A tale of two kingdoms: 3 Domains
13 Feb 2007
I’m going to outline my research over the next few days as a series of posts. I’m hoping I can make the ‘dinner party test’ where most people can understand roughly what I am looking at, as well as some more academic posts for those of you who want to engage there too. I hope you’ll give me some feedback as we go along. Firstly today, some back ground and preperation before I get to that.
In the picture above there are three domains/territories*. God, the Church and the World. If we map these domains very simply like you might have done in high school as venn diagrams (sorry if that gives you the chills and flashbacks), we can look at how these territories intersect, are distinctive from each other and what happens when they are in union (BTW no set or correct form of church is assumed in this diagram).
1. Institutional Religion: The sacred and secular divide of a belief in God, experienced in church, but separate from the world.
2. Social Service Agency: The caring for people in the world with no connection to a worshipping and confessional community of God in that reality.
3. Privatised Spirituality: Personalised non-institutionalised religion, where God is a reality in my world but not with others in any organised way etc.
4. Mission: The missio dei (mission of God)/Kingdom of God take place in the overlap of all three territories. “It is not the church of God that has a mission in the world, but it is the God of mission who has a Church in the World. “*
Whilst the diagram helps me understand the dualistic nature of much of the western worlds church life, of a faith separate from the world, it also maps out a more recent phenomena of privatised post church religion. Many people trying to get to number 4 may have ended up in a post-church response rather than real missional church.
* For a much better drawn diagram see Hirsch & Frost: The Shaping of things to come, page 185. I have heard and seen this diagram used so many times in missional conversations, does anyone know if it is orginal to Hirsch & Frost?
** Tim Dearborn, Beyond Duty: a passion for Christ, a heart for mission, MARC, 1998 as cited in Mission-Shaped Church : Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Context, page 85.
Tagged: Ecclesiology, Emerging-Church, Kingdom-of-God, Missional-Church, Theology
38 comments
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Comment by Rupert
9.37 am on 13 Feb 2007
Good one Jason. It seems that #1 is traditionally where church has been, and #4 is where we are seeking to be in the future. I suppose it might be more acurate to say that we seeking a balance of #1 and #4 … I hope that God is at work in the church, AND in the world. I know of some places that have become so missional that the church has suffered, as they have neglected the chuch: worship, equipping the saints etc.
It is #3 is particular that i have a question about. Surely, we expect God to be working in the world far wider than we as the church are engaged with? Maybe our goal is to see #4 increase in size and encroach in #3, but i hope / expect God to have ‘been there first’ and to be working in places and ways that we haven’t yet caught up with. To label that New Age Spirituality doesn’t seem to do justice to God’s activity in the world?
Am i missing the point of what you are saying there?
I think #2 is a good warning to the church at the moment, as we seek to be good news to the poor, that we don’t leave God out of what we are doing. It maybe isn’t a bad thing per se, but ideally we are operating more in #4 than #3.
Comment by Paul
10.26 am on 13 Feb 2007
your dinner parties sound good – altho i thought the test was that the ideas got clearer the more wine was consumed?
I liked what you said above [and very easy to draw with wet wine glasses - no wonder vend diagrams are so popular at dinner parties] the flip side is as Ruper posted in (1) that it gets quite simplistic when the reality is sometimes those 3 spheres don’t even overlap or you could draw the God sphere round them all etc…
Shown diagramtically it turns me into a nodding dog who says yes we must inhabit that overlap – in practice though we are gonna be all over the shop in terms of emphasis/mission/gifts/focus/culture etc…
But then again that’s why you are writing a phd on the subject :)
Comment by Matthew Glock
12.04 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Hey Jason,
I really like that diagram. I’m working through “The Shaping of Thing to Come” by Hirsch and Frost and found and they did the same thing on page 158. Good way to visualize what we need to do.
Take care,
Matt
Comment by Mark Heath
1.03 pm on 13 Feb 2007
a very helpful diagram Jason. definitely passes the dinner party test.
Comment by Helen
1.32 pm on 13 Feb 2007
I think I’m with you so far…
Enough to have comments and questions, anyway ;-)
Like, I think your subtitle for #3 – “Personalised non-institutionalised religion” is clearer than your main title
“New Age spirituality” because to me New Age is a rather specific subset of all personalized non-institutionalized religion.
Which makes me wonder, so where do the other institutionalized monotheistic religions – Islam and Judaism – fit on your Venn Diagram?
Are they also part of #3? Are they in ‘world’ only?
Am I making this too complicated? ;-)
Comment by Peter Aschoff
2.40 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Very helpful diagram, Jason. My only question would be whether there is a part of the church that is outside the world. Culturally speaking probably yes – but in another sense being self-absorbed is as worldly as you can get.
Comment by bryan riley
2.43 pm on 13 Feb 2007
I like the diagram and the concept. I struggle with how you come up with New Age with a combo of God and the world, however. I don’t think the church being absent creates New Age-ism. I also am not sure God is in it, although spirituality is. The diagram almost makes it look like the only thing New Agers need is church, and I don’t think that would be on target. I love the quote you give at the end.
Comment by michael bells
5.11 pm on 13 Feb 2007
I like the basic concept, as mentioned, it is similar to Frost & Hirsch. One thing that this type of diagram doesn’t show (& this is the weakness of all diagrams) is how the church is in the world (a la Brian MacLaren’s diagram of God – church – world). This diagram show how the chrch intersects with the world.
Looking forward to the rest of your posts
Comment by Jason
5.43 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Matthew (3): Thanks for the attribution Matthew I have put that in the main post. Do you know if that ideas is original to them? I have heard it so many times in missional conversations, and asked if anyone knows it’s origins.
Comment by Jason
5.46 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Rupert (1): It certainly opens up lots of questions, and has it’s limitations and can be stretched too far. For instance if you believe God is everywhere and in everything then there is no separate area from God and the world etc.
But for broadly three experiences, and three territories of God, World and Church, in terms of overlap and separateness I find it helpful.
I woud like to see no4 grow too, if we really understood and did mission through the church in the world.
Comment by Jason
5.48 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Paul (2): The dinner part test comes in a later post :-) I wonder it it is a) very simplistic and has some truth and b) is much more complicated than this, a both/and. But it helps me understand at any rate two things:
1. The dualistic christendom model of the modern church
2. The privatised post church faith that is developing at present.
Comment by Jason
5.52 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Mark (4): Hi Mark, it’s not my diagram but I’m glad you found it helpful.
Comment by Jason
5.56 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Helen (5): The contrast of New Age with post-church spirituality does open up the need for more subtle and detailed mappings. Having said that many sociological researchers are finding that new age spiritualities have much in common with people leaving church for privatised faith (believing but not belonging). See http://www.jasonclark.ws/2006/07/27/christian-migration/ where I refer to this research.
As for Islam and other religions that is perspective I don’t have, i.e I see them the same as the religious system of concumerism and agnosticism, i.e located in the world and not God’s kingdom, but that’s a whole other post (and doesn’t mean I don’t think God is at work in them).
Comment by Jason
6.00 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Peter (6): Great question, and yes would be my response on reflection, it’s a restriction of the model for sure. I think we haven’t begun to explore what it means to be a christian in the emerging culture and not be located fully in the world. Maybe I’ll re-draw this once the comments tail off?
Comment by Jason
6.02 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Bryan (7): It’s not mu diagram, and it has lots of limits, I hope the link above in the comment to Helen shows more about how the new age as a believing but not belonging has resonnance to the post church movement of Christians out of church.
God, world and church are all slippery terms meaning so many things to many people.
Comment by Jason
6.02 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Michael: (8): Can you let me know where Brian McLaren’s diagram is, I don’t remember seeing that? Thanks.
Comment by Helen
6.14 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Jason – yes, I see the similarities between New Age and other personal non-institutional religion. Oh, I see you changed the name of #3. I won’t say any more about that then ;-)
As for Islam and other religions that is perspective I don’t have, i.e I see them the same as the religious system of concumerism and agnosticism, i.e located in the world and not God’s kingdom, but that’s a whole other post (and doesn’t mean I don’t think God is at work in them).
So does the church have an equivalent to these, a version of ‘Christianity’ which is not located in God’s kingdom? Presumably it does.
Comment by Jason
6.18 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Helen (17): I’m sure the church has much that is not of the Kingdom of God, it always has (1 Corinthians comes to mind) :-)
Comment by michael bells
7.54 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Jason
Here’s a link to the diagram – sorry it was self – church world
It’s slides 38 & 39 of the second ppt: “emerging missional churches”
I first saw these when Brian spoke in Waterloo, ON a couple of years ago.
http://missiodeiscandia.wordpress.com/2007/01/07/mclaren-ppt/
Comment by Jason
7.59 pm on 13 Feb 2007
Michael (19): thanks for the link
Comment by steven hamilton
8.25 pm on 13 Feb 2007
my thoughts were so similar to helens’ (5) that its scary. yet, i don’t think venn diagrams can account for the multiplicity of ‘religions’ and ’spiritualities’, but i think they do a decent job for ecclesiology.
Comment by dan brown
5.00 am on 14 Feb 2007
I like the basic concept and have thought about the diagram off and on during the day. I would like to see the space defined by number three to look more free form or like an Ambea. Especially on the God and world sides of the space. This would be to show the nature and dependance of natural theology on this view or lifestyle. The space defined by #4 would have dashes around the space including the complete circle. This would symbolise that there is always more to say and always more to learn in this mode of being church. It would also symbolise K. Barth’s wheel within a wheel where the the spokes that start at the center wheel go out toward an outer wheel without a rim. The spokes are doctrine and church traditions that move out from the center (mystery of The Triune God) to the outer wheel that has no rim. To me the solid wheels of 1 and 2 represent the modern mentality or Cartesian philosophy. Jason you really have your work cut out. Dan
Comment by Paul
11.31 am on 14 Feb 2007
Jase (11) ah good ol both/and… yes it does help to provide one map/way of showing these things and certainly stimulates thought/reflection
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Comment by brodie
5.19 pm on 15 Feb 2007
Jason – I found this diagram halpful when reading the shape of things to come, and I hear your concern / observation that position 4, which I think is where we should be aiming for, can lead to a post-church response. I can’t help but feel that this is due in part to Frost & Hirsch’s insistance that mission drives ecclesiology. For me this is too simplistic, there needs to be an interplay between the two rather than the domination of one by the other.
Comment by Graham Stacey
5.41 pm on 15 Feb 2007
Hi, thanks for kicking this off…
I have been struggling over the last few days about how to put into words some of my thoughts during a talk by Bishop Stephen Cotterell here at RCC. So may be I can struggle here…
Can we really talk about culture? In particular, can we talk about culture separate from church? This question arises from catching myself and then hearing many talk about culture as something the church needs to respond to as if it is separate from it.
In addition to that, do we talk about the missio dei separately from the world, by which I think we mean creation which in turn includes all cultures?
I guess I think it may be far more complex [see 2 followed by Jason’s response 11].
Does being at #4 in the diagram mean that we have realised that such definitions of mission, church, world, culture etc are, in the end, too constricting and come to a place where I see myself as a child of God, disciple of Jesus, living in the world [as everyone else in fact does] and choosing to live that life in this world following the way of Jesus. Part of that way is to do so with other followers, living the life rather than making it into a project. [being deliberately provocative here whilst at the same time training for ordination with the established church].
I think, when we talk about church and culture separately, we are referring to the difference between the way we do things in the church to the way we do things in the rest of our lives. The packaging of the Gospel: we sit in rows, we do it on Sunday morning, we listen to 20mins of monologue etc. What is clear, sadly, is that there is often no difference on other lifestyle indicators like patterns of marriage and divorce, motoring offences, debt, etc.
So perhaps we need to define what we mean by world, church and indeed God as we draw these diagrams.
BTW: not read shape of things to come yet so may have missed the point here.
Comment by Jason
10.30 am on 16 Feb 2007
Brodie (24): How do you see that interplay working? Lets tease that out if we can.
Comment by Jason
10.32 am on 16 Feb 2007
Graham (25): I think you are into something, in that we need to understand culture, maybe not as set of beliefs and values (domain) but rather a way of relating to beliefs and values, i.e it;s a hermeneutic rather than something to oppose, or change, or inhabit?
Comment by Graham Stacey
11.21 am on 16 Feb 2007
Jason [27]: Of course [I say kicking myself] for this is exactly what culture is understood as “the way I [in the context of a we] understand life”. Martyn Percy has a very intersting approach when writing about clergy in his recent Clergy: The Origin of the Species. He uses a metaphor of evolution and creationism to help see how clerical identity has been the product of cultural movements. In contrast to a creationist approach which essentially sees priesthood instituted in biblical times and unchanged since then.
Beliefs and values, likewise, are as much a product of our culture, i.e. the one we inhabit and can’t escape, as there are a challenge to it. Charting the doctrine of penal substitution over the last 400 years is a good example of belief and understanding being a victim of wider cultural movement. Something I imagine I will get into when my research gets under way.
What then does this say in the context of the original post: I think the circles are too mutually dependant on each other for us to be able to meaningfully separate them.
BTW: I think your posting clock is wrong unless you have actually developed some kind of time wrapping device?!
Comment by brodie
11.28 am on 16 Feb 2007
Jason – How do I see the interplay working? Hmmm..I think the answer to that would be too long to put in a comment, so I’ll try and post something on it early next week and let you know in the comments here so you can read my thoughts.
Comment by Jason
1.09 pm on 16 Feb 2007
Graham (28): great metaphor for clergy :-) Consumer culture seems to separate out any value and meaning from our beliefs, and makes them meaningless, and consumable.
Not sure what’s up with the posting clock everything is ok here :-)
Brodie (29): Looking forward to that, do post a link here.
Comment by brodie
2.25 pm on 16 Feb 2007
Jason – my tentative thoughts teasing out the interplay between mission and ecclesiology have now been posted.
Comment by Tom Allen
4.20 pm on 17 Feb 2007
Venn diagrams have been used for many years for models of mission.When I worked for CMS in the late 1970s this same model was used as the main mission education tool – but it was flawed becuase it actually re-nforces the duality which you seek to avoid – namely you have mixed human activity ie church and world with divine activity and end up with God in seperate circle. A more helpful model for a missional understanding is for God to be a God circle which surrounds the three circles (symbolising God is who creator and ever present) and then replace you first (God) circle with “personal faith”. I emphasise that this does not need to be a narrowly defined (have you been saved etc), but more broadly says something about whether live lives which involve may personal prayer and an experience of the divine in everyday live
Your number system then works much better as an explanation -so for example people in category 2 rarely “deny God” as such they just don’t realise (live life) in the light of a personal experience of God and therefore exclude circle one. Hope this helps. Tom
Comment by Jason Clark
4.38 pm on 17 Feb 2007
Hi Tom, thanks for listing antecedent for the diagram, and for the suggestions, very helpful.
Comment by Christian
5.53 pm on 17 Feb 2007
Jason, like the new layout – much clearer than the previous one :-
)
Comment by Jason
5.56 pm on 17 Feb 2007
Thanks you, JD (http://buttondowndesign.com/) has done a superb job on the site
Comment by Helen
11.07 pm on 17 Feb 2007
Yes, I agree…and I’m trying out the threaded comments to see how that works…
Comment by Helen
11.08 pm on 17 Feb 2007
Oh, I see Jason beat me to it…but now I’ve done it twice!
(Sorry Jase, I couldn’t resist :-))
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