The Humble Church

Becoming the body of Christ

Percy

• Publisher: Canterbury Press Norwich
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781786223173
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Chiesa cristiana

In this bold and provocative invitation, Martyn Percy imagines what the post-pandemic Church might look like and sets out what it needs to learn. It argues that the Church needs to stop obsessing about itself – its size, its strategies to shore up decline, its waning public influence – and rediscover how to live as the body of Christ. In other words, what does it need to do in order to become more like Christ?As Christ poured out his life for the sake of others, he considers ways in which the Church might imitate Christ in practice today. Whenever Jesus visited anywhere beyond the confines of the Jewish community he immediately became socially useful, and so this extols such virtues as humble service in the community, not because it is an effective way to grow the Church, but because it is faithful to Christ's own example.Avoiding responses such as exasperation, righteous anger at shortcomings or wishful thinking about returning to the past, he sets out a vision for the Church's future that is both biblical and christological. Incisive, imaginative and engagingly written, this will resonate deeply with many lay and ordained members of the Church.

Part one: Culture and Change

Upside Down, Inside Out

Humility is really important because it keeps you fresh and new.

Steven Tyler

If it is true that ‘there are no bad foods, only bad diets’, then three obvious questions flow directly on from this sagacious proverb. First, does everyone have access to the right kinds of variety in food and diet? Second, does everyone have enough to eat? Third, do we recognize that differences between people may mean that diversity in diet needs affirmation? By this third question, I mean that some people cannot choose what they eat – either because it is unavailable, too expensive, or that their body might not be able to process and cope with such foods.

Food stories are important in understanding the Kingdom of God. Tim Spector’s (2020) work has shown that most of what we know about diets is based on an ‘average’ person, and this social-scientific construction of the average is invariably a white, middle-class, middle-aged male. Notions of ideal fat, sugar, fibre, alcohol and calorie intake make assumptions based on a handful of models, that invariably ignore specifics of age, class, gender and ethnicity. As Caroline Criado Perez (2019) notes, the very idea of ‘average’ suggests more than a statistical ‘norm’, which is inherently divisive, as some will be above, and some below. And many other kinds of ‘average’ will in turn, be based on an ideal ‘normal’, which makes those who don’t fit that mould abnormal.

That is why Jesus’ teaching on growth and mission is so careful, if not mindful. Some seeds work in one kind of soil, but don’t necessarily fare well in every kind of ground. To some are given grounds to toil in, in terms of mission, that are stony, hard and unyielding. To others, the ground is soft and fertile, and to others, the competition of weeds and the hunger of the birds means that all growth is quickly snatched away. Jesus’ teaching on the ecology of the Kingdom of God was always an invitation to take part in levelling off the ground around us, and to take collective responsibility for those who have less, or perhaps nothing. God’s provision is for sharing out with others, not hoarding to ourselves.

Our language for food is inherently politicized. The term ‘food banks’ is perhaps our best example at present. They do exceptional work, and have become a staple necessity in harsh and unforgiving economic times. Yet the word ‘bank’ borrows from the world of monetarism, and indeed, that very monetarism might be said to be partly responsible for the existence of food banks. Banks ‘lend’, but they do not give. So how do we talk about money, the love of which is one root cause of another person’s poverty? Our language that shapes our thinking about money is so ancient and ingrained, we rarely think about it. How did we ever come to talk about ‘owning shares’, when sharing is not about ownership?

Money-talk is elemental, and if one, for example, follows the ancient assumption regarding the four elements that comprised the world, these are still metaphors we live by: earth, air, fire and water. Earth-metaphors give us words like bank, deposit, foundation and grounding. Air-metaphors offer oxygen and lungs (in the economy), headroom and room to breathe in budgets; and like air, money is everywhere. Fire-metaphors give us consumption, overheated (economy), inflation, fire-sale; and even today people speak of ‘burning through money’. Water-metaphors give us assets that are frozen or liquidated; our confidence in an economy can suddenly evaporate; excessive money leaves some people awash in cash, while others drown in debt.

This makes ‘Food bank’ a rather ambivalent term. Those for whom money is secure will find the idea of a bank reassuring. It keeps money and investments secure, manages what you have and may even pay interest. For those in debt however, banks can be places of pain, regret and remorse, summoning memories of repossession, unaffordable loans and the stigma of losing control of one’s finances. Food-aid and bank become intertwined, adding guilt to any stigma already there. Terms like ‘larder’, ‘hub’, ‘store’ and ‘pantry’ would convey something quite different to those in need, and to those donating or supporting.

So, if the church is to become fresh and new, and return to being the revitalized body it aches to be, where do we begin? Here, we need the courage to turn the church inside out and let it be turned upside down. Yes, it will shake us, and we must begin with ourselves. Yet it is in the adventure of following Jesus that we trust we learn to start with nothing but ourselves: no props, targets, goals, grand plans, well-intentioned ideas, or anything of the like. Begin with God. The fourteenth-century Sufi-Persian poet, Hafiz, in his short poem ‘Zero’ opines that ‘zero is where the real fun starts … there’s too much counting everywhere else’. Elsewhere in one of his famous short prayers he says, ‘I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through – listen to this music.’ Hafiz wrote playfully about lovers of God, and God’s playful love of us. His poetry revels in delight, tenderness, cherishing, kindness and the familiarity of lovers exchanging their love for one another.

In beginning here, we may have to acknowledge that as instruments of God, we are not perfect: a cello with some missing strings; a piano out of tune; a saxophone missing some screws or keys. We are, as bodies, cracked instruments – all of us – but God uses the imperfect to perfect; the foolish and the broken to shame the wise and the strong. So, although the words Hafiz uses are hard to convey from the Persian, the poetry is kenotic in character – yielding and surrendering to the divine, and delighting in the superb surprise of being filled with God’s ecstatic love for the world. God’s total, overwhelming abundance. Richard Henry Tawney (1880–1962), the economic historian, social critic, Christian Socialist and important proponent of adult education, used to speak of the ‘reckless divinity’ of God that is ready to sweep away the intellectual ideas that hold us back. He talked of ‘risk-taking sensibility’ (Tawney and Seligman, 2017). He knew it was morally and socially reckless not to take risks. Often, that means not being frightened of losing what you have. Sometimes, therefore, it is best to start with nothing.

As a committed Anglican, and a no less committed Socialist, I find it exasperating that our church is self-absorbed with its self-preservation. Once-upon-a-time, I recall being asked at an interview panel for a senior post in the Church of England what I would do in that particular diocese ‘to get more bums on pews’. I replied – perhaps too quickly – that the primary purpose of the church ‘was to get bums off pews’. I could see my score card was marked down at this point. In a similar interview sometime later, we never talked about the region – its politics, economics, local challenges or needs – for the panel just wanted to know how the churches were to be filled again. The sense of anxiety and fear about not growing in numbers and members, but shrinking, overshadowed everything.

Could I help? This new panel asked. I replied that if we focused our energies and resources on addressing the alleged problem of the empty church, its eventual emptiness would be accomplished. The one thing that was almost bound to accelerate decline was to talk about growth. If the church is the first thing on our minds, you can guarantee it will be the last thing on everyone else’s.

Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God was not a promotion exercise for serving the needs of the church. Rather, the Kingdom of God promotes values and practices that are for all humanity, independent of faith. The Kingdom Jesus proclaimed and propagated went beyond the parochial Judaism of his day. It preached abundant mercy, love, justice, forgiveness, diversity, inclusion, reception and transformation. It did not fret about growing synagogue congregations, or spend days hunkering down in seminars trying to devise strategies for growth. The Kingdom lives out of its values – and these are values that followers will die for, as Jesus did.

This inverse prioritizing changes the agenda for the church in the twenty-first century. What are we going to do about climate change? Or the oppression and marginalization of people who flee as migrants and asylum seekers? Or the persecution of individuals and communities because of their ethnicity, sexuality or nationality? What does the Kingdom of God bring to our challenges in caring for the elderly and ageism, or inequality and the poor? The church needs a complete restart if it seeks to be revitalized. The question is not ‘how can we get more people into church?’ but rather, ‘how can we get more people from church to love and serve the world, as Christ would have us do?’ Instead of trying to refill the church, start from a different premise: that if we put God and the needs of the world before the church, the growth that many so desperately crave, plan for and try and resource may actually come. But if we put the needs of the church first, we shall continue to empty.

Preoccupied with Productivity?

The church in every age has faced fundamental challenges. Many would cite the challenge of secularization or consumerism in our time as one of the tougher trials the church has had to negotiate. I am less sure, however. But I do think there are two distinct challenges facing the church today. Or rather, it is one challenge or coin, but with two faces. The single-most challenge that the church faces today is that of distraction; and its two sides are mission and management. We appear to be preoccupied with both, and to such an extent that the identity of the Church of England now finds that its energies are consumed with perpetual drives towards efficiency and productivity.

Yet the church exists to glorify God and follow Jesus Christ. After which it may grow; or it may not. Its performance may improve too; or it may not. But it is imperative that faithfulness is always put before any search for success. Indeed, for most of the population of England, church-talk of mission and numbers tends to drive away far more people than it ever draws near. Evelyn Underhill, writing to Archbishop Lang on the eve of the 1930 Lambeth Conference, reminded him that the world was not especially hungry for what the church was immediately preoccupied with. Underhill put it sharply in her letter:

God is the interesting thing about religion, and people are hungry for God … We ask the bishops … to declare to the Church and especially its ministers, that the future of organized Christianity hinges not on the triumph of this or that type of churchman’s theology or doctrine … the Church wants not more consecrated philanthropists, but a disciplined priesthood of theocentric souls who shall be tools and channels of the Spirit of God.1

As any student of early church history will know, the beguiling attraction of the very first heresies and heterodoxies lay in their simplicity. They presented the most attractive solution to any immediate and apparently unsolvable problems. For the first generations of Christians, these usually lay in the sphere of doctrine and praxis. For us as a church today, the presenting problem appears to be declining numbers in our congregations. Ergo, an urgent emphasis on numerical church growth must be the answer. Right, surely? But wrong, actually. The first priority of th...