What Would Jesus Construct?

There are a whole mass of questions being asked in church these days about how we interpret the Bible, the nature of church authority, worship, mission, how we understand discipleship, even the essence of church itself. These are good and proper questions for us to seriously wrestle with.....It's never good to shut down inquiry or curiosity. A number of conversations, real and virtual, have recently been getting me thinking though about "how far" we go in a process of deconstruction. The thing is, a process of dismantling previously held convictions is painful and difficult, but a tipping point is reached when it becomes easy and pain-free to be forever dismantling. I'm not quite sure what I want to say, other than to guard against a glib iconoclasm: where the "old" and the "previous" is immediately disposable and somehow poorer. For many of us from an evangelical tradition, it can be so much more satisfying to debunk the narrow beliefs and naivety of conservatives; a satisfaction that leaves us with our own new barriers and orthodoxy.

I think that for each of us, the "limits" of deconstruction will be different, but for all of us, there must be elements of construction: of building our faith....If not then Nietzsche is right, God is dead and each to their own.

So, as a corrective to constant affirmation of what we do NOT believe, here are a few provocations to ponder that might balance and present what we DO believe:

- The Christian faith is NOT a matter of creeds and dogma (it is worship, community, daily witness, ethical lifestyle etc etc) BUT unless we can talk about the historic Jesus and connect our story with the life of the church through the ages, then we end up building a new "religion" (devising our own creeds, however palatable and "humane" they may seem) which is human-centred rather than God-centred
- The church needs to be a place of inclusion and welcome, NOT a place of judgment and exclusion BUT unless we can talk about the moral demands of the Christian tradition, we end up lost to our own brokenness
- The church is a place of equality where the least is the greatest NOT a place of patriarchy and heirarchy BUT unless we can model godly leadership and authority, we are denying the transformative effects of the gospel on the structures of human society
- Teaching is just one of many gifts given to the church and is NOT an opportunity for elitist monologues detached from the lives of Christians living and working in the real world BUT unless we build relevant means of discipling Christians in scripture and tradition, we are wallowing in the self-satisfaction of our own knowledge rather than giving it away to others and to future generations
- Worship is NOT just a time to be joyful and proclaim personal truths but a space to come together in shared lament, protest, struggle and mystery BUT if we lose celebration and the expectation of God joining with us by his Holy Spirit, we lose the source and energy for any gift that we may think the church has to offer the world
- God is God and we dare NOT feel that we can package and own all the truth about who God is BUT we do know something and unless we own that story we are in danger of falling into the worship of someone or something else, (a spiritual search is as much about unmasking what we all hold as most dear - ie repentance)

...I could add some other deconstructions/constructions. What do you think? Would you suggest some more?

Comments

[Steve Hilsden]

Wow - thanks for this observation

[Keith]

Great stuff Richard!

[Steve Lancaster]

Malcolm Chamberlain linked to this post, and after I commented on his blog, I thought you'd maybe appreciate the comments too. So this is a cut-and-paste jobby (sorry!) but it comes with heart!

Mine is the old point about whether it really is dangerous to deconstruct everything before we start reconstructing. I remember hearing a Mike Yaconelli talk over a sound-system in a Christian Bookshop once, where he suggested it was like unpeeling an onion - where, of course, before too long you are left with a handful of skins, and there isn't a centre.

Except that there is a centre to an onion, and there is a centre to Christianity, which, however you express it, has to be the outward givingness and joyful expenditure for others which is Love.

Then you have to ask, would Love ever lead you into destructive courses of action like taking the Church apart. And concluding 'No', but witnessing people who leave Church doing just that, you can draw two possible conclusions.

Either they are abandoning the lead of Love, or Love is leading them into a wider understanding of Church. May I suggest, the conclusion one draws says more about oneself than about the person doing the deconstructing?

From a position of the total deconstruction of Church, the only way then is up. Or to put it another way, everything that is constructed is a form of Church. Life, however it is lived, is in Christ - which, I think, is something that chimes with Paul's comment about living and dying (two extremes of action) both connecting him with God (I paraphrase).

This is why I am hopeful about Church, because it seems to me we are over the deconstructive phase, and poised, if not already beginning, the biggest blossoming in Church history (and I write this as someone dedicated to living outside the walls of the institution).

[Richard Sudworth]

Thanks for these comments..thanks Steve L for yours too. If I understand you write, and this is the tension I was aiming at, there is something of uprooting and planting, tearing down and building up in Christian faith....The danger is when we do too much of one and not enough of the other

[Steve Lancaster]

Hi Richard,

You've got it, of course! (Though too much building up is as dangerous as too much uprooting, and the middle course is as dangerous as the extremes!)

Steve

[Jonathan Evens]

Richard,

Wondered if you and your readers would be interested in a seminar of 'Ethics in a global economy' being organised by Faiths in London's Economy on Wednesday 29th October at the St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. More details can be found on the following link: http://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2008/09/ethics-in-global-economy_29.html.

Thanks,

Jonathan Evens