catapult magazine

Sam, Grant, and Keith (I’m Keith) had a long conversation after a recent wedding. This discussion began to get caught on whether the church (parse this however you want for now) is the central community of our lives in the many ways we might mean “central.” I, Keith, tend to think that church, especially church as a congregation, is the most important community in our lives (unless it begins to fail and become replaced by another community which eventually will take on the shape of church). That is, the church is our family before all other families. And so, the church, if it is a family, has the potential to get involved in just about any activity or need that occurs in a church community (such as education, counseling, health care, community organizing, etc.). Also, I tend to think the church is our family before all families because it is the time and place of our participation in the Triune community. And, that participation is the ultimate goal of our lives.

Anyway, Grant thought we should continue this discussion here, so here goes.

I’m going to copy some emails on to next post and let Sam summarize the discussion from his perspective.

Sam,

I haven’t read the Wolterstorff chapter yet, but from what you’ve said, his analysis opens up a question as to how we are defining a community or group (Reformed, Progressive Catholics, Jews, Anabaptists, Keithians, Samites etc).

Wolterstorff’s suggestion—that a group’s reading of their own situation leads to subsequent interpretive schemes—moves toward defining groups according to their interpretive framework. Wolterstorff realizes, of course, that the factical events (the events that become part of people’s histories) which have transpired in the Jewish, Reformed or Anabaptist experience are not the sole contributing factors that make up a people’s experience as a community or group. Rather, the experience of a people (Jewish, Reformed, Anabaptist) is a mixture of those factical events with the interpretations of that people. A people’s culture and its cultural institutions (political institutions, church institutions etc.), then, come out of an interpretive framework.

Trying to get back to Keith’s question of the function, nature, or definition of a church community, should we say that the Church is a community of people with a certain interpretive framework, out of which will come a certain kind of state, certain kinds of churches etc.? Or does the Church operate as a community beyond interpretation?

(I am wholly unsatisfied with my formulation here, but maybe I can flesh it out more after someone takes up some of the issues being raised)

I happen to believe that the church, as any other human community, is a hermeneutical community. As you are suggesting, it follows that such a community is likely to spun off its own understanding of politics, economics, etc. What does not follow (and you are not saying this) is that the kind of interpretation of, say, politics that the church may produce need not result in a wholly disparate conception of political community as we have it. To put the point more pointedly: we, humans, continue to share the common earth and the sustenance of God (whether we acknowledge that or not) and the common reality, I am proposing, is likely to produce some significant overlaps between the “secular” and “Christian” interpretation of politics. This is where Keith and I may disagree the most: a degree of separation, or incommensurability, if you will, between the christian and the worldly (in a post-, or non-christian, sense).

I agree that the church has an obligation to involve itself in the political movement of the country…from grass roots to full fledged campaigning. I don’t, however, feel like the separation by way of political party is the answer. Just what we need is yet another way to segregate ourselves. If we as a body began making our desires known to our lobbyists, the country would most likely be in a different place. The truth is that, as a majority, the church is too comfortable and irresponsive to the direction of the country today. As usual, the church is happy engorgeing itself at the potlucks and prefers toi wrestle over trivial matters such as carpet color and pipe organ or synthesized organ, and completely misses the boat on issues that really matter. What we need is to get out to the voting booths and elect people that will protect our country from its own waywardness.

The answer is not found in starting a party, but in realigning the values of the people with conviction and determination…thus involvement.

Ok, Sam, but it is still the case that “the world” outside of the Church often interprets this shared creation differently. The Greeks understood many dimensions of the reality of the world, yet their tragedies clearly show that they had no understanding of the grace of God and the hope of the resurrection. What I’m trying to figure out here is the root of a people’s interpretation (in other words, where is Dooeyweerd’s “religious starting-point” located, inside or outside hermeneutics). I think we can’t just stop at “everyone comes from a different interpretation”. We still have to ask what brings us to that interpretation and I want to start to push the idea (that eventually supports Keith’s understanding, I think) that the church is guided by that which is beyond interpretation.

Here’s why I’m saying this. At the SPEP conference last weekend, Klaus Held spoke on bridging cultural gaps with phenomenology. In order to convert everyone to phenomenology, he said that if all cultures start with the-things-in-themselves, we must ultimately come to agree on the truth of matters. Held started with the family. Since both East and West cultures have families, we can investigate the structure of family phenomenologically in order to find the truth about living together, a truth upon which all cultures can agree. But we know that phenomenology itself is rooted in a certain religious starting-point that looks to creation (existence) as its truth standard without having to ask about He who created. In an attempt to make phenomenology better, Levinas adds the necessity of recognizing the relationship of the “is” with the Other that makes the “is” possible, a relationship that must go beyond mere creation (existence) for its truth standard. Levinas was trying to say that an understanding of truth must be had before we can say “being is truth”.

Now, what I think I want to suggest is that Christians are not defined merely by our interpretation among other interpretations, but that we are defined by our unique relationship with God. We can’t have a proper understanding of truth without being in a proper relationship with the Creator. This relationship is understood according to an interpretation, to be sure, but our interpretation is guided by that which is beyond interpretation, by that which makes interpretation itself possible—the relationship from which we can see things. If you can see what I’m getting at, how then will our political and church institutions fit into this, especially if our relationship with God is as a Church, as His own Body? OK, now I’m confusing myself. The relationship is not just an interpretation, right? It’s a relationship. But it’s a relationship of Church with God, of sons to the Father, of co-heirs with Christ the son (our oldest brother) etc. So, where does Church fit in here, in terms of a relationship that makes a certain interpretation possible. All right, I’ve reached my limit for today. What are you thinking?

I just wanted to let you know, I’m carving out a piece of my day on Wed (11/6) to get back into this conversation.

Grant, I will wait for Keith to weigh into the discussion tomorrow on the sixth of November to respond to your comment. Hope that’s alright.

Sam,

It’s very kind of you to call my last post on this thread a “comment”. I too wait eagerly for Keith’s response. He hasn’t gotten a fair stab at the discussion due to his long absence.

Ok, I modify my comment. The time slipped. I’m not able to get to this until at least this weekend. Maybe Sam should respond sooner.

Just a quick reply to what I made out of Grant’s comment (yes, comment, Grant!) Grant seems to be assuming that those in the church are somehow epistemologically privileged: he writes that the “church is guided by that which is beyond interpretation”. I submit that I don’t find this line of argument either cogent or persuasive. Moreover, I am really worried when Xans, or anyone else for that matter, claim that they are holding to whatever is beyond interpretation; this surely is a recipe for drawing a line between “us” and “them” – what I see Keith’s quasi-Anabaptist line of argument doing. There is a church-centered community here and there are the rest of “them” out there. Yes, we do have to reach out to them, but we want to keep the line clear! (I apologize for the polemical tone.)

So, Grant, I take issue with your attempt to epistemologically privilege the church. It might be helpful here to bring in another old, and I believe still very helpful, Kuyperian (Pauline?) distinction between common and special grace. In case that you don’t find the terms appealing, the distinction I have in mind is between that which is revealed to all, along the lines of Romans 1&2, and the salvific knowledge of Xst given to the believers. Now, if it seems like I am undermining my previous discontents, do not me misled: the salvific knowledge of Xst does not grant Xans any privileged epistemological route to, say, being a farmer, or a statesman. Anecdotally, just because a certain person might be an outstanding member of the Body of Xst, that does not automatically make her “better” at something else. We could insert any number of biblical, historical or contemporary examples. I hope I am clear on this.

I will stop here.

By the way, congratulations to any of you Republicans out there; and to the rest of you: God help us all! (Let’s pray and hope that those entrusted with the levers of power, will exercise their responsibility justly toward the lofty goals of peace and shalom.)

I don’t mean to suggest that “Christians” have a direct line (outside of interpretation) to the truth about things. I apologize if it seemed I was saying that Christians were the only ones who have a relationship with God beyond interpretation. I was only trying to suggest that “relationship” should be stressed rather than hermeneutics, because interpretation is relational.

Of course Christians are not a unique group because they have a relation to God. I agree with Calvin that all people are in relation to God. But how does this relation with God inform our interpretation of God and His creation? Because interpretation has everything to do with our relationship with God, can we have an obedient interpretation without being in right relation with God and His creation? (this certainly calls commonly understood notions of truth into question; I want to dislodge truth from interpretation here and leave it in God’s hands)

Believe it or not, I’m still on topic here. What I’m after is how we ought to think of the Church’s relationship with God? And how does this relationship inform our relations with other people(s) or our understanding of the relations between spheres of life? If we are asking about a relationship between church and state, we might ask about relationship more specifically. If we only talk about interpretations, then we’ll keep spinning around in this mess of one interpretation vs. another. I don’t mind the mess, but if we’re going to find any sort of identity as one interpretation among others, we might do well to talk about our relationship with the Creator rather than merely our interpretation of God.