Ecclesia res publica
4 Jul 2008
After 18 months and 1,300 hours of reading and writing in the early hours of the mornings I’ve been trying to summarise my learnings, by editing my PhD Methodology.
In short trying to get into one document, what I am doing, and why I am doing it, along with an outline for each chapter of the thesis I now want to spend the next 4.5 years finishing.
When people ask me in general, I talk about how I’m exploring how consumerism and secularism are like a religious system and what are the implications of that for how we do church.
It’s been interesting (for me at least), to watch that take shape around a method, and specific thesis.
In particular, I’m looking at two key challenges, firstly how secularism seeks to privatize Christian faith into nothing more than a religious association or club for individuals. Then alongside that I am exploring how commodification fragments bodies and communities into individuals, unable to do life together in community.
In terms of church, I think this means that we are unable to be a genuine ‘public’ anymore. Ecclesiology then becomes about accommodations to that privatization and ‘private God spaces’, and less about the redemption of Creation in Jesus and our experience of that together as the church, in every space of life.
The loss of confidence of being a genuine public, is the loss of what it means to become and be a christian.
The scandal of early church was that it took the God of the personal, ‘Abba Father’, and worshipped him in public, it refused to keep him at home, in private, whereas the Romans practiced their private devotions away from the state Gods.
The rest of the scandal, was the bringing of the God of the public into the home, the households. In a society where women had no place, where only a few were citizens, whole households, that were more like business communities, met together declaring non citizens to be citizens, and gave each other worth and status.
No wonder the church was a radical and revolutionary cult, able to undermine the power of the Roman Empire.
I suspect that finding ways of doing church, to fit a consumer rhythm, of private God spaces, conformed to my agenda and convenience, around what I like or don’t is no kind of revolution at all.
If the market and consumer dream is the new empire, if I am the new Caesar of my life, what does it mean to bring Abba Father into my work, and my community? And what does it mean to bring the Lord of Creation into my private life, and order my inner life around the reality of the resurrection of Jesus?
That’s the real revolution I’m trying to explore.
Tagged: Ecclesiology, Public, Theology
17 comments
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Comment by alan mann
10.50 am on 4 Jul 2008
I’ve often thought that Sunday isn’t such a convenient time for people to meet as in our ‘consumerist age’ many people are doing other stuff, such as shopping, frequenting cafe’s, Sunday league football, etc. What we need is a church of convenience that can be attended (consumed) at other times. But having read this, I’m thinking, meeting on a Sunday is actually counter to much of the agenda of our culture and a public demonstration of another ‘Way’.
Fascinating stuff, thought provoking stuff.
Comment by Jason
5.16 pm on 4 Jul 2008
Hi Alan,
I think anytime in our week when we form a counter cultural public, as the early church did, is what we need.
The poorest ecclesiology seems to be one that fits around the rest of life, when in church history the mission of the church, has been about enabling to whole of our lives to fit into the mission of Jesus together. Tnx for the feedback and encouragement.
Comment by Christian Blog and Web Awards
1.46 pm on 4 Jul 2008
Hi there,
I really enjoyed reading your blog – why not enter the Christian Blog and Web Awards 2008?
Go to http://www.christianblogawards.com to see the categories (such as Most Inspiring Leadership Blog or Creative Christian Blog), and send us your entry – good luck!
Comment by Jason
1.50 pm on 4 Jul 2008
Some modicum for self modesty prevents me from entering myself for an award. However you are welcome to recommend me :-)
Comment by Jonny
2.41 pm on 4 Jul 2008
thanks Jason. Extremely thought provoking, I look forward to hearing more.
The 20 Century emphasis on a ‘personal-relationship-with-God’ seems to have ended up as a private faith.
I guess the questions it leaves me are: how to we appropriately express worship of God in public?
and… Who are the ones who have no place in our society who need to be given equal status and welcomed in as family? (refugees, prisoners, the ultra-poor)
Comment by Jason
5.19 pm on 4 Jul 2008
Hi Jonny, thanks for your encouragement too.
It is ironic, that in a move away from church, seeing it as self seeking and dispensing religious goods and practices, we have often merely taken that further into more private and consuming spaces and practices.
In terms of your question we need the practice of public worship, and mission, together….that’s a another post for another time, but I think centers around the christian notion of hospitality, that was at the heart of early christians worship and mission, to the stranger (others).
Comment by Paul
4.12 pm on 4 Jul 2008
I really hate the term empire, that kinda implies for me something much more grand than the reality. I think it’s more of a chicken coop and we’re all scratching away on our patch, sometimes joining in the panic when a new chicken licken races by to tell us about a new threat to the sky falling on our heads…
there you go we’re headless chickens, battery farmed, with our eyes down except when we panic and become even more headless…
Comment by Jason
5.20 pm on 4 Jul 2008
empire = kingdom, domain, castle (an Englishman’s home after all…)..and in light of Jesus all versions are revealed as a chicken coop :-)
Comment by Peter
2.33 pm on 5 Jul 2008
Great teaser, Jason. All the best for the years of work and I look forward to hearing more in the future!
Comment by Jason
5.19 pm on 5 Jul 2008
Tnx for your encouragement too Peter, I hope you’re well.
Comment by Noel Heather
5.42 pm on 5 Jul 2008
Having been researching along similar lines for a few years, it’s good to see folk such as yourself saying things like this which are well supported by the evidence. (I’ve drunk a lot of church coffee north and south of the border.) Having started out in post-war ABC-Southampton-type evangelicalsm, what stands out for me over the years is the decline of the fellow believer, and the rise of the worshipper-consumer (…parent?!). Church folk in fact appear to ’speak’ one of three discourses (R1A, R1B, and R2) which are in effect more consumerist as you travel along the series. I’ll send you a PDF of one published account of the 3 discourses. The full theological version (‘Critical Postliberalism’) is finally coming out in the SJT in November. Good work you’re doing here, Jason!
Comment by David Muir
10.35 am on 8 Jul 2008
Jason: I am watching with some interest to see what will happen in the ongoing tussle between church and government in regard to public funds being channelled into ‘faith communities’ to deliver social care. I think the churches have ‘followed the money’ unduly here, and now find that they must fall in line with Caesar’s dogmas even when they conflict with Christian truth. And of course they must avoid any attempt to grow the Christian community in the wake of such care, because that is ‘proselytising’, thus ensuring the continuing demise of the Church in our culture. I suspect we need to get ourselves out of such arrangements, and begin to model a whole different perspective on social transformation. What do you think?
Pingback by Engendering mystery in fiction « Nehemiah & Blake
2.56 pm on 8 Jul 2008
[...] under Uncategorized A significant topic of Jason Clark’s blog is how secularism acts as a form of religious system in our society to privatize faith “into nothing more than a religious association or club for [...]
Comment by Edward Pillar
3.54 pm on 9 Jul 2008
Hi jason – well done for all this – it sounds like you are really enjoying and being stimulated by the research.
Long may it continue – the stimulation that is, may the research come to an end and you be rewarded appropriately!
Comment by sylvia
3.01 am on 10 Jul 2008
You have a fascinating blog. I am a newbie here and feel rather out of my element, but since I am trying to find a way to bring Jesus into the lives of some folks in a remote location, your blog does speak into what I do. More specifically, in the location where I work, I see that “church” has not transformed lives. I am attempting to build a bridge between the secular and the religious in that community. This is a new work for me and I am moving one prayer at a time in developing it.
Keep writing, Jason (and friends) and I will keep reading. Many blessings to you all!
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8.51 am on 14 Jul 2008
[...] few of you who need some sleep aids, the outline for that follows (I wrote a less academic version here): Research Problem/Question ‘I wish to explore and understand the nature of a consumerist, [...]
Comment by Josh
1.14 am on 15 Jul 2008
Jason,
Some truly fascinating stuff. As a pastor living and ministering in America, I can see the shift from a radical, public ecclesiology to a more privatize, consumer-oriented one. I really enjoy reading your musings about what has taken place in the UK and how you and others are laboring in such a way as to reclaim a more Biblical and healthy understanding of what the church is, why the church is here, and her mission. In many ways the UK is still years ahead of America in many of these trends, so if church leaders would be willing to step up, acknowledge that we don’t know it all, and try to learn from people like you there (I think) is a great possibility that, with God’s help, we can correct some of these errors before they become part of the DNA of our faith communities.
I am going to be a part of the M.A.M.L. cohort at George Fox this year and I truly look forward to learning and dialoguing about ecclesiology with you!
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