The beauty and messiness of church

At Village Church we just started a new sermon series on 1 Corinthians. Before I read a book of the Bible, study it, or hear a sermon series I try to do two small things to introduce myself to the book. The first is to read the short introduction to the  been written by Eugene Peterson as part of The Message. 

Here is his introduction to 1 Corinthians

When people become Christians, they don’t at the same moment become nice. This always comes as something of a surprise. Conversion to Christ and his ways doesn’t automatically furnish a person with impeccable manners and suitable morals.

The people of Corinth had a reputation in the ancient world as an unruly, hard-drinking, sexually promiscuous bunch of people. When Paul arrived with the Message and many of them became believers in Jesus, they brought their reputations with them right into the church.

Paul spent a year and a half with them as their pastor, going over the Message of the “good news” in detail, showing them how to live out this new life of salvation and holiness as a community of believers. Then he went on his way to other towns and churches.

Sometime later Paul received a report from one of the Corinthian families that in his absence things had more or less fallen apart. He also received a letter from Corinth asking for help. Factions had developed, morals were in disrepair, worship had degenerated into a selfish grabbing for the supernatural. It was the kind of thing that might have been expected from Corinthians!

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a classic of pastoral response: affectionate, firm, clear, and unswerving in the conviction that God among them, revealed in Jesus and present in his Holy Spirit, continued to be the central issue in their lives, regardless of how much of a mess they had made of things. Paul doesn’t disown them as brother and sister Christians, doesn’t throw them out because of their bad behavior, and doesn’t fly into a tirade over their irresponsible ways. He takes it all more or less in stride, but also takes them by the hand and goes over all the old ground again, directing them in how to work all the glorious details of God’s saving love into their love for one another.

The second thing I do is watch the relevant overview video produced by The Bible Project.

Here is the first sermon. It highlights both the beauty and messiness of church.

The cost and fruit of advocacy for the marginalised

In his wonderful book, In the Midst of Much-Doing, Charles Ringma recounts his involvement with the marginalised in Brisbane during the 1970s.

To give an example from our ministry with troubled youth, drug addicts, and men and women in prostitution, we had no difficulty gaining support from churches, the general community, or the business world in our counselling work, drug prevention programs, rehabilitation, and training for meaningful employment. However, we were living in a city with a corrupt police drug squad, and we knew many people who had their doors bashed down at 5 am, been dragged out of bed, herded into a room, and guarded while other police searched the place and “found” guns, money, and loads of drugs, leading to an impressive arrest for the police force. Yet in many cases, the police had planted the drugs, as they were some of the key drug dealers in the community. Each police “success” put people we knew behind bars for several decades. As we learned of these unjust practices, we began to support our friends with legal help. 

But as soon as we raised the issue of police corruption, the churches and community sent us a clear message: heal, but don’t advocate; evangelize, but don’t work for justice; counsel people, but don’t engage political issues. In other words, we should try to “save people from their personal sins,” but we shouldn’t engage their oppression and victimization.

I worked for twenty years with drug addicts, men and women in prostitution, and delinquent youth. In this journey, I learned a most painful lesson. In a nutshell, the church, community-based organizations, and even big business were all willing to support a ministry of drug counselling, rehabilitation, prevention, prison work, and vocational training so that those who had been scarred by drugs could regain a more productive life. Even the secular businesses that supported us did not mind when people became Christians. But over time, it became apparent that the police drug-squad in our city of Brisbane were falsely arresting street people and under-reporting drug seizures. Thus, the police were corrupt and acting as drug pushers. 

We felt that we had to do something, and so our first move was to get assistance from lawyers, who helped falsely accused street people get off or receive lighter sentences. Our second move was to see the government minister responsible for the police and inform him of what we knew. He said he would look into the matter — and then did nothing. 

Some time later, we went to see the Premier of our state, who was a professed Christian. He also said he would look into it, but nothing happened. Months went by, and the false arrests and the sale of illegal drugs by the police continued unabated. For our final move (after praying a lot), we went to the media to expose what was happening. All hell broke loose. The police denied everything. The Premier publicly condemned us as communists. The churches withdrew all their financial support. On our knees, we were all but destroyed. 

Advocacy comes at a price.

But a seed was sown, and others sowed seeds. And eventually, several years later, a Commission of Inquiry into police corruption was set up, headed up by Tony Fitzgerald, QC. In light of the Commission findings, numerous police, four ministers of the government, and the Police Commissioner were found guilty and imprisoned, and the Premier was charged for perjury but was acquitted due to a hung jury. 

In telling this event, I am practically illustrating what the Lausanne documents call us to do. As the Manila Manifesto (1989) states, “we must demonstrate God’s love visibly by caring for those who are deprived of justice,” and our Christian service “demands the denunciation of all injustice and oppression.”

This shows the cost of advocacy for the marginalised. But, it also shows the fruit. Seeds can be sown. Not only did many of the marginalised benefit. Today, those of us living in Brisbane, benefit from not having corrupt police, unjust courts, or government by cronyism. 

Power to the Powerless and the Prophetic Imagination

At the beginning of The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann states

“The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” - 

 People should accept the system as it is. Nothing is going to change. Don't even think about it, let alone discuss it with others. The entrenched powers create, maintain, and enforce this social reality and consciousness. This consciousness can be identified with what Brueggemann calls the "royal consciousness", that was created, maintained, and enforced by kings of Israel, beginning with Solomon. 

In the 40th Anniversary edition, Brueggemann reflects.

 “I would now alter ‘royal consciousness’ to ‘totalism’...The term ‘totalism’ refers to a socio-ideological arrangement in which hegemonic ideology takes up all the social space and allows for no alternative possibility. Its claim is ‘total’!” 

Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China, a book by psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton

As I mentioned in my last post there is a resonance with the book, The Power of the Powerless, by Vaclav Havel. Coincidentally, both books were first published in 1978 and written in two very different contexts (capitalist USA versus communist totalitarian Czechoslovakia) and from quite different perspectives (a Christian Old Testament scholar and a secular humanist).

I have a Penguin Vintage edition which includes a beautiful Introduction by Timothy Snyder, written in 2018, also coincidentally the same time as the 40th Anniversary edition of The Prophetic Imagination, that I am reading. Their republicaton is testimony to the enduring influence of both books.

Havel coined the term "post-totalitarian" for his essay, writing, "I do not wish to imply by the prefix 'post-' that the system is no longer totalitarian; on the contrary, I mean that it is totalitarian in a way fundamentally different from classical dictatorships..."

Havel biographer, John Keane, describes Havel's definition of a post-totalitarian world:

Within the system, every individual is trapped within a dense network of the state's governing instruments…themselves legitimated by a flexible but comprehensive ideology, a 'secularized religion'…it is therefore necessary to see, argued Havel, that power relations…are best described as a labyrinth of influence, repression, fear and self-censorship which swallows up everyone within it, at the very least by rendering them silent, stultified and marked by some undesirable prejudices of the powerful…

Here are a few note-worthy quotes from Havel's essay 

“If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living the truth. This is why it must be suppressed more severely than anything else.”

The entrenched powerful create a "royal consciousness" which defines social reality.

“As the interpretation of reality by the power structure, ideology is always subordinated ultimately to the interests of the structure. Therefore, it has a natural tendency to disengage itself from reality, to create a world of appearances, to become ritual... Increasingly, the virtuosity of the ritual becomes more important than the reality hidden behind it.”

“Patočka [to whom Havel dedicated the essay] used to say that the most interesting thing about responsibility is that we carry it with us everywhere. That means that responsibility is ours, that we must accept it and grasp it here, now, in this place in time and space where the Lord has set us down, and that we cannot lie our way out of it by moving somewhere else, whether it be to an Indian ashram or to a parallel polis. 

We cannot escape our responsibility to where we are located, both in time and place. [Aside: this has interesting parallels to what the Apostle Paul says about the "calling" of Christians in 1 Corinthians 7]. 

"If Western young people so often discover that retreat to an Indian monastery fails them as an individual or group solution, then this is obviously because, and only because, it lacks that element of universality, since not everyone can retire to an ashram. 

Christianity is an example of an opposite way out: it is a point of departure for me here and now-but only because anyone, anywhere, at any time, may avail themselves of it.

In other words, the parallel polis points beyond itself and makes sense only as an act of deepening one's responsibility to and for the whole, as a way of discovering the most appropriate locus for this responsibility, not as an escape from it.”

Small actions by a single person to speak truth to power can have significant ramifications. 

For the crust presented by the life of lies is made of strange stuff. As long as it seals off hermetically the entire society, it appears to be made of stone. But the moment someone breaks through in one place, when one person cries out, "The emperor is naked!"—when a single person breaks the rules of the game, thus exposing it as a game—everything suddenly appears in another light and the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and disintegrating uncontrollably.”

T]hey must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it. For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system.

“It is of great importance that the main thing - the everyday, thankless and neverending struggle of human beings to live more freely, truthfully and in quiet dignity - never imposes any limits on itself, never be half-hearted, inconsistent, never trap itself in political tactics, speculating on the outcome of its actions or entertaining fantasies about the future. The purity of this struggle is the best guarantee of optimum results when it comes to actual interaction with the post-totalitarian structures.”

Totalism of dominant cultures

“The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” 

 The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann, page 3.

Consider the "cultural moments". For each there was a dominant culture that claimed to be the only option, was well-ordered to protect the power and wealth of the rulers who stifled questioning and criticism.

The first four are considered by Brueggemann in The Prophetic Imagination.

1. Israel in slavery to Egypt. Pharoah ran a royal household and extensive system with absolute rule. The Israelites were enslaved not just for productivity but also for subjugation. Moses gave the Israelites and alternative vision of a community built around the freedom of God [YAHWEH, I am who I am, I will be who I will be], justice, and compassion.

2. Israel under King Solomon. Some considered this period to be the "golden era" of Israel. The twelve tribes were united in a single kingdom. The king was wise and just. Jerusalem was secure and there was a beautiful temple for worship. 

But actually, Solomon was an idolater, an adulterer, who murdered political enemies, made dubious foreign alliances, and had an insatiable desire for wealth, power, and women. People were heavily taxed and conscripted for his vanity projects such as his palace [which was much bigger than the Temple]. Through his family life and public life Solomon sowed the seeds for the division of Israel, civil war, and the eventual destruction of Israel and Judah.

3. Israel in exile in Babylon. The people were subjugated by the violence, power, economic might, vanity, and idolatry of Babylon. To this day Babylon remains a symbol of iniquity. The people seemed to have no option or hope. Many capitulated and enjoyed the comforts of assimilation.

4. Palestine in the time of Israel. Oppression occurred via two powers in a dubious and symbiotic relationship: the Roman imperialists and the Jewish religious leaders (Pharisees and Sadducees). The only economic option was to pay the heavy taxes to Rome and eke out a living. The only political option was to submit to Roman law, enforced by violence. The only religious option was to accept the power of the male elders and their theology and interpretation of the law. The only social option was to conform to the expectations and social norms prescribed by the Pharisees, particularly concerning relationships with Gentiles, "sinners", and the marginalised. The Prophet Jesus disrupted all this presenting a very different theological, moral, social, economic, and political vision. The cross was the embodiment of this vision.

5. Life in communist countries of Eastern Europe ruled by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The only option was to accept the rule of the Party, parrot empty slogans, not ask questions, trust no one, vote in sham elections, pretend to work, and queue in line for hours for bread. Vaclav Havel captures the dehumanising nature of this totalism in his book, Power to the Powerless, published illegally in 1978.

6. The Western world today. On the one hand, it seems a different context to those above. We enjoy freedom of the press, democratic elections, accountability of individuals and institutions through the rule of law, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and economic freedom. On the other, there are dominant ideologies that we are soaked in: individualism, consumerism, and instrumentalist. These ideologies define the lives of individuals and how institutions (government, schools, hospitals, universities, churches, and charities) function. They are all hard to question. Many assume these are good. Others may acknowledge there are problems but consider there are no alternatives.

Individualism defines identity, sexuality, autonomy, careerism, and self-actualisation.

Consumerism defines social relationships and priorities. Relationships are transactional. Comfort, materialism, acquisitiveness, immediacy, and insatiability are the order of the day.

Instrumentalism is concerned with efficiency. Truth is defined by what works. It leads to a focus on money, marketing, metrics, and management. People are defined by their performance and productivity.

Here is what Havel said almost half a century ago. 

“It would appear that the traditional parliamentary democracies can offer no fundamental opposition to the automatism of technological civilization and the industrial consumer society, for they, too, are being dragged helplessly along by it. People are manipulated in ways that are infinitely more subtle and refined than the brutal methods used in the post-totalitarian societies.”

What is justice? What is rational? The role of tradition and context

One narrative of the Enlightenment is that by the discovery of reason humanity was liberated from the bondages of tradition. However, things are more complicated and subtle. Reason and rationality must start from somewhere. There is no clean slate. 

These issues are explored in great depth by the philosopher Alasdair Macintyre in his book Whose Justice? Which Rationality?  

In a Précis he presents a helpful summary of the main theses of his book through exploring the narrative histories of two rival philosophical traditions, that of Aristotle and of Hume.

that no way of conducting rational enquiry from a standpoint independent of the particularities of any tradition has been discovered. There is good reason to believe that there is no such way.

that the problems of understanding and representing faithfully the concepts and beliefs of some tradition alien to one's own in a way that makes those concepts and beliefs intelligible within one's own tradition confront difficulties which can in certain contingent circumstances be overcome.

that rival traditions have rival conceptions of rationality and of progress in understanding, but this does not entail relativism or perspectivism.

that although these theses are themselves advanced from the standpoint of a particular tradition, that of a Thomist Aristotelianism, they involve a substantive and nonrelativizable conception of truth, and that in this respect as in others there is no inconsistency in making universal claims from the standpoint of a tradition.

Hence, traditions are not something to be easily and summarily dismissed. They cannot be escaped. Traditions can be used, critiqued, and modified. An intellectual tradition is the fruit of a long conversation. Tradition forms an important element of any intellectual endevour.

The messy complexity of facilitating reconciliation

I was asked to write an endorsement for a book written by my IFES colleague, Augustin Ahoga, and published by Langham (in French). It is based on his PhD thesis.

Vers un modèle africain de dialogue interreligieux

Le cas de Vodun Xɛbyoso et de l’Église des Assemblées de Dieu dans la région Maxi au Bénin

Here is a DeepL translation of the title, subtitle and abstract.

Towards an African model of interreligious dialogue:

The case of Vodun Xɛbyoso and the Assemblies of God Church in the Maxi region of Benin

In this study, the author has developed an African research methodology for interreligious dialogue, based on an experiment in the Maxi region of Benin. This experiment was carried out among a verbomoteur people, in a vodun context, for the resolution of conflicts involving Christian communities.

Based on the experience of conflict resolution between the Evangelical Churches of the Assemblies of God (EEAD) and the Vodun Xɛbyoso, the author has formalised a resolution approach called the 'African Model of Inter-Religious Dialogue' (MADIR). MADIR is applied when an ethnic group splits into conflicting communities due to the introduction of another religious tradition. This is why MADIR's resolution principles are based on : "ethnic identity as a basis for dialogue" and "cultural history to re-establish mutual trust".

This book is for anyone interested in inter-religious conflict resolution or empirical research among the verbomoteur people, and anyone working in development structures that reach out to the rural world or the verbomoteur people.

I wrote the endorsement below (based on reading a DeepL translation). I really hope an English translation will be published.

This wonderful book is a benchmark in excellence for research at the heart of the whole mission of God. Dr. Ahoga skilfully and critically integrates insights from theology, anthropology, and conflict studies, with his own lived experience, careful fieldwork, and loving practice of the ministry of reconciliation. He presents an African Model for Inter-Religious Dialogue (MADIR), that is concrete and practical. Ahoga developed, tested, and refined it to resolve a complex communal conflict that resisted other approaches. Despite this specificity, the book deserves careful study by a wide readership. 

While scholarly and profound, the book is fascinating and easy to read. The model presented has significant potential to be adapted and applied in other contexts and for purposes beyond understanding and resolving conflicts in a community. The model could aid the development of contextual theologies and stimulate mission initiatives that are culturally sensitive and have a lasting impact to the glory of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

 

Grief, truth telling, prophetic imagination, and social change

I recently watched the movie Till with my family. It recounts the tragic death of Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African American, who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955. Two men were charged with murder but acquitted at their trial. Later the two men confessed to the killing in a paid interview for a magazine article.

Most of the movie is about the grief of Till's mother, Mamie Till-Bradley, and how this drives her to activism with the NAACP and energises the campaign for civil rights. A key event is Mamie's courageous decision to view the tortured and battered corpse of her son, and then to demand a funeral with an open casket, so others can see what happened to him.

By coincidence, I am currently reading The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Brueggemann. Its themes and ideas resonate with the movie.

“The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us.” - page 3

The consciousness of the southern USA [and Australia] in the 1950s was that non-whites had no civil or voting rights and that they should accept the system as it was. Nothing was going to change. Entrenched powers created, maintained, and enforced this social reality and consciousness. This consciousness can be identified with what Brueggemann calls the "royal consciousness", that was created, maintained, and enforced by kings of Israel, beginning with Solomon. 

In the 40th Anniversary edition, Brueggemann reflects.

 “I would now alter ‘royal consciousness’ to ‘totalism’...The term ‘totalism’ refers to a socio-ideological arrangement in which hegemonic ideology takes up all the social space and allows for no alternative possibility. Its claim is ‘total’!” 

A key dimension to this "totalism" is that it leads to a numbness about death.

"What I propose is this: The royal consciousness leads people to numbness, especially to numbness about death. It is the task of prophetic ministry and imagination to bring people to engage their experiences of suffering to death." (page 41)

Mamie did this.