Urban Ecclesiology

Gospel of Mark, Familia Dei and a Filipino Community Facing Homelessness

Pascal D. Bazzell

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9780567672476
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567659828
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Pascal D. Bazzell brings the marginal ecclesiology of a Filipino ecclesial community facing homelessness (FECH) into contemporary ecclesiological conversation in order to deepen the ecumenical understanding of today's ecclesial reality. He contributes relevant data to support a theory of an ecclesial-oriented paradigm that fosters ecclesial communities within homeless populations. There is an extensive dialogue occurring between ecclesiologies, church planting theories or urban missions and the urban poor. Yet the situation with the homeless population is almost entirely overlooked. The majority of urban mission textbooks do not acknowledge an ecclesial-oriented state of being and suggest that the street-level environment is a place where no discipleship can occur and no church should exist. By presenting the FECH's case study Bazzell emphasizes that it is possible to live on the streets and to grow in the faith of God as an ecclesial community.

To be able to describe the FECH's ecclesial narrative, Bazzell develops a local ecclesiological methodology that aims to bridge the gap between more traditional systematic and theoretical (ideal) ecclesiology and practical oriented ecclesiology (e.g. congregational studies) in order to hold together theological and social understandings of the church in its local reality. He articulates a theological framework for the FECH to reflect on who they are (the essence of identity studies), who they are in relationship to God (the essence of theological studies), and what that means for believers in that community as they relate to God and to each other in ways that are true to who they are and to who God intends them to be (the essence of ecclesial studies). The research provides a seldom-heard empirical tour into the FECH's social world and communal identity. The theological findings from the FECH's hermeneutical work on the Gospel of Mark reveal an understanding of church being developed as gathering around Jesus that creates a space for God's presence to be embodied in their ordinary relationships and activities and to invite others to participate in that gathering. Moreover, it addresses ecclesial issues of the supernatural world; honor/shame values; and further develop the neglected image of the familia Dei in classical ecclesiology that encapsulates well the FECH's nature, mission and place.

Chapter 1

BEING CHURCH AMONG THE HOMELESS

Simon Chan’s recent book, Grassroots Asian Theology, elaborates on the reality that much of what we know in our western scholarly community about Asian Theology is based on a few Asian elitist theologians’ accounts that seldom have taken grassroots Christianity seriously. Yet, Chan eloquently argues that it is at the ‘grassroots level that we encounter a vibrant, albeit implicit, theology’.1 This book is an attempt to embrace Chan’s challenge in focusing on grassroots theology of God’s people living in Asia that may ‘yield a better theology for the Asian church and perhaps for the global church as well’.2 The grassroot familia Dei ecclesiology unfolds in a violent, abusive and oppressive urban space in an Asian city through the ecclesial narrative of a Filipino ecclesial community facing homelessness (FECH).3 This community consists of families and individuals who have been living in one particular park for many years and even decades. It is comprised of newborns to great-grandparents and is multi-ethnic and multi-lingual, as well as multi-religious. This study articulates the contours4 of this community’s self-understanding of being ‘church’ on the streets.

The need for this investigation arises out of the reality that cities are significantly influencing global economy and global realities in general. Rapid urbanization and migration bring almost 180,000 people into cities across the world daily. Never before has the majority of the world’s population lived in urban areas. The United Nations estimate that by 2030, 60 per cent of all people will live in cities. In 1800, only 2 per cent of the global population occupied urban areas. Within the next 15 to 20 years many of the cities in Africa and Asia will double in size.5 To nurture a proper response to this reality, Dieter Georgi states: ‘Urban theology will be a major intellectual exercise in the universities and churches of tomorrow. It will, therefore, be a central element of an academic education in the future, in Asia even more than in Europe and the United States’.6 The urban ecclesiology described in this book, facing the extensive changes of urbanization, globalization and migration, as well as speficic problems and questions that emerge from the city, portrays a marginal narrative of the FECH that attempts to bring it into contemporary ecclesiological conversation in order to deepen the ecumenical understanding of today’s ecclesial reality.

From the early days, the church has been an urban movement that engages the city.7 It is in this context that they ‘lived resistively towards the culture of Empire by meeting needs, offering hospitality, and celebrating new possibilities of community. They created alternative assemblies (ekklêsia) and households (oikos), which were a direct challenge to, and imitation of, the building blocks of Roman civic life.’8 The early church was the urban congregation of their times confessing the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Georgi explains:

They understood themselves as incorporations of Jesus, the risen Christ and the living spirit. As such incorporations, they saw themselves as models for a truly urban life, where the ideals of the contemporary urban society, especially that of freedom, were realized. The new urban Christ communities knew of themselves as incorporated freedom, a challenge to their environment. Since they knew Christ to be incorporated in their communities, they displayed great confidence vis-à-vis their major competitor, the Caesar religion, and laid claim to the epoch of its future.9

The challenge of the Church today is not to settle into a private place in our urban sphere but to embed this prophetic spirit in their community in order to continue to engage in the city culture, as this is where ‘the destiny of humanity is being played out’.10 As this book will show, if the church engages with the spirituality of our cities, particularly the marginal urban space, it will nurture new ways of centring on God’s grace, re-reading the Gospel (the Gospel of Mark for this study) and Christ ‘taking form’ in ecclesial communities. This discourse with the spirituality in our urban marginal spaces contributes new knowledge of being church (a familia Dei ecclesiology in this case study) and shapes missional and spiritual practices.

I. Ecclesiology of the Marginalized

This book seeks an intentional discourse between Ecclesiology and Marginalization. Yet, the prime emphasis is not on a historical, philosophical and theological treatise about Church and Marginality, but rather, on a marginal church’s narratives of struggle to embody Christ’s gracious presence in their midst. This is not to signify that marginal churches in general are insignificant or non-influential. Rather, as Henk de Roest notes, I use ‘marginal ecclesiologies’ as a non-judgemental term to describe churches whose ecclesiologies emerge ‘out of, or are located on, the margins of main-stream (or “traditional”) churches’.11 Ecclesiology at the margins is often understood as a reaction or opposition to the centre (traditional, or institutional) church.12 However, the ecclesiology developed by the marginal church in focus does not define itself in contrast or reaction to the institutional churches that function as the ‘privileged centers’.13

Jung Young Lee points out that those at the margins think differently from those living at the ‘privileged centers’. Even though those living at the margins and centre coexist in both worlds, if we seek an intentional emphasis on marginality, ‘we can restore the balance between the two poles. Such a balance, which creates harmony, finds a new center, the authentic center,14 which is no longer oppressive but liberative to the people located at the center or the margins.’15 Therefore, Urban Ecclesiology describes an ecclesiological investigation carried out ‘from the margins’, attempting a fruitful dialogue with each other, acknowledging each other’s values; such as stability, tradition and prudence at the centre, as well as more flexible, inclusivity and potential for innovation at the margins.

In the context of the church and the margins, recent epistemological and demographic shifts have contributed towards a search for new ecclesial identities in the West (emerging churches, fresh expressions and so forth), as well as to new forms of church being developed in the South (for example insider movements). Approaching the theology of the church from these different perspectives and contexts contributes to deeper ecclesial reflections, instead of one Westernized understanding of the ontology of the church. However, using different hermeneutical tools and theological language can create serious misunderstanding. Therefore, the following two principles will guide this research.

The first principle is Ecumenical in Nature. There is only One Church, but many churches (many forms of expression of that ONE Church). The underlying implication of this is that there is no one ecclesial identity, ecclesial vision, ecclesial structure, but many, as there is no one theology of the church. Richard P. McBrien reminds us that every attempt we make ‘to understand the ultimate meaning of the Church is just that: an attempt. “No one has ever seen God,” the Fourth Gospel reminds us (1:18), and no one, therefore, has ever seen the God who is present and active in the Church, which is the communal and institutional presence of the triune God in the world and history’.16 This study is ecumenical in nature as it seeks to ‘recognise in one another the Church of Jesus Christ’17 in order to promote the unity of the Church that Christ interceded for (John 17:20ff). A scripturally grounded ecclesiology should have unifying effects on the body of Christ for the sake of its own essence and its being a witness and testimony in this world. Such a theology of the church seeks to encourage inclusions of other churches. It seeks dialogue instead of confrontation, in the spirit of Pope John XXIII’s declaration:

Divine Providence is leading us to a new order of human relations which … are directed toward the fulfillment of God’s superior and inscrutable designs. And everything, even human differences, leads to the greater good of the Church.18

The second guiding principle is the Preferential Option for the Poor. The underlying assumption is derived from the Scriptural concept that the poor enjoy a hermeneutical privilege as God opts for the least in the world. As we fully seek to conceptualize who God is, the nature of the church, scripture and so forth, we need to mediate this through the lives of those at the margins. The ‘Other’ is then not about naming something distinct from ones’ own identity, but in the ‘otherness’ of the silenced and oppressed one finds much needed resources for ecclesiology and draws into a deeper attentiveness to the mediation of the ‘otherness’ or holiness of God’.19 Or as Amos Yong so eloquently pointed out, it is the mainstream that is dependent in the ‘otherness’ at the margins as ‘God’s saving grace is made available through “the stranger” or those on the margins, and we can receive this grace or not depending on how we respond. This is the criterion dividing the sheep and the goats at the judgment:“just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).’20 This guiding principle of carefully listening to those that society marginalizes shapes the ecclesiological dialogue in this book.

Yet, at the outset of this study, I have to acknowledge that the so seemingly noble project of describing an ecclesiology at the margins is doomed or at least crippled by its underlying philosophical attempt. Anyone who aims ‘to speak for, with, or about or even to listen to the poor, marginal, excluded, oppressed, or exploited’21 faces issues of ‘entitled advocates’. The emphasis on the ‘entitled’ means for Mark Taylor, ‘those who, usually by some group affiliation (class, ethnic identity, gender, educational experience, political position) or because of some combination of these affiliations, have an access to enabling power that others do not’.22

My ability and certainly privilege to enter and leave the marginal space of the FECH leaves me with two major problems regarding the practice of advocacy. First, it can create and reinforce the subalterns’ subalternity that can seem to be a key dynamic of imperialism.23 Second, even in the attempt to honour the marginal voices, there is always a tendency to misrepresent these voices as one who holds power and privilege struggles to authentically listen and advocate. No matter how noble and pure our hearts are in approaching the marginalized, there is a unique dynamic at the margins where our engagements (even its advocacy, service provider, missional outreaches, or doing academic research) can reinforce or even construct the very subalte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Other titles in the series:
• Title
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Terminology
• List of Abbreviations
• Philippines Map
• Chapter 1 Being Church among the Homeless
• Chapter 2 Theoretical and Methodological Prolegomena
• Chapter 3 Ecclesiality and Locality of the Church
• Chapter 4 Towards Naming the Context
• Chapter 5 A Contextual and Interdisciplinary Reading of Mark’s Gospel
• Chapter 6 Towards a Familia dei Ecclesiology
• Chapter 7 A Church in the ‘Filipino’ Contexts
• Appendix A: Participant Summary
• Appendix B: Semi-structured Interview Guide
• Appendix C: Truncated Interview Data
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright