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.

hm… I am afraid I am quite unclear at this point about what you are suggesting (and its relation to our discussion of church/state). E.g. why could not a person have a correct interpretation (please note I avoid the discussion of “truth” altogether) in, say, being a fruitful farmer and not having any, i.e. agnostic, relation to the Creator? On the other hand, if a person/community has an appropriate relation to the Creator, does that NECESSARILY help in other areas – the example of inappropriate behavior by Catholic priests (or any other clery for that matter) is illustrative of the point I am making. Could you clarify this?

I do think we are still on the topic; however, this may be another area of disagreement. I suspect that given Keith’s position so far, he would perhaps argue along the lines of epistemological privileging of the believers. I may be wrong abou this of course. Can’t wait to be disabused of my suspicions! :-))

As you are suggesting, a non-Christian farmer certainly can act obediently when it comes to working the land. And a priest could act disobediently in his care for others. But how do we define these acts as obedient or disobedient acts? How can we interpret these acts as “right” or “wrong” as wicked people? Even further, how can we claim something like political action as “Christian” or “of the Church”?

If we are to talk about the work of the Church as a larger community in which politics/farming/academics etc. are worked out in obedience to God, then we must ask what makes such work the work of God’s church. How do we know we are working for God’s kingdom? Certainly, this is an interpretive issue. But then, how do we know when we’ve made the proper interpretation about our own interpretations?

I’ve been thinking as I read Romans and Levinas that we Christians would do better to speak of relationship than interpretations in our contemporary context. It is precisely because non-Christians CAN interpret the world just as correctly as Christians that I’d rather not define Christian or non-Christian work in terms of interpretive frameworks. In the book of Romans, Paul explains that a right relation to God through Christ Jesus is necessary in order to be living sacrifices, i.e. to worship God obediently with our politics/farming/academics etc. When we accept the gracious gift of Christ, i.e. when we accept His acceptance of us, we become increasingly “in tune” with God’s will and pleasure. We can “test and approve what God’s will is”, which is an interpretation guided by the spirit of God, right?

If what I’m saying seems off the topic or is confusing the discussion, I could always move this elsewhere; I think it’s something worth wrestling with though. Obviously, I do think the church is of utmost importance, but we must define it properly (and that’s what we’re up to here, yes?). Unfortunately, we’ve allowed ourselves to be defined wrongly so that we don’t even know who we are…and maybe we never did! This is really something I’m pursuing at the moment; I could be getting in the way of the original argument you and Keith were having. Let me know if this is the case, Keith.