New Metaphors for Church
5 Dec 2006
There has been a great exploration of new metaphors for church. As we have moved away from the language of programme, and mechanism, there has been a re-discovery of the ‘organic’ in our structures, processes and descriptions.
In a mechanistic world we picked metaphors of mechanism. In an organic holistic world, we chose metaphors that fit this context. But are we in danger of repeating mistakes? By that I mean, when we organise church around the driving metaphors of culture, be they modern or post modern are we in being more in love with the latest enculturated metaphor, than a real idea of what church should do and be?
For example the idea of ‘emergence’, has used the life of ants to give us some insight into how self-organisation can take place. And we continue to look for metaphors that fit our desire for things organic and emerging, and avoid anything that smacks of structure and programme, and hierarchy.
In the wild wolves and monkeys, will attack members of their communities who are too aggressive and controlling, preferring more organic communal behaviour. Yet under community threats, stress and attack, a strict hierarchy is formed, of control and intention. So do we learn from wolves and monkeys that when the church is under stress and challenge what is needs it hierarchy and structure?
That flies in the face of the love affair of emergence theory, or the superficiality an infatuation of all things organic and spontaneous.
Now I am not arguing for hierarchy and control, just questioning the love affair with the metaphors of our culture, and wondering where they will lead us. Might we be asking now and in the future, if our best hopes for self organisation came to very little at a time when the church needed something more intentional to emerge?
Does my question make sense? I think I am asking how we explore new metaphors without becoming cultural fashion victims.
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Comment by Phil Harrold
3.16 pm on 5 Dec 2006
Jason’s question got me to thinking about all the ways that sociologists and anthropologists have attempted to describe the dynamic aspects of religious communities–
Cliffor Geertz showed how communities have to continually re-constitute their worldview by revising the symbols, rituals, and social arrangements that characterize the perceived (but always changing) reality ‘out there’ (i.e., the culture)
Ann Swidler described how culture is itself a took kit of diverse elements (metaphors, symbols, stories, behaviors) which religious people use to solve different kinds of problems. In settled times, religious people see the culture as less coherent, not organized in any particular direction, not pushing/pulling or stressing in any particularly recognizable way. So they pick and choose from it–creating diverse strategies of engagement/accomodation with it. But in unsettled periods, overt political and religious ideologies directly influence action. New and more sharply defined religious ’systems’ emerge (like the hierarchies that Jason mentions). There is a sense here that the culture is no longer sustaining the religious community– quite the reverse, in fact. It is a threat. So the community acts to draw more upon its own reserves, its own wisdom, traditions, etc. That gets pretty interesting, of course, because it may become so oppositional that it still finds itself largely determined (if anything through merely trying to be ‘opposite’) by the cultural surround.
I think missiologists have a lot to say about this sort of thing too– e.g., they compare centered-set communities (defined by a common center–e.g., a message/symbol/tradition) with bounded-set communities (defined more by boundary issues, who is in, who is out, etc.)
But I also feel like I need to try to avoid this polarizing way of analyzing the church– maybe that’s the postmodern part of me! The DIDACHE (a 1st- or early 2nd c. century training manual for Christian disciples) seems to have aspects of both– centered-set, bounded-set, hierarchy but also fluid and rather ‘open’ hospitality practices, strong emphasis on teaching– but teaching WISDOM (practiced theology) according to a fairly elaborate, personalized process of assimilation and formation into the community. Its a fascinating blend of attitudes toward the world ‘outside’ and so governed by the notion of the THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS that it manages to defy either/or thinking on how to relate Christ and Culture (sorry, can’t help but think in Niehuhrian categories).
I think the strongest Christian communities throughout history were more governed by the notion of ‘wisdom’ (rhythmic, embodied or practiced theology) and that’s what helped them to avoid the pendulum swings we associate with Christ-v.-Culture in late modernity.
But I’m still puzzling over this and wondering, like MacIntrye did in his conclusion to “After Virtue”) what this would look like today. Is this what the so-called ‘neo-monastic’ version of ‘emerging church’ is all about– consciously or otherwise?
I hope this all makes some kind of sense– I’ve rambled a bit…
Comment by Peter Carino
4.56 pm on 5 Dec 2006
Each generation tends to attempt to remake church in their own image, to something that make sense to them. I think this is necessary, but always has it challenges. Thus, the church will alway be a becoming church. As we are moving out of the effects of modernity the church will continue to morph and adapt to the contexts in which it is found.
Concerning wolves and monkeys: I know that both chimps and gorillas have a strict hierarchy that give structure to their groupings: the strongest male rules the day. In the wolf world, the strongest and fastest wolf leads the pack. So, depending on which set of glasses you are looking through (modern v. postmodern) you will see different metaphors to draw from. Modern glasses tend to see the hierarchy and form church in that manner. Postmodern glasses will tend to see the group/tribal nature of these animals and form church accordingly. In the end we are greatly affected by our presuppositions about the world. Our children and grandchildren will look back and wonder what the heck we were thinking, just as we do with ours. The challenge, as I see it, is how we will put into the DNA of our churches a dominate gene of overt adaptation and change.
Comment by Joshua Case
6.54 pm on 5 Dec 2006
Great question and comments here. Really Jase, i think you’re on to something.
Yet another aspect of this is something Lammert and I have been discussing which is how in many of the more decentralized structures, even when there is a leader, and that leader is taken out, new leadership automatically emerges from within the ranks. I guess in the wolf pack this would happen.
Yet, if one were to evaluate why one of the most decentralized, dangerous, and potentially widely connected networks of our age is so hard to bring down, it would be because the leadership is being persecuted, and every time a leader is killed or captured, a new face appears as the number one man. Not by promotion, by decision. I mean after all, who really runs Al-Qaeda?
Check out: http://www.starfishandspider.com
Comment by Matt Wiebe
6.59 pm on 5 Dec 2006
Hey Jason. Great musings here. I’m sure that the classical liberal theologians were just as excited about contextualizing the gospel to the culture that they were in as EC types are today in their own culture.
I’m not saying that the classic liberal theologians were wrong, I just think that they took it too far and became too accommodating to culture. I hope that we can learn that lesson and remember that contextualizing does not mean accommodating.
Comment by Jason
7.45 am on 6 Dec 2006
Phil (1): I love Clifford Geertz’ concept of ‘thick descritptions’ (for others reading – a thick description of a human behaviour is one that explains not just the behaviour, but its context as well, such that the behaviour becomes meaningful to an outsider), which I think he borrowed from the british philosopher, Gilbert Ryle. Compared to the ‘thin’ readings of culture we so often make.
Your comment also made me think you need to be blogging not me!
Comment by Jason
7.50 am on 6 Dec 2006
Peter (2): Hi Peter, you made me wonder again, how much of what we do is the continuation of an existential drive for meaning around subjective experience, that shapes the use of these metaphors.
What would be a ‘dominant gene of genuine and needed adaptation and change’ (great suggestion – thank you), as you look at this?
Comment by Jason
7.54 am on 6 Dec 2006
Josh (3): yet noone would suggest that Al-Qaeda has no main leader, or hierachy/pecking order. Organic cell groups led by disconnected dictatorial maniacs.
Thanks for the heads up on the book. I’d love to know more of your and Lammerts musings on this topic…maybe a post here!
Comment by Jason
7.56 am on 6 Dec 2006
Matt Wiebe (4) A salutary reminder, thank you. How do we avoid the same problems, what new ones are we making?
Comment by Phil
5.53 pm on 6 Dec 2006
Jason– yes Geertz’s “thick description” deserves our attention, if only because I think that’s what Paul was doing in his “cultural exegesis” on Mars Hill, Acts 17! Notice how multi-faceted his observations were of Athenian culture: he looked at the public landmarks, the literature, the civil and religious customs of the place, and he fraternized with the philosophers…
… then he did the work of ‘transposing’ the gospel into that context
Comment by Peter Aschoff
7.43 pm on 6 Dec 2006
In our post-inustrial information age of networks, there is no longer a clear distinction between organic and “mechanic” metaphors. I guess my question is whether these are false dichotomies again, carrying the anti-institutional bias of late-modern individualism.
And as you say, Jason, both sets of metaphors could cause considerable damage if we apply them naively to the christian community – which is a sociological phenomenon at least in its structural aspects.
Comment by Paul
7.55 pm on 6 Dec 2006
Interesting thoughts – how much of a new metaphor is a reaction to church and how much of it is a preference for more organic sounding terms, I wonder?
It is easy to change the label on the outside “charismissional” for instance but does it change anything on the inside/practice?
Whilst I’m for exploring new terms that resonate/connect/explain what church is for/doing I’d ask who is the metaphor for really and what does it signify?
Do we have a common shared understanding of the metaphor, do we experience it, connect through it and in some way shape it and redefine it as much as by having the label itself it shapes and defines us?
Do we also no need several metaphors being used simultaneously to give us anchor points and help us live in the dramatic tension of commumities who have multiple realtities and expressions?
I think that we need leadership, hierachy etc but need a flexibility in terms of model/metaphor that needs to flex and change – what might work with 10 might not with 100 etc….
So are metaphors a hope to define what we are not, a statement of intent, or a clue to the reality of where we are…
why limit ourselves to management speak and the animal kingdom, why not throw in sci-fi as well – Jedi council/imperial senate/empire anyone…
http://www.davidwmfisher.blogspot.com/
Comment by Matt Wiebe
9.31 pm on 6 Dec 2006
I wish I could answer your questions Jason, but I’m not sure that I can. But here’s a couple of thing that could help us avoid falling into the same trap (I hope):
1) Remember that there is always some degree of foolishness to the message of the cross, no matter the cultural context. Therefore, don’t try too hard to make the gospel contextually palatable.
2) Humility, plain and simple. Realize that God is partnering with us in the furthering of the gospel and that the fate of his kingdom coming does not rest in our ability to contextualize.
As for what mistakes we’re making, I honestly have no idea. That’s the job of hindsight, usually. But I’m sure we’re making them!
Comment by Paul
8.02 am on 7 Dec 2006
Jase (7) maybe we could have:
“Organic cell groups led by disconnected dictatorial maniacs…”
as VCS new strapline??? ;)
Comment by Jason
8.44 am on 7 Dec 2006
Paul (13): we already do ;-)
Comment by Peter Carino
5.31 pm on 8 Dec 2006
Jason (6) One of the challenges we face is that when we dearly love something or someone is to hold too tightly onto it. I love the woman that I married, but after 13 years of marriage she is no longer that woman. If I were to have hung onto her to tightly and tried to prevent her growth and maturing then we would never have lasted this long, or else what we have now would be a distortion of what marriage is to be about. Jesus did not define the church, but he did give a trajectory. If we continue with the metaphor of a family or even a body, then implicit in our understanding will be the concept of growth and change. If we are merely a reactionary movement, then what happens when that which we are reacting against is no longer there? If, instead, we are a missional movement, then by definition we are in a constant mode of change and adaptation.
Comment by Peter Carino
5.36 pm on 8 Dec 2006
Paul (11): This is an important thought. The sexy thing to do is to change the externals. They quickly set us apart from the rest or make us feel connected to something new. The problem is that we run the risk of becoming whitewashed tombs ourselves. We can polish the outside and make it look attractive, etc. but be no different than what were before. I believe that we should be concerned less with the words we use (unless they are affecting our thinking) and more with our internal person.
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