Under the Oak Tree

The Church as Community of Conversation in a Conflicted and Pluralistic World

Allen, McClure

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781630870751
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Two trends in the early twenty-first-century intersect to give this volume immediate relevance: 1) The emerging postmodern ethos in North America is calling into question many things we have taken for granted, including the purposes of the church; and 2) our time is increasingly fractious as groups with distinct worldviews become polarized and often antagonistic. Eleven noted contributors join a growing current that sees conversation as an image to refresh our thinking about the nature and purpose of the church, and as a process in which individuals and communities with different perspectives come together for real understanding. Under the Oak Tree employs the image of Sarah and Abraham greeting three visitors under the Oaks of Mamre as an image for the church as a community of conversation, a community that opens itself to the otherness of the Bible, voices in history and tradition, others in the contemporary social and ecological worlds. Furthermore, the book shows how conversation can lead the church to action.The book takes a practical approach by exploring how conversation can shape key parts of the church's life. Topics include preaching, worship, formation, evangelism, pastoral care, mission and ecumenism, social witness, and the relationship of Christianity to other religions. Foundational chapters consider God as conversational, the church as community of conversation, and the minister as conversation leader.

Part 1

A Conversational Practical Theology

1

The Church as Community of Conversation

Ronald J. Allen

Your car pulls to a stop at red light at an intersection in an urban neighborhood.1 You notice a church on each corner. On one corner is a red brick building with white trim and a slender spire reaching gracefully towards heaven. On another corner stands a large dark stone church with stained glass windows, a dome, and large pillars. On a third corner is a former department store now used for worship. On the last corner sits a rambling two-story house with a discreet sign in the flower bed saying that a church meets there. You might surmise that the congregations occupying these buildings are pretty much the same. However, different congregations not only understand their purposes differently but have different methods for thinking about those purposes and how to carry them out.

This chapter explores what it means to think of churches as communities of conversation. This discussion pertains not only to how churches understand their purposes but also to the methods of how churches come to understand and act on their purposes. After noting that the purpose of the church derives from how a church understands the purposes of God, the chapter explores two basic methods of arriving at a purpose and of enacting that purpose: a church that receives and applies the Bible and tradition to contemporary life, and a church that has active conversation with others in such a way as to open the possibility of changing some of its fundamental perspectives.2

A Church Derives its Purposesfrom its Understanding of the Purposes of God

A church should not imagine its purposes out of the blue. A church that is thinking theologically derives its own purposes from its understanding of the purposes of God for individuals, households, congregations, communities, nations, and the natural world. A church usually formulates its understanding of the purposes of God in light of how it understands the condition of the world.3

A church should point to the purposes of God not only for those who belong to the church, but for the wider human family, and indeed, for the created world. In the last generation, thinkers about the church have increasingly come to say that the mission of God (missio Dei) is the mission of the church. The mission of the church is to participate in the mission of God. O. Wesley Allen, Jr. sees a church as an institutional continuation, or an embodiment in community, of the purposes of God.4

Churches interpret the purposes of God differently, and hence interpret the purposes of the church differently. A church’s perceptions come from the ways in which the church understands the Bible, Christian history and theology, the church’s own experience, the experiences of those outside the church, and how the church views nature. Churches differ greatly on how to draw on these diverse sources. We cannot speak singularly about the purpose of the church. Different churches have different understandings of God that lead to different perceptions of the church.

The sections that follow note the roles conversation plays in different churches in coming to understand the purposes of God and of the church. All churches listen to the Bible, Christian tradition, their own members, and the culture; some churches receive and listen mainly to figure out how to apply the Bible and tradition to life today. Other churches listen with an ear that is open to being challenged not only to enlarge or reframe their viewpoints, but to fundamental rethinking. A church with a conversational emphasis falls into the latter category.

Churches that Receive and Apply the Bible and Christian Tradition to Today

Many churches believe that the Bible and Christian tradition is an authoritative inheritance waiting to be received and applied. This church assumes that its interpretation of the Bible and Christian tradition and theology contains reliable insights to guide the church in every age. A key task is to reckon how to apply the church’s interpretation of those purposes to each new context.

Since many of the church’s ideas are cast in language from long ago, the church must clarify the meanings of sacred traditions and must think afresh about how to express the church’s historic values in forms that people in new situations can understand. Traffic runs one way on the bridge: from the past to how the present can appropriate the past afresh.

We may distinguish two “receive and apply” groups of churches. (1) One group, typically associated with fundamental and evangelical theological movements, presumes that voices in the Bible, and Christian tradition, directly apply in every time and place. (2) The other group, frequently associated with theological movements influenced by the Enlightenment and often labeled “progressive,” concludes that the Bible and Christian tradition contain elements that continue to be normative but are expressed in ways that are culturally bound to the times and places in which they originated. The church, then, searches for contemporary equivalents: concepts and behaviors to correlate with ancient language and prescriptions with contemporary analogues.5

Snapshots of Some Receiving and Applying Churches

We now look at six snapshots of churches in the United States that seek to receive and apply the Bible and Christian tradition to the contemporary world.6 Actual churches, of course, are more complex than these simple categorizations.

Elevator Lobby

Some churches are like elevator lobbies: their basic purpose is to gather people for the ride from earth to heaven. This church views today’s world as sinful and corrupt; God seeks to save people from this world. In some settings, this perspective is muted, almost behind the scenes, but in many congregations it is explicit. Within these churches we often find one or both of the following two emphases: (1) winning souls for the journey to heaven and (2) preparing for the apocalypse—the second coming of Jesus. These churches listen to the culture to determine how to shape the gospel message in ways that have a good chance of appealing to people today.

Prop Up Majority Culture

Some churches assume that the world of middle and upper class Eurocentric culture in the United States is life as God intends. God’s purpose, then, is to maintain that culture. Consequently, many churches in the United States associated with the middle class and upper class support Eurocentric ways of life. This support, however, often takes two different forms. (1) Some churches function as chaplains of majority culture. These churches assume that many dominant values and behaviors of majority Eurocentric culture are consistent with God’s purposes. The church, then, passes the hand of blessing over the culture. These churches are often pillars of the local establishment and implicitly understand one of their roles to be helping people be good citizens. These churches listen to the culture to determine what they need to do to help it prosper.

(2) The church as watchdog of majority culture thinks that God specifically calls for the politically and theologically conservative versions of majority culture values. Some of these churches subscribe to American Exceptionalism—the idea that God has appointed the United States to be different from other countries in promoting democracy, capitalism, and Christianity. These churches keep watch over the culture to maintain and extend these values. These churches listen to the culture to determine when and where they need to become assertive.

Community of Support and First Aid Station

Some congregations assume that the world is ambiguous with its moments of fulfillment and struggle. God’s primary purpose is to help people make their way through life with as much fulfillment as possible. Churches in the receiving and applying tradition believe that the Bible and Christian theology prescribe care that churches should provide members as they make their way through life. The church provides groups, experiences, programs, and relationships to help individuals and households on the journey from birth through growing up, the stages of adulthood, the shifting circumstances of life, and death. When crises occur—such as death or divorce—the church is a first aid station. Such churches are less concerned with public life than with equipping individuals and households to negotiate life. These churches listen to members of the congregation and to others to determine what people need to navigate life successfully.

Seeking to Change the Culture

Some churches take a receiving and applying approach to the goal of changing culture itself. We may distinguish two churches in this line whose purposes are similar but whose theological undergirding differs. (1) The church as agent of liberation regards various forms of oppression—such as sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, economic exploitation, and political repression—as obstacles to the social world God desires. The Bible and Christian tradition provide the paradigm of liberation that the church applies to the culture. This church seeks to join God in liberating people from such systems. The church as receiving and applying agent of liberation listens to the culture to name oppressive persons, groups, and systems with an eye towards how such knowledge can help the church develop plans for actions that contribute to liberation. (2) Some churches hope to transform culture through direct engagement with culture. The concerns of a church that seeks to transform culture are often similar to those of the church as agent of liberation. For these churches, too, the Bible and Christian tradition reveal the direction transformation should take. However, while such churches share the goal of cultures similar to those advocated by liberation churches, these churches operate out of theological bases other than liberation theology. For example, some neo-orthodox churches want to transform culture often by engaging culture directly. Such churches listen to the culture to determine both points at which the culture distorts God’s purposes, and timely strategies for attempting to affect the culture.

Minoritized Communities Adopting Majority Theology and Practice

Many congregations are made up primarily of minoritized groups (to use Lynne Westfield’s expression in chapter 6). While some such congregations are receiving and applying churches (discussed here), many are conversational communities (discussed below). Such congregations often believe they encounter Christian tradition when gathered with people who share their own cultural history. A receiving and applying minoritized congregation seeks to conform their experience to a particular interpretation of the Bible and Christian tradition, sometimes Eurocentric. When their cultural heritage presents figures, values, and practices that diverge from their interpretation of the Bible and Christi...