavily on what he said to God and on behalf them as participants in that prayer.

Now we don’t know what Jesus said. It is not recorded in the Mark 6 text. But let’s presume that probably what the disciples decided and did, followed by what Jesus said in his prayer of blessing about them and the food, had a significant impact on what the crowd did in response. Then let’s presume that, as a result of what they saw and heard mentored to them by generosity of the disciples and by what they heard of the good-heartedness of Jesus toward them, that their hearts were profoundly touched to the core. They were moved to the core by Jesus’ gracious words to God made on their behalf. They were also amazed at His disciples’ radical generosity.  Moved of heart so much so, that all thoughts of selfishness for so many there were somehow now miraculously turned in another direction – that of newfound generosity and goodwill toward the others in the crowd. Transformed of heart so much by Jesus’ prayer and the disciples’ example of costly selflessness that now they  too wanted to offer all their previously `privately owned’ food  brought along with them to just sustain them for the day, onto the `table of fellowship’ to share now with the everyone else. We don’t know if it was all who had this significant change of heart, but it appears that for so much food to be shared that most would realistically been involved. In any case, no one went away hungry. All were fed well. The Gospel says that many were in fact full after eating the meal. It was what appears to have been what could be fairly described as “a pretty hearty meal”.

Following the disciples’ and Jesus’ example, and moved by Jesus’ heartfelt prayer of blessing for them to God, the crowd – presumably made up before of individuals just there to get what they could for themselves without a care at all for the rest – had a turning of heart in another direction – they now decided to care for everyone else enough to share their valuable food with the others who were hungry or who had nothing. That is a radical change! That’s what is not typical in any society – particularly this notoriously selfish culture throughout recent history.

Okay. So where is the real miracle? I think you have to read between the lines of the story to discover where it is. And the real miracle is the hidden one which is found there. It is what happened in the changing of hearts in this story, and not in the filling up of bellies that the actual miracle is found.

It also raises the possibility that even with the little we have, a lot can be achieved.

We might not reasonably be expected to feed the whole of the starving world. But through our example of giving generously to alleviate hunger, many will be inspired to join up with us to do that. Every little bit counts. Just because the world’s problems are so big, doesn’t excuse us from standing back and doing nothing about, or just passing on the problem to someone else `out there’ to miraculously somehow turn up and do what we should have in doing our part practically in being utilised as God’s answer to our prayers concerning social problems, however small our contribution may be. Big problems are generally solved by many do little bits out of generosity and goodwill, which combined address the whole more substantially. But it’s all got to start somewhere. And that’s where we as individuals and groups of disciples need to lead the others to begin doing it through setting good examples.

What I believe we need to do today is to explore the story behind the story... to read between the lines and ask relevant questions that probe for deeper underlying truths... to understand contextual realities... to learn the real lessons from it, and to then practice the underlying miracle – that of choosing from our hearts to respond to Jesus’ call to go in a new, and in fact, His direction, which necessarily involves trusting Him in His faithfulness and love toward us, and in decisively and prayerfully going forward along His Way in responding to life’s ever-presenting challenges.

Andrew Park

(2009-09-19)

Was just inspired by an article by Pam Hogeweide about a homeless man's spirituality posted on this website.

So I thought I'd add an article I wrote about the spirituality of the homeless a few years ago for my workplace as well. It was written to other caseworkers within a large network of church-based homelessness welfare services, but also circulated to our homeless people locally as part of a newsletter.

Homeless People’s Stories Are Significant

During our casework processes, it is important for us to provide suitable relational space for clients to be able to share their stories about their homelessness. 

Often in our rush to process clients “through the system” and then get on to the next person in need, we can quite easily ignore their need to be listened to and heard as people with a history – their background story about them which is significant, even though many others or even they themselves might not have interpreted it as all that important up until now.

Encouraging clients to reflect and share about their personal stories of homelessness can be highly therapeutic. It also respects the dignity of the homeless as more than just clients, but as people - people whose stories are just as interesting, significant and valuable to humanity (and to God) as anyone else’s.

That point was strongly emphasised recently by a recent article by Brigid Delaney in the Sydney Morning Herald. In her article, “Forget drugs, the power of the pen is the ultimate adrenalin rush” (26/5/05), she describes how one formerly homeless man, African American Lee Stringer, attributed his overcoming a 15-year-long crack addiction to homelessness welfare workers encouraging and providing him with suitable opportunities to share about his personal story of homelessness through a local magazine for the homeless.

Stringer described how, after being asked to put his thoughts down on paper for Street News, New York’s equivalent to The Big Issue magazine sold in Australia by homeless street vendors, he discovered that writing about his story gave him a similar rush to what he’d had when using crack. So much so that he gave up crack and took to writing instead.

Stringer described it as being like `a spiritual conversion’. “When the wheels fell off for Stringer in the 80’s and he started smoking crack, the hugeness of the rush obliterated everything else and filled a vast `spiritual emptiness’ – as all addiction does”.  He then went on to describe how discovering writing – especially in telling his own story – radically changed his the direction of his life: “Writing is a conversation with audience… you reveal yourself. Every writer snitches on themselves…[and in doing so they save themselves [citing Delaney in this part of the phrase]…the way out of drug addiction was revealing myself. There’s no more powerful act as an individual than to reveal yourself… Once you hide things it closes off a corner of your life. That’s a terrible cost”.

During the process of his writing for Street News, Stringer got `discovered’ by a major New York publishing house and was asked to write Grand Central Winter, a book describing his 15 years experience of being homelessness on the streets of that city. It became a best seller. Consequently, Stringer is now both famous and wealthy, and no longer homeless. He also travels internationally as an activist to speak out about homelessness and how to address it through social justice measures.

One of the things Stringer is very strong in empathising is that homeless people (as cited by Delaney) have “the same needs that the rest of us do…the gulf between the haves and the have-nots is not as wide as we think”. That includes our needs to feel significant, and for our lives to have worth and meaning: “We want to feel that we matter, we want to feel loved and respected”.

Enabling our clients with suitable space and opportunities to explore and share their own stories is good welfare practice. It is not only about respecting them as individuals, it is about accepting their dignity as persons and giving them opportunities to recognising their own dignity as persons.

One client I worked with last year used journalising as an intervention strategy to combat her episodes of self-harm. By stopping to journalise about her intentions, before she cut herself on her body, often gave her enough of a pause to reflect far more rationally about the immediacy of her situation, the logical consequences of her actions, to de-escalate her feelings and thoughts of crisis, and then seek crisis team help as she required it. Telling her story then became a potentially life-saving strategy for her, even if others didn’t read about it in a newspaper article or book.  

A work colleague of mine told me recently that she has found that by keeping a journal in which she writes down her personal reflections about daily events, especially those occurring in work life, is very helpful to her in her own self-care. Her private journalising is a very helpful psychological and spiritual healing process for her. It provides emotionally safe space to debrief thoroughly to herself and to God about her day. She deliberately and honestly explores major events that happened to her, reflects about how she handled those, interprets and tries to make sense of it all, and is then able to process and make necessary decisions or make needed emotional closures regarding different aspects of her work or personal life. Journalising time is a moment of spiritual reconnection with God during which she prays self-reflectively, as well as theologises about “where God was present” in her day guiding, equipping, loving her and leading her in her daily work and private life. It has become a regular time of `meaning-making’ allowing her to healthily self-reflect and become more self-aware, to explore and reaffirm her own significance, self-respect and dignity as a person, and to review and renew her daily spiritual relationship with God. Journalising also helps her become a better caseworker. It enables her to cathartically unload unnecessary emotional baggage to God, rather than to let that stuff unhealthily accumulate and become projected negatively upon her ongoing relationships with clients.

Coming back to Stringer, his very public journalising about his own life was not only about exchanging a bad habit for a good one.  It helped him to face up to who he really was as a person, and then to re-accept his own personal accountability and responsibility for both his past, present and future. During the processes of looking reflectively and inwardly – in getting real with himself - especially in reconsidering his personal history of addiction and homelessness, his grief and losses, and journeys through struggles, he discovered a new basis for meaning and hope in life. It was a `liminal’ or threshold `moment’. Writing his own story not only helped him to get off drugs, it helped him to find his potential self - a side yet unexplored - which he could only do so by getting forever off drugs. Somewhere along the same track he not only found his new potential self, he also found God - the faith in whom helps Stringer keep on track as well as motivating him to keep on sharing about his own experiences in overcoming homelessness as an activist.  

Andrew Park (Program Caseworker, Cardinal Freeman Centre).

© 2006

Today’s era in Christianity is regarded by many contemporary missiologists as one of reformation of the church – a new period of reformation, or a `Neo-Reformation’ to coin a suitable description.

What began with Luther and Melanchthon is re-emerging today: a situation where many thinking Christians are once again seriously questioning the theological relevance and Biblical integrity of our Church institutions for today.[i]

Sojourner’s activist, Jim Wallis believes the world is on the brink of a new revival of faith. He says “the revival of faith always creates new communities, new forms of worship, new music, new models of service, and new calls for justice. It almost always originates outside the established church structures, but eventually begins to infuse life even into them”.[ii]

From little things big things grow. The 1^st Reformation period of Church history is often  attributed to beginning with Luther and his nailing of the 95 theses to the door of his Wittenburg Church in 1517 as a form of “protest against some questionable theology and serious abuses in the sale of indulgences” by the Roman Catholic Church.[iii] Within a very short period of time word of those theses had spread all over Germany and later wider into Europe and sparked a “tumult” within the Church.[iv]

Although written in anger about various abuses occurring within the Church institution, Luther’s  95 criticisms were never intended to destroy the Church, but simply to reform it through speaking out hard truths protest.[v] This especially had to do with his concerns “for the salvation of his parishioners” causing Luther to become “furious that the indulgence preachers were misleading people for financial gain” by selling salvation and forgiveness as if a thing to be sold, rather than to be received freely and through faith in Christ alone.[vi] 

At the heart of this protest was Luther’s argument that salvation could not be earned by human effort or merit, which he claimed was utterly inadequate, but only through faith in Christ’s work of the cross and resurrection. Salvation could only be had through faith in Christ alone, and in him alone as Saviour and Lord. It would not be enough to accept through simple assent that God existed as Creator of the world. Not through one’s own works, however good or admirable those were. It took an active decision to have faith in Christ of the Scriptures – the Jesus of the Gospels who died for the remission of human sins. It was the righteousness of Christ, not our own which saved. Luther drew on the texts of Paul in Romans and Galatians, Abraham’s being made righteous through faith in God alone, and from the Psalms in making his argument.[vii]

A basic summary of Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith:

“Although justification was to be understood as declaring the sinner to be righteous rather than making him or her righteous, this did not mean the believer ceased to be a sinner...Sinners stand before God throughout their lives clothed in Christ’s righteousness, and they do not need to earn merit because they already have all the merit they possibly need, since Christ earned it” on their behalf. “They have direct access to God because they arte righteous, and when they die, they will be taken directly into his presence...assured by faith that they are righteous before God”.[viii]

Phillip Melanchthon, was a theologian and close friend of Luther, and his scholarly colleague at Wittenberg University.[ix] That relationship was to play a key role in the ongoing Reformation of the Church in this period.

Luther’s temperamental and obstinate behaviour would cause many rifts between him and others who might otherwise have become key allies in the Reformational cause.[x] So fortunately however for Luther when major crises occurred he could turn to the wise Melanchthon his ally and confidante, a highly gifted writer, theologian and diplomat to more gently persuade powerful others to the Reformist cause utilising those skills very ably before kings, church officials and politicians on Luther’s behalf.[xi]

Melanchthon was “no mere secretary to Luther”. He was Luther’s right arm and sometimes left at times during the Reformation as a ministry partner, but Melanchthon can be credited with developing with “forging a uniquely Protestant (Lutheran) method of reading Scripture” in his own right as a scholar-reformer.[xii]

It was Melanchthon who penned into history the Augsburg Confession of 1530 the basic reformist articles of Christian faith Luther had been advocating very strongly for, for many years.[xiii] No doubt he consulted Luther and was deeply influenced by beliefs they both shared together, but it was essentially a literary work of Melcanththon, but an intellectual and reformist in his own right.

The Augsburg Confession articles were generally adopted by all Protestant Churches over the process of time, with the exception of interpretational differences over infant baptism and the Eucharist, which put the Lutherans bitterly at odds with the Anibaptists for many, many years and at times ended up in bloodshed between the two factions of Protestantism.[xiv] Hence Melanchthon’s many condemnations of the latter sect as heretics during his writing of the Confession.[xv]

Melanchthon’s Theses on Law, Gospel & Faith – Loci Communes Theologici (Common Places in Theology (1521) draws together in simple succinct statements basic principles of Christian faith which could be easily drawn upon by Neo-Reformists of today, in restating important missional beliefs and guiding principles for informing Christian discipleship, mission and evangelism for today that would be understandable and accessible theologically for most lay and clergy people within our contemporary culture.[xvi] These indicate a good understanding of the Gospel as a gift of grace from God, the call to love one’s neighbour and God, salvation by faith in Christ rather than erroneously relying on human ability/works in a vain effort to save one’s-self, forgiveness of sins a result of Christ’s salvic work, the need for a revelation from God (through Scripture and the Spirit) of Christ as Saviour, salvation as an act of God’s mercy through Christ, and the promises of God and how they are realised through faith.[xvii]

Melanchthon at one stage backed away from the argument that faith in Christ alone was sufficient to be saved by stating that good works were necessary for salvation.[xviii] , he reverted back to Luther’s basic proposition[xix] after falling into conflict with Flacius, another Lutheran theologian of the time[xx].

Melanchthon modelled the values of social compassion, humility, fun, generosity toward others, liberal hospitality and kindness all his life. He is described as at any one time having taken in, adopted and fed many homeless children and adults as well as being a loving family man as an outflow of his Christian lifestyle up until the day he died.[xxi]

As we today seek to be reformist in our activities as Christian missionaries, theologians and activists in ministry, it is worthwhile to remind ourselves of, and to know about and reflect upon the lives of our reformist ancestors, and to see them not just as angry, protesting and conflicting men and women, but to draw added weight from the way they lived and related toward others before coming to harsh conclusions about them, to see them truthfully, but also to see them in their context, and to do that with eyes of grace, humble in the reflection that if it were me in their shoes would we have been so brave or have acted differently, fought better, been more enlightened etc. I personally think we – the proposed Christian reformists of this age – have much to learn from the previous reformers of past generations to help us do even better at it, and to guide our children and our children’s children to do better than us in developing better kinds of disciples in their own times than we were.

Andrew Park © 2009

ENDNOTES

These are the endnotes for my previous essay on The Silencing Of The Lambs.

[i] http://www.theforgottenways.org

[ii] Brueggemann, Walter. (2007). Mandate To Difference: An Invitation To The Contemporary Church. Westminster: John Knox Press: Louisville, Kentucky. P.43.

[iii] 

Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.P.42.

[v] Ibid.

[vi] Ibid. P.43.

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Anderson, Ray S. (2006). An Emergent Theology For Emergent Churches. Intervarsity: Illinois, P. 25

[ix] Ibid.

[xi] Often the wider world secular culture regards those who reach out to the poor and needy with their compassion as foolish and unwise. They cannot make sense of it due to their different worldview about such things.  Tom Sine uses the metaphor of clowns and fools in his book (2008). The New Conspirators: Creating The Future One Mustard Seed At A Time. Intervarsity, Downers Grove, Il.  

[xii Brueggemann, Walter. From Hurt To Joy, From Death To Life. In Interpretation 28, 1 (1974). P. 5.

[xiii] Brueggemann, Walter. (1995). The Psalms And Life of Faith. Minneapolis: Fortress.

[xiv] Ibid. P.84.

[xv] Park, Andrew. (1998). Theodicy As A Useful Resource For Today’s Pastoral Care. Mulgrave.

[xvi] Brueggemann, Walter. From Hurt To Joy, From Death To Life. In Interpretation 28, 1 (1974). P.3.

[xvii] Ibid. P.4.

[xviii] Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonhoeffer%2C_Dietrich Dietrich Bonhoeffer returned to Germany in 1931, where he lectured on theology in Berlin and wrote several books. A strong opponent of Nazism, he was involved, together with Martin Niemöller, Karl Barth and others, in establishing the Confessing Church. In August 1933, he co-authored the Bethel Confession with Hermann Sasse and others. Between late 1933 and 1935, he served as pastor of two German-speaking Protestant churches in London: St. Paul's and Sydenham. While Bonhoeffer desired a trip to India to discover non-violent resistance with Gandhi, he returned to Germany to head a seminary for Confessing Church pastors which had been made illegal by the Nazi regime, first in Finkenwalde and then at the von Blumenthal estate of Gross Schlönwitz, which was closed at the outbreak of World War II. The Gestapo also banned him from preaching; then teaching; and finally any kind of public speaking. During this time, Bonhoeffer worked closely with numerous opponents of Adolf Hitler.

Küng studied theology and philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was ordained in 1954. He then continued his education in various European cities, including the Sorbonne in Paris. His doctoral thesis was entitled "Justification. La doctrine de Karl Barth et une réflexion catholique." Published in English in 1964, it located a number of areas of agreement between Barthian and Catholic theologies of justification, concluding that the differences were not fundamental and did not warrant a division in the Church. (The book included a letter from Karl Barth, attesting that he agreed with Küng's representation of his theology).

In 1960 Küng was appointed professor of theology at Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany. Just like his colleague Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), in 1962 he was appointed peritus by Pope John XXIII, serving as an expert theological advisor to members of the Second Vatican Council until its conclusion in 1965. At Küng's instigation, the Catholic Faculty at Tübingen appointed Ratzinger as professor of dogmatics. However, due to the 1968 students revolt, Ratzinger moved to the university of Regensburg, ending the cooperation between the two.

In the late 1960s Küng became the first major Roman Catholic theologian after the late 19th century Old Catholic Church schism to reject the doctrine of papal infallibility, in particular in his book Infallible? An Inquiry (1971). Consequently, on December 18, 1979, he was stripped of his license to teach as a Roman Catholic theologian but carried on teaching as a tenured professor of ecumenical theology at the University of Tübingen until his retirement (Emeritierung) in 1996. To this day he remains a persistent critic of papal authority, which he claims is man-made (and thus reversible) rather than instituted by God. He was not excommunicated and remains a Roman Catholic priest.

In the early 1990s Küng initiated a project called Weltethos (Global Ethic), which is an attempt at describing what the world religions have in common (rather than what separates them) and at drawing up a minimal code of rules of behaviour everyone can accept. His vision of a global ethic was embodied in the document for which he wrote the initial draft, Towards a Global Ethic: An Initial Declaration. This Declaration was signed at the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions by many religious and spiritual leaders from around the world. Later Küng's project would culminate into the UN's Dialogue Among Civilizations to which Küng was assigned as one of 19 "eminent persons." Even though it was completed shortly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (in November 2001), there was no coverage in the U.S. media, something about which Küng complained.^[2][3][4]

Based on "Studium Generale" lectures at Tübingen University, his latest publication Der Anfang aller Dinge ("The beginning of all things") discusses the relationship between science and religion. In an analysis spanning from quantum physics to neuroscience, he comments on the current debate about evolution in the United States, dismissing those opposed to the teaching of evolution as "naive [and] un-enlightened."

On September 26, 2005, he had a friendly discussion about Catholic theology over dinner with Pope Benedict XVI, surprising some observers.

In 2007, he received a Masonic award for his entire life's work.^[5] This award is strange, given the fact that Catholics who join freemasonic organizations are in "a state of grave sin" and "may not receive Holy Communion."^[6]

  "If you cannot see that divinity includes male and female characteristics and at the same time transcends them, you have bad consequences. Rome base the exclusion of women priests on the idea that God is the father and Jesus is his son, there were only male disciples, etc. They are defending a patriarchal church with a patriarchal God. We must fight the patriarchal misunderstanding of God." — Newsweek interview, July 8, 1991

  "Everyone agrees the celibacy rule is just a church law dating from the 11th century, not a divine command." — Newsweek interview, July 8, 1991

  "There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions." - Küng speaking on global ethic^[7]

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Boff   Leonardo Boff entered the Franciscan Order in 1959 and was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1964.

Boff then spent the following years studying for a Doctorate in Theology and Philosophy at the University of Munich, which he received in 1970. Boff's doctoral thesis studied in what measure the Church can be a sign of the Sacred and the Divine in the secular world and in the process of liberation of the oppressed. Boff has since published his thesis as a book available in German, entitled Die Kirche als Sakrament im Horizont der Welterfahrung.

He became one of the best known (along with Gustavo Gutierrez) of the early Liberation theologians. He was present in the first reflections that sought to articulate indignation against misery and marginalization with promisory discourse of the faith, leading to Liberation Theology. He continues to be a controversial figure in the Catholic Church, primarily for his past support of communist régimes, but also for his alleged support of homosexuality and commentary on the destruction of the World Trade Center as marking "a new planetary and humanistic paradigm".^[1]

He has always been an advocate of the human rights cause, helping to formulate a new, Latin American perspective with "rights to life and the ways to maintain them with dignity". The work of liberation theologians helped lead to the creation of more than 1,000,000 "ecclesial base communities" ("Comunidades Eclesiais de Base" or CEBs) among poor Catholics in Brazil and in Latin America. The movement (and Boff) also criticised the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the social and economic order that oppressed the communities they worked in. Boff claimed to find much of the justification for his work in Chapter 1, No. 8 of Lumen Gentium ("Light of the Nations"), a document from Vatican II.

He is currently critical of non-religious powers as well considering George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon's leadership to be similar to that of "fundamentalist terrorist states." He has also made similar criticism of Islamic fundamentalists. Boff said in an interview with the site "Comunità Italiana" (November 2001) about September 11 attacks on the United States of America: "For me, the terrorist attack of September 11 represents the shift towards a new humanitarian and world model. The targeted buildings send a message: a new world civilization couldn't be built with the kind of dominating economy (symbolized by the World Trade Center), with the kind of death machine set up (the Pentagon) and with the kind of arrogant politics and producer of many exclusions (White House spared, because the plane fell before). For me the system and culture of capital began to collapse. They are too destructive." In the same interview he said that "One of the worst fundamentalisms is that of neoliberalism" (Um dos piores fundamentalismos é aquele do neoliberalismo). ^[2]

Authorities in the Roman Catholic Church did not appreciate his criticism of Church leadership. They also felt his human rights advocacy had "politicized everything" and accused him of Marxism. In 1985, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith directed at that time by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), silenced him for a year for his book Church: Charism and Power. In the interview quoted above he accused Cardinal Ratzinger of "religious terrorism" (terrorismo religioso).

He was almost silenced again in 1992 by Rome, this time to prevent him from participating in the Eco-92 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, which finally led him to leave the Franciscan religious order and the priestly ministry.

For most of his life Boff has worked as a professor in the academic fields of theology, ethics and philosophy throughout Brazil and also as lecturer in many universities abroad such as University of Heidelberg, Harvard University, University of Salamanca, University of Lisbon, University of Barcelona, University of Lund, University of Louvain, University of Paris, University of Oslo, University of Torino and others.

He has written more than 100 books, translated into the main languages of the world. In 2001 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in the Swedish Parliament.

He has received honorary doctorates, in Politics from the University of Turin and in Theology for the University of Lund. He has also been honored with various awards, within Brazil and the rest of the world, for his struggles on behalf of the weak, the oppressed and marginalized, and Human Rights.

[xix] Wikipedia. Oscar Romero. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93scar_Romero On February 23, 1977, he was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador. His appointment was met with surprise, dismay, and even incredulity. While this appointment was welcomed by the government, many priests were disappointed, especially those openly aligning with Marxism. The Marxist priests feared that his conservative reputation would negatively affect liberation theology's commitment to the poor.

On March 12, a progressive Jesuit priest and personal friend Rutilio Grande, who had been creating self-reliance groups among the poor campesinos, was assassinated. His death had a profound impact on Romero who later stated "When I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought 'if they have killed him for doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path".^{[citation needed]} Romero urged Arturo Armando Molina's government to investigate, but they ignored his request. Furthermore, the censored press remained silent.^{[citation needed]}

Tension was noted by the closure of schools and the lack of Catholic priests invited to participate in government. In response to Fr. Rutilio's murder, Romero revealed a radicalism that had not been evident earlier. He spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture. As a result, Romero began to be noticed internationally. In February 1980, he was given an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University of Leuven. On his visit to Europe to receive this honour, he met Pope John Paul II and expressed his concerns at what was happening in his country. Romero argued that it was problematic to support the El Salvadoran government because it legitimized terror and assassinations.^{[citation needed]}

In 1979, the Revolutionary Government Junta came to power amidst a wave of human rights abuses by paramilitary right-wing groups and the government. Romero criticized U.S. military aid to the new government and wrote to President Jimmy Carter in February 1980, warning that increased US military aid would "undoubtedly sharpen the injustice and the repression inflicted on the organized people, whose struggle has often been for their most basic human rights". [1] Carter, concerned that El Salvador would become "another Nicaragua," ignored Romero's pleas and continued military aid to the Salvadoran government.

[xx] Ibid.

[xxi] Sweeney, Douglas A. (2005). The American Evangelical Story: A History of the Movement. Baker: Grand Rapids. P. 54-55.

[xxiii] Ibid.

[xxiv] Ibid.

[xv] Ibid. P.55.

[xvi Stott, John. (1992). The Contemporary Christian. Intervarsity: Leicester. P.232.

[xvii] Ibid. I have taken some poetic licence to update Stott’s comments by mentioning some more contemporary world events here.

[xviii] Ibid.

I am constantly writing and then refining essays about topics I am interested in.

My theology of Church is constantly evolving.

Despite what some people may deduce from the essay I will include below, I am against institutionalisation of Church which I believe distorts it into something other than the community of a Royal priesthood of all-members on an equal status basis, whether male or female, whatever racial background they come from, their age, and without unfair discrimination against their background culture using as a guide Gal. 3:28.

Nonetheless I am attempting to be fair-minded and realistic in my critique. I also welcome constructive critique about my essay below as I wrestle with what it means to be a Christian who no longer identifies with institutional church models, but who regards many modern alternatives on offer as repetitions of the same basic church planning mistakes.

So here goes my essay. I welcome your comments. I want to refine it. I want it to be useful. And hopefully it will make you think, critique and reimagine Church in new and useful ways.

It is still a work in progress.

Please note that the endnote numbers could not be clipboarded properly due to technical issues to do with the cut and pasting into this website for some reason. Nonetheless I have included those notes anyway and will attempt to remedy that in the near future once I have detected how to resolve that problem.

© 2008 Andrew Park

I thought I might write something after reflecting about previous comments from The Forgotten Ways website[i] to do with CEO (corporation) models of Church leadership.

In his new book, An Invitation to the Contemporary Church (2007), OT theologian Walter Brueggemann argues that the Church, as a dominant society, can be quite “pharaonic in its silencing”.[ii]

Such a silencing of the lambs “gives us a visa to the realm of death. We die a little every day in silence because we know better, and yet we dare not speak”.[iii]

When church settles into mind control mode it is often because it fears being prophetically challenged regarding its comfort zones. It moves quickly into a defensive mode when its theological safety feels threatened, or its longstanding routines feel questioned or disrupted in some way. Often it behaves like that when it feels its safety within the existing status quo way of things is endangered by motions toward change. Often it is because the humans would much rather prefer to leave everything exactly the same, yesterday, today and forever “because its always been done that way before”.

However, journeying with Jesus on the Way is a choice for ongoing and sometimes radical change. How can we be progressively transformed into His authentic faith community if we drop making the very changes that makes a viable alternative to the dominant societies we live among?

In so many cases church seems to have become more like a good news advertising business adopting a type of “we only tell you positive stuff” consumerist approach – rather than being a faith community which preaches the whole truth, including those hard prophetic truths we don’t often want to face, but often need to face in order to become the people whom Jesus really called us to be. 

Often those Christians who are called by God to deliver hard `home truths’ to the church which call it to do things like repenting from materialistic greed, shallow commitment, prayerlessness, elitism, social inaction etc. get quickly silenced by CEO type leaders who “only want positive things talked about so people feel good and keep coming back”.  It’s often all about projecting the “right" business “image” in the interests, of course, in “cultural contextualisation”.

Some Pastors of churches nowadays act much more like corporate CEO’s than genuine pastors in the biblical sense of the word. They are spokesmen for the business and how to grow it as an entity because big is good and even bigger is better. It’s not about the community. It’s all about building up the business. And it’s about making sure nothing gets in the way of making it bigger, better and bigger and better still. “Coz big is best; that’s the way of this world! That’s the reality if we want to survive as a modern-day institution! And if anyone gets in way...”

So what about CEO’s and Pharaohs? Well I think a lot of corporate CEO’s today often behave like the arrogant, self-interested, exploitative, brutal and dictatorial pharaoh’s of old.

So why adopt pharaoh’s model for the church today?

It clearly did not work for the Hebrew slaves in Exodus. That’s why they left Egypt with Moses.

Nor did it work for Christ. In Mark 10 when the disciples were squabbling among themselves as to who would be the greatest when Jesus was gone, Jesus rejected the “Lord it over one another” model of leadership. His model was far more humble option of being a servant of the others, rather than as someone who only got served. That’s hardly the pharaonic or corporate models of leadership we can see demonstrated so often in the wider world and in many populist culture churches of today.          

Brueggemann contrasts the harsh, slave-driving rule and `hard yoke’ of a life of bondage under Pharaoh to that of life how it should be under service of Christ, under whose leadership the yoke is light.

Under Pharaoh’s heavy-handed rule, it is all about brutally reinforcing his control and domination through “deeds of power” in order to achieve success.

But Jesus’ leadership over us is not like Pharaoh’s. There is “no coercion, no rigorous discipline [and] no big brick quotas”, because he is “gentle and humble of heart” (cf. Mt 11:29).[iv]

When Jesus invited people to take on his yoke it was “a call to an alternative existence, away from deeds of power, away from brick quotas, away from things `too great’, away from control and domination and success. Away from the way the world wants us to be...into the life of well-being with Jesus who is one with the Father”.[v]

However, Bruggemann likens situations in the present-day church and in life to being ruled under modern-day pharaohs: “What causes people like us to bear heavy burdens? It is because, is it not, we are coerced, driven kinds of folk, responding to the endless echoes of some Pharaoh in our present life or from our past life. Pharaoh, of course has insatiable demands, and as long as we live in the regime of some Pharaoh, we will never make enough bricks”.[vi]

He then goes on to say something very crucial about how the system inevitably silences us [from voicing dissent or critique]: “I notice one other element in Pharaoh’s narrative. When he dies, the slaves cried out in hurt. But until he died they did not cry out. They were silenced. They kept it all in. They did not dare to speak their pain. That is how Pharaoh works and how Pharaoh works in your life and mine. As a result we dare not say what we know best, or we say it so carefully and so guardedly that we siphon off our passion. And when it gets said in that way, it has no power. The church l or surely dominant society – is pharaonic in its silencing. Such silencing gives us a visa to the realm of death. We die a little every day in silence because we know better, and yet we dare not speak”.[vii]

Adopting CEO models of doing Church inevitably creates modern-day pharaohs. It is investment of way too much status, power and control in the hands of one person sitting at the top of the corporate ladder.

I don’t believe that Jesus ever intended things to be that way. He said his new faith community was not to become a situation like that of the dominant secular culture [Roman Empire] where different strongmen vied against each other in order to “Lord it over one another”(Mk 10:42-43) in some political grab for all the power and dominance.

CEO/corporation models are undemocratic. The CEO always gets the final say. That’s why he was selected for the position. His is the final casting vote. Generally he gets what he wants irrespective of whether the majority of his subordinates disagree with him on a decision.

The very notion of having a CEO standing in status above all the rest is in itself a highly elitist concept. In most societies it is the elite – the privileged minority – who generally get all the final say, whilst those regarded as the lesser classes either get very little voice in the final say of things and often none at all.

CEO’s often make good corporation leaders, but not generally good faith community leaders.

I need to state here that I think there is a legitimate place for CEOs to oversee specific projects run like businesses by churches to support their mission efforts. However, the CEO leader model is an entirely inappropriate to adopt for leadership of a faith community.

The CEO/corporate model puts death to communitas.

Communitas (e.g. dropping of all airs and emptying of statuses to share in something better, fairer, more holistic, mutually affirming, honest, and more healthily liberating in terms of being in table-fellowship community with others etc.) has no value in the CEO/Corporate model of Church. No space is given to it because it is the corporation and its perpetuation, growth, profitability and the success of its bottom line vision that matters and anything that gets in the way of that is expendable. There is little or no toleration for dissent in this sort of system. You either go with the dominant vision or you are ostracised or pressured to leave. Resistance to change is paramount. All resources go into propping up and maintaining the existing system and keeping it on track, but not edifying and transforming the community into a loving, spiritually healthy and culturally relevant missional community. You either go with “the plan” as it is, or you leave. There is no other alternative!

I also find it particularly troubling that at one such church, when challenged by a member (a lawyer) about there not being any forum provided for critical evaluation of that church’s mission the pastor sharply replied, “No there isn’t. And nor shall there be one”. The basic idea was that you either `got with the program’ as it already is set in stone by the pastor (CEO), kept your negative opinions to yourself and shut up moaning about it, or bloody well leave! There was no room in that situation for any critical analysis, reflection or any change in direction from the status quo one to be initiated from the church’s wider membership. (The church I am describing was very trendy, pop/chic culture CCC one in central-west Sydney).

One of the key freedoms which Paul the Apostle embraced and celebrated readily when he took on the light yoke of Christ during his Apostleship journey was the freedom to express theological critique about the church of his day, its beliefs, behaviour, decisions etc. He frequently challenged his contemporaries’ religious comfort zones about important issues, and actually landed `on the mat’ to explain himself before the other Apostles (possibly on a few more occasions than those mentioned in Gal. 2:1-21) because someone got upset with him and probably tried to censor him from upsetting the status quo of saying, believing and doing things. But nonetheless, when it came to critiquing and speaking out certain spiritual truths, Paul would not let himself be silenced – by the Jewish religious authorities, Romans politicians or even by the other Apostles in the early Church! We can see from Gal 2:1-21 that he ruffled some feathers (e.g. about accepting Gentile believers into the Church without them needing to be circumcised). But he would not let anyone silence or censor him from telling the truth like he thought it was.[viii]

Paul’s early base as an apostle was in Antioch. It was in Antioch that a new type of community first emerged which was quite different to the Jerusalem one. It was there that the Holy Spirit’s movement among the people resulted in a community which included both Jews and uncircumcised Gentiles. It was also there that a new theology of mission developed, which involved taking the Gospel into the Gentile world to all people groups there, rather than limiting mission solely to something to be done among the Jews in Israel. This radical change in direction from the way things had been to that point of time obviously upset the original church hierarchy in Jerusalem who obviously had other ideas about it all and apparently regarded it all as a serious threat to their control over the church’s mission and future direction as a movement.

Author Ray Anderson describes how “What clearly set apart the emerging church at Antioch from the church at Jerusalem was a theology of revelation contrasted with a theology of religion...When the controversy arose in Acts 11, the theology of the Jerusalem Church was committed to historical precedent, crippled by religious scruple and controlled by a fortress mentality. Every venture out of Jerusalem, even by an apostle, was tethered to home base by a theological bungee cord...the concession [they made regarding Gentile inclusion into the church without forcing them to be subject to the Laws of Moses or circumcision] was a superficial one, as it turned out, for the leaders of the church in Jerusalem continued to criticize and oppose the ministry of Paul [based then in Antioch] on a theology based on the law of Moses”. However, Paul whose own revelation of Christ was a post-resurrection one through the Spirit, whilst he respected all the other apostles , would not yield his own authority as an apostle as if it was inferior to those who heard the spoken words of Jesus prior to his death and resurrection”.[ix]

Eventually Paul found it necessary to sever that bungee cord – that hard yoke of religious institutional control levied on him by Jerusalem – in order for him to work more freely and effectively in mission in the Gentile world.

Recently I encountered several final year Bachelor and Masters of Theology students of a mainline denominational seminary in Sydney undertaking what they called a “missions week” short course in urban evangelism. Through lengthy discussions with them about their studies I discovered that none of them had ever heard of major seminal theologians like Moltmann, Bosch or Kung or knew anything at all about the emergent church movement. When I mentioned to them the basic concepts from the works of McLaren, Hirsch and Frost and what they say about mission in a post-Christendom age, it was like as if they froze up in fear because it was all so new, dangerous and threatening theologically and professionally to them as ordination hopefuls within a major institutional church. What it really smacked to me of was that their experience of training studying theology things had become so bound up in learning convoluted  prescriptions to do with keeping to highly controlled institutional formulas and dogmas, and  it was a very, very censored processed in terms of what they were encouraged in seminary to read or how to think about theology and mission. What they had learned was all very propositional, but appeared to discourage any critical thinking about theology and praxis in mission. “Keeping to formula” seemed to be more about what was what it was all about.

The CEO model is often just the old Constantinian model of hierarchical elitism dressed up in new in clothing to make it look contemporary and relevant. Power and control is centralised into the hands of the few who seem to have all the say, whereas the rest have very little voice in the hows, whats, whens and whys of faith community affairs.

This makes the creation of pharaonic despots possible.

A far better alternative is the APEST model. When applied genuinely it allows for multi-faceted and critical dialogue. At its best case scenario it is leadership spread over the many, rather than just the elite few. It listens to the prophetic voices from within the faith community – especially the voices of the normally unheard, from the unsophisticated, but genuine cries of heart from the weak and humble, and from the voices of the clowns and fools[x] who are there serving in little, but meaningful and practical ways in serving others in need – because it cares what they say, and proactively engages them into the faith community “voice”.

The APEST model empowers other voices in ministry. These voices emerge from different angles, but work toward the same goal – i.e. promoting the in-breaking reign of the Risen Christ over this world, but by employing different types of ministry gifts and skills under the guidance of the same Holy Spirit.

Respect for voices outside the recognised APEST leadership set necessarily must occur. Paul reminded us that “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and despised things – the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Cor. 1:27-29). This is God who turned a shepherd boy into a king and a carpenter into a messiah. We must not negate the importance of hearing and respecting the voices of the lowly and humble of status. For some day they may reign over us!

God is not like some corporate CEOs who treat all dissent against the existing status quo of doing things by issuing crushing blows in order to shame, humiliate and silence. There are plenty of Scriptural examples where people confronted God with dissenting views about His divine management of worldly affairs (e.g. Abraham taking God to task about equitable justice toward the people of Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen. 18; Psalms of Lament etc.), where God not only respected what was being argued, but actually appeared to encourage it from being voiced without fear of impeachment or punishment.

Honesty within communication in the human-divine relationship is highly desirable. It serves the common good to grapple with hard truths and problems face on and truthfully and together so that amicable solutions serving the best interests of both parties can be found. When dissent is not crushed through coercion, threats and violence, but respectfully listened to and worked through by each party toward finding amicable solutions it builds mutual trust between the parties. This a trust and faith-building exercise, which in turn fosters hope for a far more workable and better shared future which all parties can enjoy.

There are many metaphors to describe the Church in Scripture. One I like using is that of a loving family.

In a truly loving and healthy family every member’s well-being is important to the rest of family.

In an earlier journal article Brueggemann isolates two modern-day religious afflictions which jeopardise the relational and spiritual health of the church family today:

1)      “frequently we are honest but unable to be dialogual; or

2)      “Conversely we are politely dialogual but are unable to be honest”.[xi]

Those problems occur for a variety of reasons.

We live in times when political-religious correctness within many CEO-driven models of church today often dictates that in church stuff,  everything we say or do must have a positive stance to it. Speaking out in critique about anything negative to do with a church’s activities or beliefs is openly discouraged as “lack of faith”, or as “coming from a rebellious spirit”.  

This lack of a providing a forum for genuine critical processing is human-driven rather than God-driven initiative.

Denial of certain realities in life in order to look positive all the time as a religious marketing strategy greatly harms the church’s missional and pastoral credibility. Perhaps God was thinking of such positivistic spin doctor preachers when he spoke these words to the prophet Isaiah in Isa 14:          

I said, “But Master God? Their preachers have been telling them that everything is going to be all right – no war or famine – there’s nothing to worry about”.

Then God said, “These preachers are liars, and they use my name to cover their lies. I never sent them, I never commanded them, and I don’t talk with them. The sermons they’ve been handing out are sheer illusion, tissues of lies, whistlings in the dark.”

We all know that “everything is not okay with the world mate”.

But just how hard is it to tell that to such preachers when they are hugely popular with the masses and the system strongly mitigates against doing so, even if subsequent investigations of the facts and logical reasoning confirms our suspicions to be correct?

Suspect prophecy of the type which Isaiah was stressing out about in the above passage has always been tough to combat within set in stone religious-political institutional systems.

Especially when you cop the harsh treatment meted out against you for speaking the real truth about things and get beaten up or worse like Jeremiah and other authentic prophets of God did in the OT (Jeremiah got chucked into cess pits, beaten up, gaoled, threatened with execution etc).

It seems that today there would be many prosperity doctrine preachers who when confronted by a prophet like Micah would order to him: “Don’t preach...Don’t preach such stuff. Nothing bad will happen to us. Disgrace will not overtake us. Don’t talk like this to the family of God?” (Mic. 2:6).

True prophecy has way too often become silenced by the church today in favour of the sort of false stuff which Isaiah, Jeremiah and Micah fought so hard to expose as unrealistic wishful thinking and hokey-pokery types of religious triumphalism more akin to magic-making and fortune telling. (For instance, the prosperity [greed] Gospel preached by many Neo-Pentecostal preachers today runs directly at odds with the OT prophets and Jesus’ teachings about confronting social justice and the equitable redistribution of wealth).

Even long established forums for traditionally voicing dissent have been removed from the resources of the faithful.

Let’s look at lament.

The art of lament has long been “purged from the life and liturgy of the church” according to Brueggemann.[xii]  He charges that this “purging attests to the alienation between the Bible and the Church”.[xiii]

There are abundant examples of lament in the OT Bible. Often these take the form of robust critique of God to do with voicing legitimate grievances toward Him about His perceived dealings and behaviour (e.g. Ps. 60:1). Lament as a liturgical form empowered Israel’s faithful to dispute and ask interrogative questions to God, when discrepancies of opinion or conflicts of interest seemed to place the humans at loggerheads with God (e.g. Gen. 18.:16; Ex. 3:11, 4:10, 13).[xiv]

Honest expression of dissent through lament was different from making irreverent “murmuring against Yahweh (Nu. 11:1-3) because the intent was not to backstab God. It occurred in the best interests of fostering dialogual openness, honesty, and overall relational integrity between each stakeholder – human and divine.

Actually, Brueggemann says, “lament manifests Israel at her best” in the OT because she gives more “authentic expression to the real experiences of her life” narrative.[xv] The reality of that journey for Israel was that it was not always some euphoric and highly romantic, nirvana-like fantasy story of continuous delight for Israel. For instance, the sadness, despair and frustration that David expressed during some of his Psalms in appealing to Yahweh for mercy e.g. Psalm 6:6: “I am worn out from groaning; all night long I flood my bed with weeping”.

Through lament, Israel “unflinchingly saw and affirmed that life as it [really is experienced] comes, along with [the] joys, is beset by hurt, betrayel, loneliness, disease, threat, anxiety, bewilderment, anger, hatred, and anguish”.[xvi]

Dishonestly maintaining pious-polite facade of reverence when Israel really felt God had let her down in some way was not mandatory. Check out the harsh and angry tone of Ps. 60:1 – “You have rejected us, O God, and burst forth upon us; you have been angry – NOW RESTORE US!” It is very clear that Israel felt allowed by God to drop any religious facade in favour of expressing irreverent faithfulness in its talk to God when the truth, as they saw it, demanded it in the interests of maintaining a more honest and genuine relationship with Him.

Certainly there is a place in all this for theodicy. However, any defence of God’s justice must be honest with the truth occurring in people’s lives, and not dismissive of the reality that their pain, hardship and suffering which may well be quite undeserved, their injury or loss the result of a random event or natural disaster that they did not contribute to, and that they may be just innocent victims of an unfair world.

Good theodicy does not attempt to justify the unjustifiable. Nor should it be used to silence people from speaking out their real fears, despairs, frustrations, anger and honest questions about God’s justice in order to maintain some happy-clappy, forever positive and unrealistic religious facade. We need to respect people’s dignity and honest questions about God – not seek to humiliate and silence them because they ask hard questions about God which we find too threatening to consider because those questions challenge us into questioning our own faith in God.

One of the main reasons that Israel’s faith was so resilient was because it dared to ask the hard questions of God about His justice during times of exile, slavery and oppression under Babylonian and Persian captivities. It was during those times of questioning and soul searching – during exiles and holocausts into the present age - that Israel’s faith has frequently met up with Yahweh’s own relational faithfulness, grace and mercy toward them as a people.

Passive silence during times of Hitlerian-magnitude injustice toward others did not and will serve neither the Gospel message nr the mission and image of the Church well.  And yet, out of the ashes of the Holocaust, emerged the stories and writings of the now legendary German Christian theologians and social activists such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Niemoeller – brave men who refused to be silent about God’s compassion, mercy and justice toward the Jews of World War 2.  They ultimately paid the supreme price for their eloquent bravery which challenged the Church into soul-searching repentance and the renewal of courage to confront social injustice in the post-war times.[xvii]

Despite the events of recent history, the sounds of this kind of silence echo in more recent episodes of the church’s story.  The institutional Church has frequently silenced theologians – at times quite ruthlessly, mostly through excommunications.  When there was disagreement with theologically reformist and critical writing radically challenging  status quo ways of thinking and ministering the Gospel, Hans Kung, Leonardo Boff experienced censure and ostracism[xviii]  but they refused to be `institutionally silenced’ despite  the enormous pressure over issues such as radical social justice and liberation theology in regard to the church’s responsibility to proactively advocate for the poor, helpless and marginalised (e.g. viz Luke 4:18ff).   As a result, the Catholic Church was deeply influenced to reform its social practices toward the marginalised.  This included confronting political injustice on a worldwide scale toward s the end of the 20^th century.

Another controversial prophetic voice was that of Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero who refused to be silenced  about God’s justice in the face of enormous opposition from the brutal Salvadoran government during the 1970’s. Wikipedia says: “He spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations and torture. As a result, Romero gained an international profile.  In February 1980, he was given an honorary doctorate by the Catholic University of Leuven.  On his visit to Europe to receive this honour, he met Pope John Paul II and expressed his concerns at what was happening in his country.  Romero argued that it was problematic to support the El Salvadoran government because it legitimized terror and assassinations”.[xix]  He paid for it with his life.  Assassination in 1980 by a Salvadorian death squad was his gruesome reward, yet his story of great bravery, his strong message of social and political reform, and his practical justice toward the poor still live on in the imaginations of many who have heard his story through numerous books, documentaries and the film made about his selfless servant lifestyle and ministry.[xx]

Some readers by this stage in my essay might think that I have strayed far from my original theme about how the Church as a dominant society/system can, through ‘pastoral/institutional abuse’, very unjustly silence the reasonable critique of its members.

However, I regard the unjust silencing of Christians by corporate modelled and institutional church bodies as a social justice issue.  Such silencing directly mitigates against members exercising of their right to freedom of speech without being unfairly obstructed through theological bullying tactics by overly controlling leaders who disrespect their right to hold dissenting opinions and views from the existing status quo modus operandi.

Anti-theological tendencies within Church institutions, be they within evangelicalism or within other streams of Christianity (e.g. fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, Neo-Pentecostalism, and Conservatism etc) generally occur when it is feared that important core values or long-held-to systems of doing things are being seriously challenged through voices of dissent, reform, critique and change occurring from the rims of their congregational structures.

Church historian Douglas A Sweeney makes the following points in his recently published book, The American Evangelical Story:[xxi]

• Creating institutions is a necessary fact of life required for church ministries if they want to be able to carry on their work.[xxii]
• However, “Budgets, bricks, and mortar so often squelch the work of the Spirit that evangelicals tend to avoid – and even oppose – the steady grind of bureaucracy...As a people committed to surmounting social boundaries with the gospel, we often neglect the institutions needed to further kingdom work”
• “Church history abounds with a chronic tension between Spirit and structure, or dynamic spirituality and its static, albeit necessary, structural supports. Some point to a pattern in Christian history in which no sooner are the church and its institutions revitalized than the agents of change seek to conserve their renewal in (new) institutional forms. These forms themselves become petrified, and those dependent on the forms languish in need of revival again. Such history has hardly inspired confidence in the promise of institutions...
• “In attempting to regularize revival, to bottle our leaders’ moral charisma, to coordinate the projects needed to shore up the life of the spirit, we have built new structures that can preserve, channel, and multiply our energies. Over and over again, however, these structures themselves have become corrupt, disenchanting the movement’s purists and leading to further reformation”.[xxiii]
• “As much as any other group in the long history of Christianity, evangelicals have been wary of the dangers of institutions (regular practices, relationships, and organizational structures that shape and limit our ministries). But like every other movement concerned to make a social difference, evangelicalism has discovered that institutions are necessary”.[xxiv]

I personally know of many Christians who attend huge churches like Hillsong, Oxford Falls Christian City Church and similar others, whose structures and systems are quintessentially based corporate business models.  Although their leaders are called pastors, elders and deacons, they seem to act and work far more like big business entrepreneurs and CEO’s in selling and promoting their message to others.  This is in contrast to traditional pastors, elders and deacons operating in the Scriptural descriptions of those roles throughout the earlier history of the wider church.

A key reason given by the leaders and many members of those churches as to why they use that model is simply because “it works.  Look at the large numbers of people coming to Christ through our church, which is contemporary, artistic and relevant”.

However, if you attend one of these churches you can observe that:

• Public worship is highly orchestrated and professional to project an image of artistic competency;
• There is, far too often,  a lack of theological substance in the teaching;
• Only a select few are allowed to preach – the pulpit is designated exclusively to the CEO figures and their approved  team members;
• No forum for honest critical review by the members is evidenced by the management;
• Members are majority affluent middle-class, or upper-middle class (or those who aspire to such) backgrounds.  The working class poor, old, and sick are not significantly represented as a part of the congregation or in the  business management structure;
• Voicing prophetic dissent about anything to do with social justice or political issues, or church systems and structures is strongly discouraged – one might say it is not allowed by management - it is regarded as coming from a rebellious spirit;
• An overemphasis on tithing, prosperity and positive-life  teaching and enthusiastic embrace of the consumerist culture;
•  In fact, everything about these churches seems highly controlled, organised from the top downwards and extremely censored.  One might call that clearly evident “silencing” of the membership;
• Loyalty to pastors is strongly encouraged and regularly reinforced through the teaching.  They are typically role-modelled by the church as charismatic pop star figures who speak for the whole church with great authority and power.  The trouble is that most of the church does or can because there is no provision for them to do so at the main worship events due to the need for high degree camera-ready professionalism as is required for TV broadcasting.
• Those who don’t fit the required corporate image (lean, young adult, professional, trendy-smart dress code, hip, handsome/pretty, speak the `right’ sort of Church-PR-speak) need not apply for any leadership, up-front worker, or public worship roles.  Fitting “the right image” is a ‘must’ to promote the ministry of this sort of Church.
• The sheer size in itself (often confused with the ability ‘to influence’) seems quite sufficient to effect the silencing of its members.

This Church model is way too controlled/controlling for my liking.   In fact, I find it offensive.  No wonder many Christians are finding freedom and a voice in the emergent-missional scene whose models are largely emancipatory!

What these new sorts of Christians want is to be part of something which is far more authentic to Jesus’ teaching.  It is about being more embracing of the poor and needy with compassion and mercy, joining with them in table fellowship like Jesus did in the Gospel accounts.  It is about being incarnational in mission, engaging in theology which is substantial and transformational in the narratives of their spiritual life and practice.  It is about being part of a community which is far less controlling and institutional, and far more about being hands-on engaged as a missional people into God’s mission in this world.  It is about freedom to theologise without being censored “from above”, and to give social expression of it to others - part of their relationships built during their everyday developing on the faith journey.

To some extent my argument has become one about human dignity.

John Stott implies that a society which silences people through its institutional mechanisms and systems is de-humanizing.  And “when beings are devalued, everything in society turns sour...human life seems not worth living”.

Endnotes

See following blog. This one would not reproduce it properly when clipboarding

Elitism is “the belief that society should be governed by an elite... pride in awareness of being one of an elite group”.[1]

Elite is defined as “the most powerful, rich, or gifted members of a group, community, etc”.[2]

Aristocracy/aristocrat is as “government by the best citizens…a privileged class of people; the nobility…rule by the best born…the privileged class of people considered to be outstanding in sphere of activity”.[3]

Elitist notions and behavior are as much a part of current emergent church culture today as they were during previous eras throughout past Church history.

We have also established a new aristocracy composed of favorite celebrity preachers, theologians, social commentators and authors who espouse new and better ways of doing Christian mission than their predecessor experts.

It’s not that we intended this to happen. Far to the contrary! However, humans being what they are, and always have been, are as much definers and promoters of new aristocracies, just as our forebears were promoters of the old ones. It just seems to be part of normal human behavior to create and promote elites to reign over us as our presumed “betters” whom we are convinced know far better, do far better and are far better than all the rest for one reason or another. It seems an entrenched feature of our human nature to interpret things that way, even though logical and ethical reasoning would seem to reject such a notion that someone is better than us, or should have more rights, more say, or ultimately more control over us than we do have over ourselves. Egalitarian we may well be in sympathy, but we seem indelibly chained to its opposite due to influences like fear, peer pressure, low self esteem, longing for a superior master figure, populist  cultural pressures, sin and so forth. It is not that our leaders proposed themselves to become an elite, but that we as people led by them seem to be locked into longstanding patterns of thinking and behavior through various processes of psychological conditioning throughout our religious cultural socialization that lead us to reinforce them as that – a new type of hierarchy to replace the old ones we scrapped.

Somehow despite all our efforts to break with old stereotypes and status quo models of leadership we always seem to swing back to what are just slightly different interpretations of the exact same thing we originally objected to – i.e. we propose an egalitarian model, but when things wind out to their logical conclusion we invariably end up with just another hierarchical model. We seem forever trapped within some sort of cycle which repeats itself throughout various stages of history whereby similar idealistic notions of building a non-hierarchical, egalitarian and therefore non-elitist or aristocratic type of faith community occur, but in trying to achieve that and protect it from itself (or ourselves) we inevitably invoke systems and rules which do anything but result in the favored and anticipated outcome.

Writers Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost (both separately and together) advocate building, not a community, but a communitas, to deal with this issue. That’s all very well, and I strongly agree with that in principle. But I have never yet experienced communitas in practice during my past 50 years despite being exposed to a variety of different church traditions or Christian groups who plainly promoted such an ideal in their charters of community ethos and leadership. What I inevitably experienced was often quite to the contrary. Typically it was those most strong in voice, the earliest starters in membership duration, the most affluent or most  educated, the most rich in relationship networks, or those seen by the others as strategically needed due to their specialist ministry skills and gifts, and often who were seen as more hip by their peers, always seemed to have far greater say-power and pnuema-influence in their “egalitarian-communitas ethos-ed churches” than the weaker and less culturally esteemed ones among them who invariably ended up without their feelings, values and opinions ever being asked for, considered or heard. That is because an elite, an aristocracy and a hierarchy already exists, even if it is said not to exist by the dominant class running the community as a whole – often expert professionals and people who they regard as their most valuable supporters in keeping the existing way of doing things going. One way or the other, the weak always seem to miss having a voice in how things are done, usually because the strong paternalistically argue that they exclusively know what’s best for those whom they regard as their less favorable and weaker “Body-parts” even if they don’t actually mix with them socially except for chic one-off mission events targeting the needy, or extend their community welcome to them in ways that would practically reinforce the “open communitas” ethic (e.g. inviting them to their leadership meetings, homes for meals, parties for social fun etc). Anyway, I love the communitas idea in principle, but have never seen it work successfully in practice. However, it would be a serious mistake not to at least keep trying to make it work because it is a good and the right goal for us as church to aim for.