Church, community, sects and personal empires

When we think of "church" we may think of a specific gathering of people, building, or denomination. However,  in the Bible, there is only one church, and it is global, diverse, and centred around Jesus Christ.

Eugene Peterson reflects on the centrality of community in the third section of Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology 

“When I became a pastor I didn’t think much about the complexities of community… I didn’t come to the conviction easily, but finally there was 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. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, is the setting in which Christ is at play.” 

 p.226

“The Bible furnishes us with a rich vocabulary that gives texture to the bare term “community”: people, people of God, congregation, great congregation, church, chosen people, royal priesthood, temple, family, body, commonwealth.”

The church is notorious for divisions. Just look at the list on Wikipedia of scores of different Baptist denominations, particularly in the USA! Today most of the largest and fastest-growing churches are independent churches, often centred around a single personality. We may tend to use the word "sect" to refer to an obscure and weird religious cult. Peterson uses the word sect in the sense of denomination, division, or niche Christian group.

“A sect is a front for narcissism. We gather with other people in the name of Jesus, but we predefine them according to our own tastes and predispositions. This is just a cover for our individualism: we reduce the community to conditions congenial to our imperial self.”

“The sectarian impulse is strong in all branches of the church because it provides such a convenient appearance of community without the difficulties of loving people we don’t approve of, or letting Jesus pray us into relationship with the very men and women we’ve invested a good bit of time avoiding.” 

“A sect is accomplished by community reduction, getting rid of what does not please us, getting rid of what offends us, whether ideas or people. We construct religious clubs instead of entering resurrection communities.” 

p. 244

Building an intentional community of Christian writers

For the past seven years or so, I have been privileged and blessed to be part of the "holy" scribblers: an eclectic group of writers interested in the interface of Christian theology, spirituality, and life. We are an example of an intentional Christian community.

Here I reflect on how I have benefitted from the group, why it works so well, some unique dimensions to the group, and what lessons might be learned for others wishing to establish such Christian communities. This post is motivated by the need to reflect on this for a seminar that some of us will give at the end of this month at the Asian Theological Seminary in Manila. Although the group is rather unique, some of my observations below highlight several dimensions that may be relevant to other intentional Christian communities.

The group has been helpful to me for many reasons. I enjoy the group and the fellowship we have. For my writing activities, the group provides some structure, accountability, feedback, advice, networking, and encouragement. 

Almost all the group members have published several books. Several say they would never have started, persevered with, and finished these books without the support and advice of the group. During the pandemic, we wrote a book together.

At several of our writer's retreats, I read draft chapters of my first book, Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction. Positive feedback encouraged me to persevere. Networking is also important. Through the group, I have been connected to an excellent editor, who has been incredibly helpful in shaping a book on science and theology I am writing.

Who is in the group? We are mostly "retired", having worked  at some time in a range of fields: social work, marketing, medicine, education, law, physics, psychology, theology, ... Most of us have Ph.D.'s and have spent significant time teaching in universities and seminaries, including in Asia. There is an approximate gender balance. We are involved in a range of churches and all hold to the beliefs and practises of historical Christianity, such as the Nicene Creed. On the one hand, all this highlights the uniqueness of this eclectic group. On the other hand, it shows the dimension of common backgrounds and perspectives. But, there is unity in diversity.

What do we do together? Here regular rhythms are important. Every Wednesday we spend most of the day in the library of a local theological college, Trinity College Queensland. We have long chats over morning coffee and lunch. The rest of the time we are in the library working on our own writing projects.

One or two times a year we go away together for a week, sometimes to a local monastery. We share meals and use the Celtic Daily Prayer book for Morning, Midday, and Evening prayer. During the day we work on our own writing projects. After dinner each evening, we take turns reading out loud to the group some of what we have been writing.  This is followed by animated discussion and feedback. Given the high level of trust coming from long-term relationships, the feedback is honest and sometimes critical.

There is synergy and overlap with the activities of the groups that members are involved in such as Theology on Tap, A monthly theology reading group, Northumbria Community, and Franciscans,...

Due to the long-term relationships in the group, there is a strong commitment to meeting and persevering. Over the years, I have seen many groups wind down rather fast, because individuals are motivated by "what I can get out of it". If they don't immediately get tangible benefits, they decide to just "do their own thing" or go and look for another group.

The group is informal: there is no constitution, doctrinal statement, bank account, committee, minutes of meetings, leadership positions, or written goals, ... This sounds rather counter-cultural. Sometimes we do have to make decisions, such as where and when to have our next retreat and how to respond to inquiries from prospective new members. Such decisions are made by consensus.

So key elements are long-term relationships, time, trust, honesty, informality, rhythm, synergy, unity in diversity, ...

Course on Church, Community, and Conversations

At our church, my wife Robin and I recently helped to facilitate a course entitled The Gift and Challenge of Church, Community, and Conversations.

Central to the course was having participants in small groups at tables. Several times each session they would have some discussion questions. Every week there was one Bible passage that they read together and discussed. After the formal end of each session most people stayed at their tables continuing their discussion. I don't know how long they stayed because we went home. After all, it was past my bedtime. 💤😁

The course ran for five weeks, for two hours, on a weeknight. Below I put copies of the handouts/worksheets and of the PowerPoint slides. But I stress that they only give a flavour of the course it does not capture the table discussions or what was explained about the content in the slides.

Week 1 - The gift of Church 

Handout,  Slides

Week 2 - The gift of diversity

Handout, Slides

Week 3 - The gift of welcoming

Handout, Slides

Week 4 - The gift of communities

Handout, Slides

Week 5 - The gift of conversations

Handout, Slides

The content and pedagogy of this course were enriched by what I have learnt from the IFES Logos and Cosmos Initiative about the global church, culture, context, working in diverse teams, listening, mental health and above all, relating God's Word and God's world. 

Personally, I was stimulated and challenged by the material we discussed together. Living in a community, unity in diversity, welcoming strangers, and listening to others seem appealing. However, actually doing them is a challenge! Engaging in meaningful conversations with those very different from me is not easy.

Maps, terrain, routes, and travellers

 How do we make sense of science, God, and life? A metaphor that may be helpful is that of maps, terrain, routes, and travellers.

The terrain is the underlying reality. A map is a representation of that reality. A route is a particular path that might be taken or is taken as a traveller explores the terrain. The traveller may travel alone or with a guide or with other travellers.

Many types of maps, terrain, routes, and travellers exist. They are all dynamic, but they do not necessarily change synchronously. Different terrains change at different rates. A wilderness terrain may change little in one hundred years. In contrast, an urban landscape may become unrecognisable in one year.

Physical terrains are real and exist independently of any observer. Yet they are multi-faceted. A forest has a history, ecology, topography, and beauty. It can be viewed through lenses such as culture, aesthetics, economics, geography, or sport. 

Some terrains are not physically real. Below are maps of The Road from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City in The Pilgrim's Progress (top) and of Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings (bottom). Yet these terrains are real in the imagination of the author and reader of these classic books. These maps are useful to the reader as they journey through the book. Furthermore, The Pilgrim's Progress has been useful to many Christians on their own life journey.

For a specific terrain, there may be different classes of maps: tourist, topographic, road, GPS, or Google. The maps within a specific class may differ by scale, level of detail, or accuracy. Maps can be cast in different media: paper, electronic, verbal, or in the mind. Indigenous people may represent their land in stories that are passed down orally from one generation to the next. An example, are the songlines of Australian aboriginal cultures.

Maps can also be used to organise information and represent the relationship between different concepts, as is done in concept maps and mind maps. The latter uses a tree or radial structure suggesting a hierarchy of concepts, showing the relations of the part to the whole, often with a central concept.

All maps are wrong, but some are useful. [Here I borrow from an important aphorism from statistics and social sciences, "All models are wrong, but some are useful"]. No map perfectly represents every single detail of the terrain. The only perfect representation is the terrain itself. For a given traveller, purpose, and journey a particular map may be useful. But it may not be useful in other contexts. Some maps are so wrong they are not useful.

Any map requires interpretation. Connecting the map to the terrain and route may be easy or challenging. A traveller may need specific training to be able to locate their current position on the map and to use the map to navigate along their desired route. This may be helped by navigational tools such as a compass or the stars in the sky.

A map may help a traveller notice things they would not otherwise see. On the other hand, it may distract them from seeing other things that are not on the map.

No map is completely morally or politically neutral. Any map is drawn from a particular perspective. A map that appeared in the movie, Barbie caused a political firestorm.

Warner Bros has described a map that appears in its coming Barbie movie as a “child-like crayon drawing” with no intended meaning, after Vietnam said it would ban the film after claiming the map depicted the disputed South China Sea.

Imperialists and colonists drew maps that continue to shape global politics today.

The earth is an approximate sphere but world maps represent it as a flat sheet. The Mercator projection was developed in 1569 to aid navigation, having the significant advantage that it accurately represents local shapes and directions. However, it is wrong in that it distorts the area of objects. Those further from the equator are much larger than those closer to the equator. For example, Africa appears to be the same size as Greenland, (as can be seen below) whereas it is fourteen times larger! These distortions mean that the European colonial powers would have seen their countries as disproportionate in size. If size was interpreted as a measure of importance, colonial prejudices of self-importance would have been reinforced.

This example of the Mercator projection illustrates several important issues. Maps can be wrong, but still useful. Maps require interpretation. Different interpretations can be used for political purposes.

Routes are also subjective. Who picks it? What is the goal of the route? Travellers get lost. Some never find their way. Some routes are silly. Even the technical prowess of Google Maps can fail, sending a driver on circuitous routes.

Travellers are diverse. They might consider themselves as explorers, pilgrims, colonialists, tourists, or commuters.

Later I hope to explore in more detail how this metaphor plays out in making sense of science, God, and life. Briefly, I find it to consider the sciences and theology as maps of terrains. Experience, reason, tradition, and transcendence can be guides to help my explorations, both in constructing maps and interpreting existing ones.  

In his wonderful book, The Territories of Science and Religion, Peter Harrison considered how people's conceptions of "science" and "religion" have changed over time. Territories is a helpful metaphor because it highlights how in our current era there is an assumption that these territories have not changed over time. History says otherwise. Hence, much current discussion about the relationship between "science" and "religion" is problematic. I like the "territory" metaphor because it captures the "colonising" mentality of adversaries competing for the same territory. On the other hand, I propose that science and religion are not territories but maps. 

Update. October 2025. Back in 2010, I discussed how C.S. Lewis used the map metaphor to explain the role of Christian theology in people's spiritual journeys. I had forgotten this when I wrote this post.

Talk on Science and Christianity

Tonight I am giving a talk, Science and Christianity, at UQ Focus, a local Christian group for international students. Here is the current version of my slides.

Below is the video I will show in the beginning.

Following Jesus in the 21st Century

I have finished reading a book by Eugene Peterson that I find helpful, enthralling, and challenging.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

Why am I enthralled? Peterson has a way with words, carefully crafting sentences and paragraphs that are both easy to read and profound. The book resonates with much I have personally been observing, learning, and thinking about. The book is challenging because it exposes many of my own struggles and weaknesses, and those of the Christian communities, from the local to the global, that I am a part of or have been involved in over the years.

The title of the book, "Christ plays in ten thousand places" is taken from a line in the poem As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

A few things that stand out are the following.

The basics matter

Love God and Love others. It can't get "simpler" than that!

Basic concepts: creation, sin, redemption, judgement, Trinity,...

Basic practices and habits: Bible reading, prayer, holy communion, fellowship, reading literature, Sabbath, meals together, hospitality,... We need to do these in an intentional, disciplined, and regular way, and be mindful of their profound theological meaning and significance.

Cultural pressures will choke or derail the Christian life, individually and corporately: individualism, consumerism, pragmatism, immediacy, managerialism, competition, efficiency, functionalism, ...

Most of these pressures derive from living in a capitalist society that is unrelenting in shaping our thinking, desires, and actions. I need this thing. I desire this thing. I will buy this thing.

Abstractions distract. We have a natural tendency to favour the abstract and impersonal over the concrete and personal. But the story of God's action recorded in the Bible is one of particularity of times, places, and persons: Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus, Peter, Paul, ...

It is a story, not an academic philosophical treatise. The Triune God is not a philosophical concept or an impersonal being but rather three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Church is not an abstract concept. Churches are Christian communities of particular persons with particular life histories, relationships, struggles, sins, joys, ... Community is complex and messy.

Be rooted in a time and place. Peterson gives a profound and creative exposition of Genesis 1 and 2. The six days of creation and the seventh day of rest define the reality of the rhythm of life. The Garden and the Promised Land are specific places, highlighting our need to be rooted in a particular place. We are not to be nomads, literal or spiritual.

Here is a small selection of quotations.

“If we don't know where we are going, any road will get us there. But if we have a destination - in this case a life lived to the glory of God - there is a well-marked way, the Jesus-revealed Way. 

Spiritual theology is the attention that we give to the details of living life on this way. It is a protest against theology depersonalized into information about God; it is a protest against theology functionalized into a program of strategic planning for God.”

“God’s great love and purposes for us are all worked out in messes in our kitchens and backyards, in storms and sins, blue skies, the daily work and dreams of our common lives. God works with us as we are and not as we should be or think we should be.”

It is all about Jesus! 

“Jesus prevents us from thinking that life is a matter of ideas to ponder or concepts to discuss. Jesus saves us from wasting our lives in the pursuit of cheap thrills and trivializing diversions. Jesus enables us to take seriously who we are and where we are without being seduced by the intimidating lies and illusions that fill the air, so that we needn't be someone else or somewhere else. Jesus keeps our feet on the ground, attentive to children, in conversation with ordinary people, sharing meals with friends and strangers, listening to the wind, observing the wildflowers, touching the sick and wounded, praying simply and unselfconsciously. Jesus insists that we deal with God right here and now, in the place we find ourselves and with the people we are with. Jesus is God here and now.”

The Christian life, individual and corporate, happens in the context of a specific culture. In the West, this culture is dominated by the ideology of the market.

“We live in a culture that has replaced soul with self. This reduction turns people into either problems or consumers. Insofar as we acquiesce in that replacement, we gradually but surely regress in our identity, for we end up thinking of ourselves and dealing with others in marketplace terms: everyone we meet is either a potential recruit to join our enterprise or a potential consumer for what we are selling; or we ourselves are the potential recruits and consumers. Neither we nor our friends have any dignity just as we are, only in terms of how we or they can be used.”

Here the Church and the Gospel of Jesus offer a counter-cultural liberating message: human identity and worth is intrinsic and independent of the whims and ideology of the market. 

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.