My Own Thoughts on Bridging the Chasm, II

A few days ago I did a post called "Bridging the Chasm," where I piggybacked on a post from Michael Spencer at the Boar's Head Tavern.  Michael listed seven ways of bridging the chasm between evangelicals and the world and from time to time I want to add my own thoughts to his, which I'll do now.

Michael's second suggestion is:

2. We can look at church models that are significantly communicating and communing with the secular culture, and find out what the bridge approaches could be. I suspect there are more than we might think. Secularists have to raise children. They think about money and aging parents. They enjoy art and music. Could we make a new endeavor to being part of the larger culture, especially in helping/sharing capacities?

His fifth suggestion is:

5. Establish ministering Christian communities that specifically exist for penetrating culture and communicating with culture. The idea of "secular orders" in the Catholic Church is a good model. Particularly, we need communities that do servant ministry and have no threatening political agenda at all.

I see the two as pretty similar and want to address them with a few thoughts.

One of my favorite books of the last couple of years is The Celtic Way of Evangelism by George Hunter.  One of the things that Hunter does is contrast the Celtic way of evangelism with the Roman way of evangelism.  Among other contrasts, he speaks of the difference between Roman Catholic monasteries and Celtic monasteris.  The Romans tended to build their monasteries on the outside of cities, whereas the Celts built theirs right on the edge of the village or in the village.  The Roman method of evangelism was to believe in order to belong, whereas the Celtic way was to welcome unbelieves into the community in order to lead them to faith.  For them they let people belong in order to believe.  The Celtic way was to build the monasteries either on the edge of the village or in the village and they had lots of activities that benefited the village. 

In some ways the Roman model is correct in that it is clear that formal membership in the community of believers is contingent upon faith.  But that doesn't preclude the believing community from opening its arms and allowing unbelievers to come in and participate in the life of the community.

Another thought comes to mind in this and this one was shared with me by a fellow pastor.  In the 1700's and 1800's there was a group in England known as the Clapham Sect.  These were believers who had wealth and influence and decided to use these things to impact society by forming several organizations that were the equivalents of today's non-profits.  What is significant is that the members of this group used their money to fund community projects, not exclusively church ministries.  I am quite sure that they didn't let their churches suffer, but they poured massive funds into ministry in the community.  Here is an excerpt from an article on them:

If you had money and influence, how would you use them? A group of well-heeled and well-placed Englishmen and women had the chance to answer that question at the end of the eighteenth century. Their decision is instructive. It changed their world.

Lampooned in their own day as "the saints," this group of prominent and wealthy individuals were known as "the Clapham Sect." They were named for Clapham, a village south of London, where most moved in evangelical Anglican circles. Busy professionals, all of them, they still made time for Christian action and gave liberally and effectively to worthy causes. Their foremost endeavor was to rid the world of slavery.

The Clapham Sect turned their attention to multiple projects which promised to transform morals and society. They worked to ban bull fighting and bear baiting, to suspend the lottery, and to improve prisons. Their support for factory acts bettered working conditions. At their instigation, Sierra Leone was founded to provide a home for refugee slaves. Zachary Macaulay became first governor and drove himself beyond exhaustion for the good of the colony.

It was the Claphamites which funded Hannah More's schools. Additionally, they had a big part in the formation of church, Bible, tract and mission societies. Against the opposition of the East India company, this valiant band fought to allow missionaries in India. Parliament eventually agreed. It was thanks to the Clapham group that chaplains were provided to East India company employees.

What I am impressed with about them and what is different about them is that they poured their resources into non-church based gospel ministry.  They were all churchmen of course, but the church truly functioned as a base of mission.  And these were not para-church organizations that they founded.  They were business and political organizations that applied the gospel to business, social and political concerns. 

I realize that I am using a politically minded group like the Clapham sect as an example of what Michael endorsed, when he said that we should not have a threatening political agenda.  So, it may seem that the two are at odds. 

But, remember that the Clapham sect was in England, where the head of the government is the head of the church and we face a different set of church-state issues than they did.  Suffice it to say that I agree with the spirit of Michael's exhortation.  Somehow we've got to extricate ourselves from the current public perception that evangelicals are simply an arm of the Republican party.  At the same time, we have to bring the gospel to bear on political issues.  How we do both I'm not sure - it's a tension we just have to keep working through.

To my knowledge there are a few churches out there that are trying things like this.  Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan comes to mind as one.  Another one that comes to mind is Fellowship Bible Church of Little Rock, AK, where Pastor Robert Lewis is leading them to become a Church of Irresistible Influence.

Comments

[Terry]

Great post! Some of my reactions....

1. I think you and I both agree that children of beleivers are members of the community even though they have not expressed faith. Faith is a mark of full membership. This may be stretching it but, a Roman monestary model says that the children of beleivers are the enemy until won over, a Celtic model says they are members working toward embracing faith fully. A Roman model is power centric and a Celtic model is winsome. In order to win those outside the church, we need to give them some room to explore the faith. The whole idea of an alter call brings about a crisis decision which for some is all about power. The sinner in the pew is standing there thinking, "I won't walk forward because these folks are just trying to get me to give in." Why ask them to walk forward? Allow them to explore the Christian faith instead.

2. The Clapham Sect seems to build infrastructure for godly living. The evangelicals of the mid-20th century avoided building institutions unless they were evangelistic because that may smell of a social gospel. The evangelicals basically pulled out of society as you have pointed out many times.

3. I think our set of religious-political issues is a dynamically changing feild. We must be careful about who guiding the discussion. For instance, the idea that religion belongs in the sphere of the private while politics is the sphere of the public is essentially marginalizing the influence of religion. In recent years, the idea that THE form of evangelical politics should that of grassroots political movements and organizations is not a Biblical concept. It is not denounced in the Bible, but it is not supported either. We are putting a lot of eggs in a human basket, if you will let me mix metephores. The form of influence that the community of beleivers had in the Bible and one could argue is what is endorsed in the scripture is very different from a grassroots political movement. Political leaders were to be discipled by copying the Bible for themselves, by listening to the prophets and preists and being faithful to God. Those who were called to serve in the area of politics could be like Daniel, a faithful servant in the midst of chaos, or a David; a man at the top who was called to lead. Neither of them was without fault, but served in leadership as they took on responsiblity.

4. A Christian veiw of government is important. But it often focuses on the legislative part. The military is a big part of the government. The military is a place for Christians to serve. The government is also things like social services. We need Christian social workers, firemen, and police. The goverment is also things like federal reserve and FCC where economic issues are dealt with. Christians see the government way too narrow in my humble opinion.

[Dan Cummings]

Many churches seem more comfortable supporting missionaries going to places like Ethiopa or Indonesia than Skokie, IL, Madison, WI or Los Angeles, CA. I certainly accept that we must praise His glory among the nations, but more and more I feel like churches are becoming isolated in neighborhoods and communities and the resulting chasm won't be bridged unless evangelicals do something about it. The unbelievers certainly won't.

[mark mc]

David,

I don't know why "2" doesn't curdle your blood. Maybe you have something entirely different in mind than I do, when I read it.

I'm sure we're both old enough to have a long list of the kind of contortions that evangelical churches have put themselves through to "communicate and commune" with the secular culture. In my very convinced opinion, the result of this experiment has not been to draw the culture nearer to the church, but rather the other way around - resulting in a very noticeable loss of the church's own culture. We have christians speaking with contemptous and snobbish tones about "churchiness". So many have lost the church's manners, music, etc., that these represent an alien culture to their children. They commune with the secular society on Super Bowl Sunday; but they break fellowship with the wider church.

Suggestion "5" is valuable, and your discussion of it is edifying, precisely in its contrast to "2". It suggests an extension of the church, not a distortion of it as "2" implies.

[William Meisheid]

>communing with the secular culture

I guess this statement sums up my problem with the immersion approach. Jesus did not immerse himself in the surrounding culture and neither did Paul. They may have known it by observation and in Paul's case, study, but they did not become part of it. Jesus and Paul traveled with their own band, and while evangelizing did so from a protective base. It is only when Paul went to Rome as a prisoner that he lost this separation.

Jesue said we are to be in but not of the world. Communing, at least for me, blurs that line to the detriment of the "faith once delivered".

That is also the problem I have with seeker churches. They seem, at least to me, to lose the distinction of "the body of Christ" and remind me of the figure from Daniel with the legs of iron and clay mixed.

While it is true that it is impossible to have a pure church, I believe the blurring of the lines that we see today is not something Jesus would approve of at a foundational level. At a ministry level, yes, reaching out to the lost where they are and that is what I see the Clapham Sect as having done. But bringing the lost willy nilly into the life of the church, designing the conduct of that life for them, that I have a serious problem with.

[Dean]

Good post. Just one thing the abbreviation for Arkansas is AR (AK is Alaska). :)

[brad]

David,
I remember when I was in seminary I took "Church growth" classes, and I just hated them with a passion. It was all about how to build bridges and the like. It seemed disingenuous and that is the key. I have come up with a different philosophy:
1. The primary apologetic of the church is Morally Beautiful Community. Moral Beauty (salt and light) transcends people's difficulties with Christianity and builds a bridge. Therefore, social work that is beautiful that is done in Jesus name is a powerful apologetic to the gospel. It is like an arrow, the message is the point and our moral distinctiveness is the power behind the point (the shaft) that drives the point deep into the heart. The Celtic way (I assume) invites people not into the discussion, to reason if our ideas are good, but into our homes to see if our life is good. This is to me the 21st Century Reformation. The church is being called to use as its apologetic its observed life and not the reasonableness of its "house of ideas". I actually believe this is an epistemological shift from scholasticism to an epistemology based on observation.
2. The primary value of the current seeker is authenticity. Therefore, the bridge can not be built out of some program that has an ulterior motive. Therefore, if we feed the poor, it is to be seen as a good in its own right. That was why I didn't like the "church growth" approach. It seemed disingenuous.
brad

[Catez]

It's as simple as inviting your non-Christian neighbours over for a meal. Yes - it is that simple.

[Diana French]

I realize this will sound simplistic, but so be it. The "chasm" was bridged 2000 years ago. We can do lots of things to make ourselves more "acceptable" to the world [at the risk of enmity with God] but the bridge they need is the bridge He built. People are perishing while we are trying to help our image. I believe God's truth spoken with God's love will bridge any chasm. They don't need our art,music or our political agenda -- they need Jesus

[David Wayne]

Terry - excellent thoughts. Good nuanced thoughts on the Christian's role in government. One of the things that occurred to me after I wrote about the Clapham sect and their political involvement is that they were in a different situation than ours. With the head of the government being the head of the church, the slavery debate was not one where Christians were pitted against non-Christians. Whether they were or not, both sides considered themselves to be Christian. So, Christendom was not under attack from the slavery advocates. In our situation, Christendom itself is under attack as we get involved in politics. Maybe that's not our problem. But either way, I think we've got a good deal of work to do in our day to deal with the perception that evangelical Christendom is simply an arm of the republican party. It's easier said than done, but it's a concern.

[David Wayne]

Mark - sorry, I don't see that there is anything in #2 to curdle my blood. However, I do see your point about historical efforts to commune with the secular culture. Certainly the social gospel movement that grew out of classical liberalism is an example of this and I think the modern seeker sensitive movement is an example of this. Both began with bad theology. Classical liberalism gave up the gospel going in. The modern seeker sensitive movement errs in its epistemology - in that it derives its knowledge of how a church should function from sociological data, rather than theological data. I don't see #2 as advocating either one of them. All it is advocating is being salt and light in the world, and being a Jew to the Jew and a Greek to the Greek. I realize the Jew to Jew, Greek to Greek passage has been completely misused by the seeker sensitive movement, but because it's been misused doesn't mean its not a valid principle.
I think part of our problem here is that 100 year or 200 year gap where Christians withdrew from the culture. Here in America at least, in the early days of the republic, Christians shaped the so-called "secular culture." As a matter of course they founded the great universities and got involved in politics. They weren't doing this as part of a methodology to "take back the culture," they were simply fulfilling their callings. With the rise of dispensationalism and pre-trib eschatology Christians were told that it was their calling to retreat from "secular" culture. So, surprise surprise, the culture went secular as a direct result of Christians withdrawing. All @2 is saying is that the gospel impacts how you raise children, the gospel impacts how you spend your money and care for your aging parents. What is wrong with going into an arena where people will hear that? This is what Jesus did - remember that His harshest critics were religious folks who couldn't abide with His communion with secular prostitutes and tax collectors. The apostle Paul didn't preach exclusively in churches to Christians. He preached extensively in secular arenas.

[David Wayne]

Diana - I would argue that it's not that "They don't need our art,music or our political agenda -- they need Jesus." A better way of looking at it is that their art, music and political agendas need Jesus.

[David Wayne]

Brad - I agree with your comments wholeheartedly. I think that, when many of our friends hear us advocating some type of social involvement in the world, they hear "social gospel" or "seeker sensitive movement," or "church growth program." This is not what we have in mind at all. It's simply embodying the gospel in the broader culture.

[mark mc]

David, when you say "communicating and communing with the secular culture", I should be forgiven if I do not hear "embodying the gospel in the broader culture."

When I hear "secular culture", I associate that with the child-eating machinery of the world, that coaxes our daughters into out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and teases our sons into recreational experiments with drugs and homosexuality; a culture of haste, disintegration and death.

Jesus associated with prostitutes, not with prostitution. He befriended tax-collectors, not fraud and betrayal. Likewise, although you speak of communing with a culture, you only give examples of serving your neighbor. You eventually describe INFLUENCE, but the initial language bespeaks assimilation.

[David Wayne]

Mark - your comment is fair enough. I realize that different terms have different connotations to different people. I quoted Michael favorably in his use of the terms "communing with secular culture" because I know what he meant. He has been one of the blogosphere's harshest critics of the whole seeker sensitive and church growth movements, so I know that he wasn't using these words to advocate compromise. I agree (I'm sure Michael would too) with your distinction between associating with prostitutes vs. prostitution and so on and so forth and I didn't see the contrary implied.

[Adrian Warnock]

I have stuck my limey oar in over on my blog on this one......

[mumon]

It amazes me how much your comments mirror mine, given that I, as a Buddhist, believe that it's the conservative Christian community that needs engagement, for very similar reasons.

From whre I sit, folks on your side of the fence have lost the best aspects of Christianity in favor a brand that is espoused, not practiced, and this espousal is grounds for exclusion on the basis of "religious correctness."

In the world we are in today, therefore, especially now, it is imperative for the Christian to renounce his "Christianity" in favor of the religion of the Samaritan.

[Lacey]

If you are looking for a clapham-esque community of believers trying to influence our time and culture you should check out the Witherspoon Fellowship and their alumni the John Witherspoon Society. An intriging "new" idea that inspired me to work to near exhaustion for 5 years.
witherspoonfellowship.org

[PASTOR.A.J.AMOSE MOORTHI]

ALL INDIA VILLAGE CHRISTIAN CHURCHES(REGD NO: 70/2003)
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