Jason Clark has been thinking about how Church, God and the World intersect and the implications for us with regards to mission and church.
I commented on his post saying the following;
"I found this diagram (the one to the right) helpful 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 insistence 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".
Jason responded in the comments asking how I say the interplay working out.
I think in order to articulate how this interplay might work out I need to take a step back and place mission and church in some context. The diagram below is my attempt to formulate this context.
The diagram is a bit messy - but perhaps that points to what I think is obvious, i.e. theology is messy and trying to describe how our theology flows into our practices is messy.
What I'm trying to show here is that our christology, ecclesiology, missiology and eschatology "swim" in our understanding of who God is. They are not however located in our knowledge of God in a static way but that there is a dialectical relationship between our understanding of God and these other doctrines. I my opinion there is no simple liner progression from one to the other, but there is a interpenetration, a circularity a shaping of one by the other.
So from my Trinitarian understanding of God things like mutuality, non-hierarchy, community, generosity, a going out of oneself to embrace the other come to the fore and inform my view / understanding of ecclesiology, christology, missiology and eschatology.
Locating missiology within this understanding rather than defining it in some liner fashion by christology for me expands what mission is. Mission its then transformed from just being about "saving souls" to participation in God's redemption and transformation of all of creation. I think that this is the position that Frosh and Hirsch want us to reach in their number 4, yet I'm struck that we can often arrive at the "right" praxis while holding onto a theology that slowly erodes it. Thus like a cliff being eroded at it's base if fear that if we have a thinking and a praxis that are not mutually compatible then in the medium to long term our practice will collapse as over time our theology fails to sustain it.
I feel it's important to have eschatology in this mix as this gives us a sense of direction,a telos, and also that our shaping then is not solely driven but history past but by the yet to come of the kingdom. Eschatology needs the pressures of Christology and missiology upon it otherwise it becomes about creating an enclave of the kingdom rather than a subversive yeast that undermines the structures of our society that are antithetical to the gospel.
Missiology needs ecclesiology otherwise we become like chickens with our heads cut off. We run around create a stir and then fall flat. Our mission needs to be located in community (well that's MHO), yet without the force of mission acting upon this community this too can become insular. It would be my hope that ecclesiology's dialog with missiology prevents us from a post-church approach. Here again I find the concept of Trinity helpful, for there we see a diversity and yet unity - so I theologically and in practice want to affirm the unity of the catholic church and it's diversity. Yes we need new forms or expressions of church, but this need not mean a doing away with church.
Christology, the incarnation when read with a Trinitarian hermeneutic becomes not the mission itself, but the decisive act in that mission for the mission. Christology alone cannot adequately define the mission for if it did in what sense would it then be the missio dei? I recently read (it's inappropriate to name who) a leader of an important Christian organization say. "while caring for the environment is good it's not what it's really about, after all where do we see Jesus care for the environment". For me this is a truncated version of our mission and of the Gospel itself - yet is was driven by this guys christology. You might want to argue that he needs a better christology and I'd have some sympathy for that, but I would say that the route for this "better" christology is in a Trinitarian understanding of God.
There's much more that could and probably should be said on this but this would seem like enough to be getting on with for just now. Jason I trust this starts to tease this out?
Hi Brodie, great post. You mention everything flowing from our understanding and theology of God, but what about experience? By that I mean do we move from thinking to practice?
Posted by: Jason Clark | Friday, February 16, 2007 at 02:49 PM
One of the things I have been trying (and failing) to do this week is finish my review of Frost's Exiles. It exhibits exactly the kind of problem you highlight, trying to move directly from Christology to Mission.
Thanks for the post, you've got me reflecting...
Posted by: fernando | Friday, February 16, 2007 at 03:20 PM
Brodie what a great post! I've been thinking about it the last few days, trying to work out my response to it. I've often wondered whether missiology is overplayed. if missiology drives ecclesiology, then i fear that church ends up accomodating itself to the culture in which it finds itself. a good ecclesiology that must emerge from christology (i think of hauerwas saying that the story of Jesus is a social ethic), will always be missiological. Interestingly Steve Holmes, baptist theologian (now at university of st. andrew's) wrote a paper called 'trinitarian missiology', where he bases his argument in part on John 20.21-23. I can email you a copy if you like.
Posted by: andy goodliff | Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 02:48 PM
Jason - I think we seek to move from thinking to practice, but this is not something that just automatically happens. I think there can be a lag between our thinking and behaviour, and of course our experiance also feeds into our thinking.
Posted by: Brodie | Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 05:02 PM
Fernando - Will look forward to your review of exiles.
Posted by: Brodie | Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 05:03 PM
Andy - I think all the recent talk and writting on missiology has been an important corrective. For years those going to do overseas mission have been thinking about these things and "we've" not. So if there has been an overplay then I think it may have been one that was needed!
I'd be interested in having a read at the Holmes article.
Posted by: Brodie | Sunday, February 18, 2007 at 05:07 PM
hello Brodie,
Taking the pulse of some involved in EC community within NI there is a definite but gradual change to a rigid apophatic theological outlook - God cannot be known within the structure of human thought, imagination, understanding ,concepts etc which leads to a very remote transcendent inacessible view of God and being more comfortable with absence ,void and darkness rather than presence in relation to God.
What does mission,ecclessiology etc look like with this view rather than a trinitarian one I wonder.
Posted by: rodney neill | Monday, February 19, 2007 at 12:24 PM
Rodney - I'm not too sure to be honest. I know that the whole apophatic way of understanding God has it's roots in the Eastern Church. This church had / has a strong liturgy and I wonder if this might have been a means both of teaching and of mission? I think the apophatic appraoch can be attractive as it is an invitation to mystery. How such a view of God then feeds into eschatology or ecclesiology I'm not too clear on.
I should however point out that to have an apophatic view of God does not mean that we can not talk of God as Trinity.
I would be interested to know how those in NI who are apophatic are thinking about mission etc?
Posted by: Brodie | Monday, February 19, 2007 at 07:55 PM
'So from my Trinitarian understanding of God things like mutuality, non-hierarchy, community, generosity, a going out of oneself to embrace the other come to the fore and inform my view/understanding of ecclesiology, christology, missiology and eschatology'
I suppose Brodie I am thinking of some recent conversations of people within IKON. If our view/perception of Christology etc flow from our understanding of God (such as your idea of the Trinity) we are left with a somewhat sad predicament of the impossibility of percieving anything via revelation if God is essentially unknown and unknowable - the religion without religion approach of John Caputo.
I am much better talking about stuff over a pint than writing !!! I hope to attend a one day conference held by Belfast Bible College (a mainstream evangelical college) led by Eddie Gibbs (who has written a book called Emerging Churches) about Christian leadership
which will give me a far wider perspective of what is happening within NI as regards the EC.
Rodney
Posted by: RODNEY NEILL | Monday, February 19, 2007 at 09:57 PM