“They are fiercely protective of the high-church nature of their worship in a way that seems to me to be clearly idolatrous,”

At my church, they are also fiercely protective of the Bishop along with the nature of their worship. Yet the Bishop constantly speaks about and against, among other things, idolatry. Which is another reason that I believe that most people in general want to/will have nothing to do with the church.

I don’t even know where to start, Nathanael. You’ve raised several distinct issues, inter alia, is the group a means to integrating its members into “involvement in the church” or is it something else? If we tout involvement or committee membership as the goal of Christian life, are we we driving a generation away from the church (or “God”)? And what to do about the repellent and abhorrent idolatry in ASA and all other churches?

I don’t have answers to all your questions, but I’ve got a few thoughts that would be best shared over a beer, but this’ll have to do. First, it seems the mission of a Christian community group (and, in a larger sense, of the local church itself) is to grow in relationship in a close, supportive group, but why is that? Because community and deep friendships are goods in themselves? They are, but there’s something that distinguishes us from any group gathered around any other idea in any era, namely that we want to be together in order that we may experience something of the life of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is the model of what real life is like, so relationship is integral. A lot depends upon what you understand to be the “‘end’ of the machine,” and I don’t think the ultimate end is merely to have deep, weighty, satisfying conversations, as enjoyable and fulfilling as that is to me personally. The end is for individuals to be conformed to the image of Christ, and for the group (and, by extension, the church) to become a community that embodies authenticity, oneness, discipleship, forgiveness and, most of all, love. The latter is the only way Jesus ever said the world would know whose we are, after all (Jn. 13.34-35.)

I think that’s where “mission” comes in, by the way. Love propels outward. I’ve been reading a book by Lesslie Newbigin called The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, and he writes about the Christian life: “The Church, reaching out to every human community, living a life which is centered in the continual remembrance and reenactment of that central revelation (n.b.: liturgy, the sacraments, particularly Holy Eucharist), offers to all peoples a vision of the goal of human history in which its good is affirmed and its evil is forgiven and taken away, a vision which makes it possible to act hopefully when there is no earthly hope, and to find the way when everything is dark and there are no earthly landmarks.” A Christian community group doesn’t exist solely for itself any more than the Church of Christ exists solely for itself; the church is the only institution in history that has existed solely for the benefit of those who are not its members. Newbigin again: “The intention of Jesus was not to leave behind a disembodied teaching. It was that through his total consecration to the Father in his passion there should be created a community which would continue that which he came from the Father to be and to do — namely to embody and to announce the presence of the reign of God.”

All our talk of involvement in the work of the parish should (I say “should”) have a dual purpose: Going out in service teaches us that we do have idols that have to be cast aside, that we’re far more enamored of our individual comforts than we are of the souls of our brothers and sisters we pass in the street. If we stay inside and contemplate the doctrine of the Trinity (and, mind you, none of what I say would make any sense at all if we hadn’t contemplated at length and perhaps even understood that doctrine in some small way), there’s a sense in which that is the epitome of a life of voluntary “self-impoverishment” because we only really become true selves when we lose ourselves, whether that happens through the ministry of 8 people on a Monday night in a cramped apartment or by working in a battered women’s shelter.

Of course, almost everything you write is true (isn’t that always the case?), but to a point. What is the danger of staying the way we are? Personally, I hear God’s voice in you and everyone else that graces our house after dark on Mondays, and I need you to convict me of my sin, to remind me of the gospel, to open my eyes to my voluntary enslavement to the lie that my worth is dependent upon whether I’ve convinced twenty people to attend an Alpha course or quit smoking. If you don’t tell me the gospel, who will? The danger of staying like I am is that I never really encounter the purging yet merciful love of a redeeming God.

And I need me a Nate for that.

Nate,

You write, “The true danger to the church is on the ideological plane, where the sweeping cultural currents begin. It means nothing if we can convince the current generation to get involved in their churches while we let the most incisive and most truth-driven write books about the inadequacy of Christianity’s claims to truth: this generation’s children will look past the surface and see that the writers are wiser than their parents, and want nothing to do with the church.”

I don’t understand this statement in reference to the rest of what you wrote. Specifically, I don’t understand how the Church could be hurt by books written by the truth-driven. Also, I don’t understand how your intimate group would combat the issue were that to be the case. Can you say more about what you mean?

Nate,

I’ve been meaning to comment on this but I’ve been sick. There are a couple of things here that bother me:

First, while it’s one thing to acknowledge conversation as an unequivocal good and an end in itself, it’s far from clear to me that it should be considered a religious good, that it has meritorious value of the same kind as prayer, fasting, and worship. In fact I would argue that it doesn’t. Even the practice of theology, necessary as it is, cannot in itself be equated with meritorious activity. Worship is not a matter of dialectic but of contemplation. Nor, I might point out, did Christ say “Blessed are the interesting,” or anything of the kind. I would suggest that there’s a wrinkle somewhere in your hierarchy of goods.

Second, I’m disturbed by what appears to be your blatant iconoclasm. You seem not to acknowledge the possibility that people are protective of their high-church worship, not because they idolize the material instead of the spiritual, but because they believe that some kinds of worship are inherently more fitting and meritorious and good than others. Although as a Catholic I deplore the theological, political, and ecclesiastical motivations behind Cranmer’s work, still I am extremely sympathetic to people who feel that noble language is better for addressing God than banal language. Similarly I find it extremely reasonable to claim that incense, chant, and solemnity might be more dispositive of a truly worshipful spiritual state and therefore more pleasing to God than guitar strumming, hand waving, and enthusiasm; and if so then it makes perfect sense to fight to preserve the one and reject the other. I don’t admit that such things are merely “for my weakness”; rather I would say that they are “for my humanity”. Angels may not need ritual and solemnity, the union of intellect and imagination in bodily gestures and works of language picture and song and craft, in order to worship well; but in general men do. My own Church in the last forty years or so has been bitterly learning the consequences of what happens when this lesson is forgotten.

Finally, I am perhaps most disturbed by your comment “they seem to genuinely mistake the particular for the divine”, as though the divine and the particular were somehow opposed. What could be more particular than the One God? The God of Christianity is not the Universal Form of the Good, however much genuine truth Plato reached. And the entire story of Christianity is replete with what some theologian called “the scandal of particularity”; never mind the Old Testament, in the New God becomes a particular man, with a name, a home, a language, a history. However universal, however catholic it becomes, Christianity can’t lose its particularity, its Jewishness, its Greco-Romanness, its use of bread and oil and wine and water, these elements and no others, and still remain itself.

Just to keep you all guessing, I’m going to come out and say I agree entirely with Mr Sullivan, at least about the importance of height to a church. I had been unclear how to express my feelings on the matter, but he captured them. If something creates an atmosphere of solemnity, that is not meaningless when the parishioners’ goal is the solemn contemplation of their faith. I know that in my own church-going days, I hated the Happy Shiny Catholics services with such a fiery passion. I’m not advocating ditching the vernacular or anything, not by a long shot, but I believe that, no matter your religion, it’s easier to ponder the mysteries of your faith when nobody has a tambourine. In the big if that I ever make my theological peace with Episcopalianism - I’m afraid Catholicism is right out at this point - I will be looking for a church that awes the hell out of me. Arched ceilings so high the church has its own weather, pipe organ that can kick out your fillings, stained glass windows so big they have their own stained glass windows, spandrels to make Steven Jay Gould weep, buttresses flying every damn way, the works. That, to me, is an atmosphere for worship. It’s not a coincidence you see the same basic concepts in religions around the world. Ritual is important to faith, and awe is important to ritual.

I don’t doubt that people in low church settings have faith (nor, for that matter, ritual). I just know that I’ve walked into some really kickass places of worship - Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Ukrainian Orthodox, Muslim, Hindu, and Theravada Buddhist among them - and whenever I do, whatever the denomination or religion, I feel close to God. I feel the same way when I’m standing alone in the mountains on a cold night and the Milky Way is so thick I swear I can see the black hole in the middle, or when I’m looking up at an old banyan tree, or when I’m sitting by the water and all I can hear is the slorp slorp of the waves under the dock, or that time Mr Stolzfus played a recording of “Sicut Cervus” for us and somehow it hit me so hard I was woozy for the rest of the day. God isn’t any closer to me at those times - but I might be closer to Him. It’s a natural reaction to extreme beauty. So make churches beautiful as hell. Make people raise their eyes the second they walk in, then drop them to the floor the next second, awed by the sheer majesty of the church. Shock and awe them (but not with aerial bombardment) and you’ve got a better chance of reaching them. That’s not idolatry, it’s just psychology.

Anyway, yay me and Mr Sullivan more or less agreeing on things. (Especially since we’re disagreeing with you, Nate. That’s just icing.)

I am a Christian (an Episcopalian), and although a very poor one, I do believe. But I’ve been finding this whole discussion very alienating and frustrating, both at Community Group, on this blog and on Sammy’s. The truth is, God forgive me, I don’t care what will convert or attract the masses, or “this generation” as Nate and Sammy both like to say. (As an aside I entirely disaprove of any singling out of this generation: is it really worse than any other? Does it really have less reason to hope than any other?) I care about knowing the truth for myself. Damn the masses, damn this generation, damn even the church. Each man is alone and each man must ultimately decide for himself. (I find that to be quite inescapable, no matter how much scorn anyone heaps upon “iconoclasm”.) And it’s quite hard enough to determine the truth oneself without adding the (most likely) futile burden of converting other people, even friends, let alone strangers— especially if you don’t know the truth yet yourself, which you almost certainly don’t. (If we’re lucky enough to have stumbled upon some rough form of the truth in Christianity, it’s through a glass very darkly, I fear.) And so, that said, yes, I do value conversation — specifically, philosophical discussion among friends— very highly indeed. Difficult as it is to dimly grope towards the truth under any circumstances, dialectic is a relatively good tool. Why shouldn’t I value a conversation among friends, in which we try to determine truth, more highly than almost anything else? Without the search for truth, what good is worship? Without it, what good is a church (either an individual church or The Church)? How on earth, besides embarking on the search for truth, are we supposed to find God?

The obvious but, one would hope, not glib answer to Rebekah’s last question is “worship.” It doesn’t truly rebut her position, and worship needn’t be communal, necessarily, but it is the alternative to conversation in the Christian view for reaching truth and God. The more catholic among us would elaborate to say that the interaction with the Eucharist, the real presence of God, might instruct/nourish the very parts of us that make the glass obscure.

That said, I quite sympathize with her frustration at the whole affair. Michael makes good arguments for a certain (sustainable) ecclesiastical and political posture. I think Nate and Rebekah are more concerned about imprecise but well-intentioned efforts to merge a uniquely powerful mode of seeking the truth with the political necessities of a parish. Some things have to be handled carefully, but too much self-conscious care can sometimes be quite harmful.

hb,

I agree with you. My response was not to the immediate cause of the frustration but to some of the underlying assumptions or attitudes I thought I detected in Nate’s post. I have no desire whatsoever to make it out that the dissolution or radical re-forming of the group in question would be other than a bad thing. Indeed I don’t know anything about the situation other than what’s been said here; and so about the situation itself I have no particular opinion at all besides a presumption that Nate’s presentation and assessment is correct.

Michael,

My last paragraph wasn’t meant to correct (or even directly respond to) your arguments. I really don’t disagree with them, as long as we’re trying to establish a church and be public. Generally, I’m pretty sympathetic to these aims.

It does seem striking that there’s a strong line of argument on your side that seems to be in tension with the similarly strong loyalty to private reasoned conversation on Nate’s and Rebekah’s parts. From the larger public perspective, one has to follow the line of thinking you illuminated. Yet the privacy and possibility of good conversation (perhaps dialectic?) that Rebekah appears to prize must surely have a place, if a somewhat secluded one, in our view of Christian corporate life. It’s odd, to me at least, to see that elemental conflict appear by necessity in a Christian polity, where unity is assumed (but rarely achieved).

As a member of said community group who has been thinking about the issues being addressed here, I feel compelled to comment, latecomer to this conversation though I am. Unfortunately, what passes for a job in my life these days has kept me away from Monadology.

I think each person who has posted here has articulated some very important insights about community, the Church and the search for truth. I find myself very sympathetic to Nate’s appreciation for the serious, truth-seeking manner in which our group tends to converse and can certainly relate to his admission that the group has been the “emotional anchor” of his experience at ASA, all of which seems to have prompted an almost visceral reaction to the suggestion that the group “become more” or “do more.” I fear that such a change would alter and dilute the critical role this group has played as my own emotional anchor rooted in a shared desire to seek the truth through Christ.

However, I also think that sammy reminds us of a central truth when he writes, “A Christian community group doesn’t exist solely for itself any more than the Church of Christ exists solely for itself,” and I take seriously his warning about becoming too enamored with our own comforts lest we forget Christ’s injunction to proclaim the Kingdom of God to others and reach out to those outside of our circle, espcecially those in need. I know that this is a particular danger for me in the context of our community group, because I find it so spiritually and emotionally nourishing (and of course, intellectually engaging as well) that I am prone to neglect my Christian duty to serve the other in favor of revelling in the satisfaction I find in building the bonds of friendship through seeking the truth with my fellow group members.

I think the solution to the question of “where do we go from here” lies in Rebekah’s comment. I agree that “[e]ach man is alone and each man must ultimately decide for himself,” and her assertion that “dialectic is a relatively good tool” for groping towards the truth has certainly been borne out in my experience. But groping it is nonetheless, and as hb suggests, worship and sacrament point us toward God and His divine truth in a manner that takes us beyond the limits and frailties of human reason. For these reasons, I find it instructive that each member of our group is equally, if not more dedicated, to attending (and in some cases, e.g. Nate, sammy & hb, directly participating in) Sunday Mass as we are to gathering as a group.

But back to Rebekah. In terms of the direction our community group should take, I think its structure and function should remain as it is, at least for the time being. I would hope that the truth and insight we find there as individuals would bring us, as individuals, to the conclusion that we must move beyond ourselves to seek Christ through serving others and becoming more involved in the life of our parish. But I don’t think it’s necessary to engage in these activities as a community group. We’re all in different places of development as Christians, and we all hold different views of what it means to be a Christian, know God, seek & live the truth, etc. I do not believe it should be the function of this group as such to assert the particular manner in which we should each live out the calling of Christ to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Many of us are already involved in aspects of church and community life beyond the community group. I like to the think that in some way, our participation in the group has led us as individuals beyond its circle to the homeless shelter, the altar & the lecturn. Of course I acknowledge that I am largely ignorant of the motivations of our group members for participating in these activities. But I do know that if the community group continues to serve the function it has, with a continually changing dynamic due to the addition of new members, it can and should be a self-sustaining forum for mutual encouragement, spiritual insight, prayer, and Christian friendship. And if we allow these things to take root within us individually, they will change us and lead us beyond the confines of sammy’s apartment towards God and truth in ways we cannot predict.

I so very rarely say this - but, right on man, in complete agreement with you, MJ (aka Matt). And love towards you all — this is EXACTLY why I attend this community group and why it has been so very good for me spritually and otherwise. Thank you.

Bek —

I’ve been thinking off and on for days about what you wrote, and I’m struck that the sentiments sound very familiar. So familiar, in fact, that I seem to recall having said them myself not too long ago. I’ve always been concerned with having the truth and being right (mainly the latter, if truth be told), and at least until recently I didn’t give a damn that the world might be going to hell in a handbasket. After all, I’m going out and trying to find the truth; why isn’t it imperative upon everyone else to do the same? I don’t have the market cornered on truth anyway, so I’d only be doing them a disservice if I tried to spread the gospel according to Sammy, right?

But I don’t believe that anymore. At least, what I believe is more nuanced than it was before. I don’t want to go too far afield of Nate’s original post, but I don’t think I can plumb the depths of what I consider to be true about God and, in turn, about humanity generally and myself specifically, just by exchanging theses and counter-theses. Dialectic seems a necessary prerequisite to finding the truth about God, but action (inter alia, service, mercy and mission) refines, sifts, tests whatever organizing structure for truth I currently have in my brain. I can’t carry the water of anyone else who posts on this blog when it comes to talking about truth, but I think I’m safe in asserting that the biblical view is that truth is a person, one with whom we can relate and even “belong to”. The writer of 1 John implores us: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.” (1 Jn. 3.18-19). I can’t know what the truth is unless I know him; and I can’t know him if I don’t go out and love. (God, that sounds so trite when I write it, but it is, in fact, just what I mean).

You’re right: Converting other people is a futile burden, especially given how dimly we see the truth. It’s not my job to convert anyone, and it’s not in my power; it’s wholly a work of the Spirit of God, if it happens at all. But what if the only way I can ever really come to know (and belong to) the truth is in relationship? And not just the relationships (that I cherish more than you know) built in our little group, but relationships with people outside our group, our church, our religion, our class, our race, our whatever else. I’m not saying we leave off conversation and work our fingers to bones trying to usher in utopia on Massachusetts Avenue (which people way smarter than me say would just lead to oppression anyway), but we augment conversation with relationships, engagements with culture and the people around us, the people who, after all, may be bearing the Truth to us anyway.

Whoops. I think that should have been “antitheses,” not counter-theses, whatever the latter may be.