The Hermeneutic of Community
10 Jul 2006
A community of people who adopt Christianity as an alternative basis for living, beyond a set of propositional beliefs, becomes a powerful apologetic in the postmodern culture. Truth is found when individuals live in an authentic life-changing community because, what brings together absolute truth and relative truth is relational truth. God sent us a person, Jesus, not a proposition.
Stanley Grenz, in an interview in Cutting Edge Magazine explains this hermeneutic as:
In the postmodern context, we are moving toward the community evaluating a mosaic’s pragmatic usability. The community has tremendous power in the postmodern context. Individualism is a modernist concept. The individual in the postmodern context becomes a person-in-relationship. So it’s not like I can stand as an individual observer looking at alternate communities and subjectively determining which is right or which mosaic happens to be intellectually best. Rather, it is only as I participate in community, involved in the give-and-take of that community life, that I see what its mosaic is all about.
In other words, to know Jesus, to know what christianity is really truely about, is only possible by active participation in the life of a community of believers, and not by learning propostional truths/facts about Christianity (even if we affirm there are propostional truths about Christianity). And in terms of others finding out about christianity, our best apologetic (and often our worst!), is the community that live around their faith.
Tagged: Apologetic, Community, Hermeneutic, Theology
11 comments
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Comment by jason smith
5.57 pm on 10 Jul 2006
jason
I’m taking Doug Groothuis’ basic apologetic’s class right now. I’ve put this class off for three years. i’m probably as prepared to take this class as i could ever be. i’ve heard you say before that you wonder if the work of post-modern theology has made much ground for the actual work of the kingdom and one of the questions groothuis raises that I actually might agree with is that emergent/emerging church is not so concerned with an apologetic for the Christian faith. I’d say this post is maybe the closest the emerger comes to an agreed to apologetic for the faith, but the slow work of developing newer communities of faith that actually invite people into participation might be hindering a new apologetic work. what say you?
Jason Smith
Comment by Makeesha
6.33 pm on 10 Jul 2006
very well said Jason, I have seen this to be true and David and I were just discussing a similar line of thought yesterday.
Comment by Paul
8.50 pm on 10 Jul 2006
Although I know what you are saying Jason and agree with it, I think i would be a bit more cautious in making statements like “to know Jesus… is ONLY possible” etc. I just feel a little uncomfortable with 1) whether any of us know enough to say that 2) sounds rather exclusive 3) there are some people who find for a whole variety of reasons find that they can’t…
i think i would be more likely to say something about community revealing aspects of following jesus, being harder, revealing my own short comings, my own need for jesus to help me with love, patience, kindness, generousity that i need when living in community – to challenge myself to help others but also to accept help and support rather than trying to get by on my own…
Comment by Jason
10.15 pm on 10 Jul 2006
Jason: I think as we rediscover community as our apolgetic, the pendulum might swing too far, and we’ll find we need a renewed confidence to speak and proclaim relationally Jesus.
I think we do need a new apologetic, could end up being confessional particularists, unless we find the confidence to speak of jesus through our communities to those outside and those connecting within them.
Comment by Jason
10.18 pm on 10 Jul 2006
Paul: In this regard I’m talking about knowledge and how all knowledge is utimately relational, in that we are peopl, and we receive it from others. Sorry if it sounds exclusive, but I think I trying to avoid the idea that we can know things apart from others, as autonomous beings who possess knowledge.
I do think you can’t understand christianity without living it with others, others wise it is knowsledge about christianity, it is not something internalised that is part of you.
Does that help, or did I mis read your question? Thanks mate
Jason
Comment by Paul
7.33 am on 11 Jul 2006
Thanks Jase for taking time to explain further, I know what you are driving at, particularly in the relational imparting of knowledge. Clearly we don’t just wake up with knowledge in our heads and we spend a life learning about things – I question though whether that learning is all communal based? Do books count? Does observation and independent thought count? ok clearly i stand more chance of correct knowledge if such things are open to relational challenge but given that we are talking about Jesus rather than some facet of knowledge I think you can know Jesus apart from living with others. I think that’s where i feel the most uncomfortable – i think you are right to put a challenge to our independent in it for ourselves lives and the impact and power of community and relational living. On the other hand as christianity is about Christ and christ can be known in and of himself and has God has the power to reveal himself to people in many ways, christian community accepted being a very powerful way that Christ is known and christianity experienced.
Experience strikes me as maybe a better word than knowledge in this context – knowing Christ in as far as my limited capacity to know the infinite is mostly inspiration by/from/with God – and the norm (ideal?) of experiencing the Christian life, especially in the west, is the dynamic of commited christian counter cultural community?
Otherwise I think there is a risk of saying to people if you’re not in a community than you don’t know christianity, and depending on my definition of what christianity is, to me i’d say its the practice of following the Christ, then it comes close to saying you don’t know Christ. Christ, who has already been made known, incarnated once, so we can know him…
Which I think is not what you are trying to say at all and I’d regret the challenge of your post of the power of community and relational experiene getting lost in my confusion!
Comment by Jason
9.15 am on 11 Jul 2006
Paul: Your right, I think, we can know things through books, but even then they are relational/personal in that they have been written by a person connected to other people :-)
I think we have had a problem in the modern church because of seperating experience and knowledge. Personal knowledge the idea that all knowledge is relational (M Polanyi), breaks that dichotmoy down.
Also community, is a slippery word, a community can be gathered scattered, connected in cyberspace.
Take us for instance, we’ve hardly spoken in person but I feel you are part of our community!
Thanks mate, jason
Comment by Edward Pillar
10.24 am on 11 Jul 2006
here’s a thought…
Jesus said, ‘You will know the truth and the truth will set you free’ Elsewhere Jesus said, ‘I am the truth.’
Thus, to know the truth and therefore be set free (be saved) we need to know jesus. The only way to know someone is in relationship with them.
The Apostle Paul was abundantly clear in stating that ‘You are the body of Christ’ – ie the church – body/community of believers is the body of Christ.
Hmmm – is it true therefore that to know Jesus one must participate in the body/community of believers which is the physical expression of the life of Christ?
It may be of course that any difficulty we have in accepting that knowing Jesus is found (only) in community is because we are so accepting of the individualism prevelent in many churches and its theology.
Comment by Jason
10.35 am on 11 Jul 2006
Edward: now you’ve said far better than I ever could, thank you!
Comment by Paul
11.02 am on 11 Jul 2006
Thanks Jase, you are right that there is a relational context with knowledge that is communicated and i agree with you that knowledge/experience is something that was dangerously split in the past and in fact still is a challenge in my own life with the biggest challenge being doing what I know/believe.
Thanks for your kind, insightful and generous reply, v much appreciated!
Thanks also for extending the welcome mat as well! I agree that interaction is a good thing in all its forms and i think i am proof in part of your arguement that by me making a choice to try and be involved rather than just observe community it has allowed me to participate/become part of the community and thus we have something deeper/more tangible in living this out rather than just sharing theoretical theological observations in blog space… ;)
Comment by Paul
11.10 am on 11 Jul 2006
Edward, thanks for that, very helpful observations. I certainly agree that community of christians can be a powerful demonstation/experience of who Christ is and what he is about – it certainly generates a continual crisis of choice of dependence on Christ and countless opportunties to be changed/challenged/transformed into someone Christ like…
I think that if you break down what Paul is saying that individually we are all part of christ’s body and therefore individaully we each can know somehting of Christ independent of others. However, to me i think Paul makes the bigger point that we can individually bring a recognition/experiennce/splinter of christlikeness which collectively together has a power to reveal and encounter Christ in a deeper way than just by keeping our own revelations to ourselves…
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