Which Kingdom? What World? Whose Church? A Response to Some Provisional Theses

Of late, several comment threads over at Inhabitatio Dei have been occasions for some ships passing in the night (shouting angrily at one another as they sense some threat in the vicinity!).  These have generally come down to differences between those of us sympathetic to what some might call an "ecclesiocentric" understanding of mission and the purveyors of an "apocalyptic" theology. 

As a way of trying to get at some of the substantive issues, Inhabitatio Dei has posted a fulsome essay, "Kingdom-World-Church: Some Provisional Theses."  As a way of trying to take this seriously, I here reproduce their essay with interjections and comments interspersed as a sort of response/commentary--something that the comment thread at Inhabitatio Dei could not absorb. 

Here I only engage the Preamble to their theses.  Perhaps in the future I'll have opportunity to do something similar with the theses themselves--or, even better, someone else might take up a similar strategy with respect to the theses.

I don't speak for any "party," in doing so, and don't represent anything like the "Hauerwas brand," as it were.  However, I obviously do have sympathies with a certain school of thought loosely represented by the Ekklesia Project and--if they're willing to slum with the likes of me--associated with folks like Hauerwas, Steve Long, Bill Cavanaugh, Dan Bell, and others.  On some points, I'm probably just mistaken, or have been working with my own idiosyncratic hybrid of a "Reformed Catholic" tradition.  In addition, I'm shooting from the hip here, in haste.  But for what it's worth....

++++++++++++

From "Kingdom-World-Church: Some Provisional Theses"

by Nathan R. Kerr, Ry O. Siggelkow, and Halden Doerge

We should like to begin these brief reflections with an oft-quoted passage from the conclusion of John Howard Yoder’s Body Politics:

The believing body is the image that the new world—which in light of the ascension and Pentecost is on the way—casts ahead of itself. The believing body of Christ is the world on the way to it’s renewal; the church is the part of the world that confesses the renewal to which all the world is called. (Yoder, Body Politics, 78)

This passage and others like it from Yoder’s oeuvre have been the impetus for a number of contemporary modes of “ecclesiocentric” construals of the kingdom of God in relation to the world.

Well, first of all, I'm not sure that any of us "ecclesiocentric" folks would ever say we're offering an ecclesiocentrical "construal of the kingdom."  God's reign is clearly larger and wider than the church precisely because it's wider than humanity.  The "kingdom," then is a shorthand for an eschatological vision of God's creation rightly ordered and flourishing.  The church is called to be a foretaste of that, and is called to be a people who are shepherding this broken creation toward that.  But an "ecclesiocentric construal of the kingdom" is never language I would use. 

The church’s missionary thinking, so the argument goes, is ecclesiocentric just to the extent that the church ontologically precedes the world and, ultimately, supercedes the world with respect to the kingdom’s eschatological fulfillment.

I've never made the claim that "the church ontologically precedes the world," but some of my friends have and I understand what they're getting at.  What I think is missing in these conversations, however, is a robust doctrine of creation, which is precisely what I think my Reformed tradition brings to the table.  The "world," then is NOT creation--it is the dis-ordering of a primordially good creation.  Therefore "the world" is secondary, derivative, parasitic.  Now, insofar as the church is that body which is a new creation, it is a restoration of creation--the creation which precedes the disfiguring of "the world."  It does seem to me that the church of this kingdom-world-church conversation needs to articulate a theology of creation in order to avoid pitfalls on both sides.  In any case, opening with this claim seems to make it more central and pivotal than it really is for those of us you're describing as "ecclesiocentric."  It seems like this claim is a favorite whipping boy for apocalpytics, whereas many of us never make the claim.  Straw man?

As the late twentieth-century theologian and missiologist J.C. Hoekendijk [uh, never heard of him--why are we letting critical secondary sources speak for the "ecclesiocentric" camp?]  has argued, however, such “church-centric missionary thinking” is itself a false start. For from within such ecclesiocentric thinking, Hoekendijk claims, the call to mission, or evangelism—that is, the call to proclaim and to embody “the gospel”—often turns out to be “little else than a call to restore ‘Christendom,’ the ‘Corpus Christianum,’ as a solid, well-integrated cultural complex, directed and dominated by the Church” (Hoekendijk, Church Inside Out, 15).

I'm sorry, but how this could be taken to be a description of what Hauerwas is after is beyond me.  (Milbank, sure; but Stanley?)  Almost no one who will identify with the so-called "ecclesiocentric" camp is going to identify with this.  Furthermore, just invoking the C-word doesn't prove something is wrong. 

That is to say, the church aligns itself with the Kingdom and against the world by way of the production of it’s own alternative, habitable culture. As John Flett has convincingly argued, mission thereby becomes tied inextricably to the extension of this “culture”; this culture, this particular way of life, just is the gospel that is proclaimed, and the church’s missionary relation to the world cannot but be a function of it’s own culture—gospel proclamation turns out to be a matter of the church’s propagation of it’s own way of life, and evangelism a mode of integrating the world into this particular habitable culture.[1]

Um....and the problem is...?  But more seriously, first: the church is called to be a foretaste of an eschatological ideal, which is to some extent a restoration of a creational norm.  And this will only be "against the world" to the extent that the world runs against the grain of the universe.  So the church is inviting "the world" to good culture-making.  Indeed, it is inviting the world to find itself vocation (what it's made for) in a graced way of life.  I must seriously be missing something because I don't see the problem here.  (If it's that this is somehow "Constantinian," then it misses that the mode by which the church does this is primarily invitation and hospitality--though we might also say that it is a blessing for covenant children to be sealed into this way of life by baptism.  If this comes down to some kind of worry about infant baptism as "Constantinian," then you've lost me.  In that case, it seems like "apocalyptic" is just a fancy cover for autonomy.)

Thus, on such an ecclesiocentric reading of the Church-world relationship, the church is most missionary precisely at that point at which the church is most intentionally “self-regarding” (Hauerwas). [Could use a little more specific reference here, with a hint of context.]  And herein lies the reason why we must insist upon resisting such an understanding of the church as ontologically “prior” to the world as such, in relation to the kingdom: viz., it presents us with not only an ecclesiologically but missiologically idealist logic—such an intentionally self-regarding conception of mission requires the construction of another (“the world”) as productive and reflective of it’s own identity.

Huh? 

The problem with such an ecclesio-concentric understanding of the church’s relation to the Kingdom and the world, says Hoekendijk, is that it misconstrues the basic Scriptural sense in which the kingdom of God is first and foremost the kingdom for the world.

I'm pretty sure I could come up with a healthy string of references to "ecclesiocentric" folks making the claim that the church is the church for the world.  What am I missing?  Do you just mean they're not universalists?  The church is the church for the world by inviting "the world" to become what is was made to be.

The kingdom is oriented from beginning to end towards the oikoumene—the whole world.

For this oikoumene the Kingdom is destined; world (kosmos/oikoumene) and Kingdom are correlated to each other; the world is conceived as a unity, the scene of God’s great acts: it is the world which has been reconciled (II Cor. 5:19), the world which God loves (John 3:16) and which he has overcome in his love (John (16:33); the world is the field in which the seeds of the Kingdom are sown (Matt. 13:38)—the world is consequently the scene for the proclamation of the Kingdom. (Hoekendijk, Church Inside Out, 41)

But surely you recognize equivocation in the New Testament regarding the meaning of "world!"  So in addition to your citations here, consider: "The whole world lies under the sway of the evil one" (1 John 5:19); "Do not love the world or the things in the world" (1 John 2:15); "Do not be conformed to the world" (Rom. 12:2).  Surely the Kingdom does not "belong together" with the world under the sway of the evil one.  So there's no identification of Kingdom and world here.  Again, it seems to me that "world" is severely under-theorized in this discussion.  (Cf. my discussion of "the world" in Desiring the Kingdom, pp. 187-190). 

In short: “Kingdom and world belong together.” The order of God’s economy is thus “God-World-Church, not God-Church-World” (71).

Still citing the Dutch guy here?  Anyway, what does "world" refer to in such a claim? 

This is the order of God’s own missionary existence in Christ. And by participation in this missionary existence of God, we must give new expression to the church’s own missionary existence: the order of this existence must be that of Kingdom-World-Church, not Kingdom-Church-World.

You're kind of losing me here, but it's probably my fault.  It just seems strange to me to talk about an "order of missionary existence."  Again, this just feels like language that we "ecclesiocentric" folks are not prone to use, so I'm trying to imagine how I'd formulate an alternative.  I'd have to think more about that because I'm just not sure what the "poles" of this debate are.  I guess I would want to say that the church is the body of Christ, Christ being the second Adam who carried out what the first Adam was created to be, then sending his Spirit to empower us to do the same.  So the church is the community empowered by the Spirit of Christ to be what we were created to be.  And insofar as we do that we constitute an invitation for all humanity to find their vocation in that way of life.  Maybe the big problem is I just don't know what "world" means in your formula. 

What we should like to propose, then, is that the quote from Yoder with which we began these reflections should be read through the perspective of this alternative Kingdom-World-Church order. Precisely as such, we might better come to understand the implications of Yoder’s insight that mission has to do with coming to “see the church in relationship to the world rather than defining ecclesial existence ‘by definition’ or ‘as such’” (Yoder, Royal Priesthood, 78). The church only exists as “living from and toward the promise of the whole world’s salvation.” (Yoder, Priestly Kingdom, 12).

As such, the church thereby exists as one dimension of a thoroughgoing apocalyptic realism. That is to say, the church exists insofar as it is constituted by the manner in which, in the apocalypse of Jesus Christ, “the reality of God has entered into the reality of this world,” proving victorious over the fallen powers of this world for the sake of this world’s salvation (Bonhoeffer, Ethics, 54).

Is it fair to ask about the shape of an "apocalyptic" pneumatology? I don't hear much about the Spirit in this model. 

What really matters, then, for the church, is it’s mode of participation “in the reality of God and the world in Jesus Christ today” (55).[2] And that reality is without reserve that of the apocalyptic rectification of all things to God in Christ.

Yes, "all things" will be reconciled.  This is music to my Reformed ears. 

That event of apocalyptic rectification is constitutive of reality itself;

I'm trying to figure out why it's so hard for me to understand what this means.

and the event of the church takes place firmly within that reality of the reconciled world “that is real only through the reality of God” disclosed in Jesus Christ (54).[3] The church thus exists as an ergon Kyriou (a work of the Lord),

And you don't seriously think that "ecclesiocentric" folks think otherwise, right?!

which means to say that the church exists for the sake of the unique and special share that it is given in the cosmic meaning of the sovereignty of this world’s living Lord.

Sorry...what's that?  No one will accuse you of light prose.  Seriously, this sentence is positively Milbankian.

But precisely as such the church does exist, and it’s existence is precisely that of a special function and task. As to the nature of that special existence, function, and task, we should like to conclude these reflections. We shall do so by putting forward some provisional theses on the existence, nature, and task of the church. There could be more, of course, and these could be articulated with more depth and precision. But these are, after all, mere theses—and provisional at that.

[More to come on the Theses, I hope.]

Comments

[Nate Kerr]

Jamie:

Thanks for taking the time to consider the statement and to respond carefully to the post. I am truly grateful. I don't have time right now to address all of your questions, but I do want to say that for the most part I think you are raising the questions that get at the points of distinction and that points that need clarification. I am learning and continue to learn from your questions and prodding, and they help me to be clearer in articulating my feeble understanding of things.

I do want to say that I think you bring up two points that are important and that I think are really at the heart of the crux of the matter. The one is the question of "the world." Geoff Holdsclaw left a comment regarding how the word "world" is being used over at Inhabitatio Dei and I responded there, but suffice it to say that to say that Jesus of Nazareth's singularly apocalyptic inbreaking of the Kingdom is constitutive of reality is to seriously disorient us with regards to how we thinkg "church" and "world." In other words, I don't think we can speak of "church" or "world" as such. Or, I would say that the fact that there is inherent in your response a clear (perhaps obsessive?) desire to get some kind of theoretical clarity on what "world" means (as if you could grasp it) is symptomatic of what I take to be the problem.

Secondly, I think one of the things that needs to be worked out in full is what this "apocalyptic realism" really is all about. That is to say, that you don't understand what it means when we say, "the event of apocalyptic rectification is constitutive of reality itself" is itself the crux of the matter. I'm gonna refuse the temptation to be cheeky here, and just say: I'm working on that. Really, I am.

Thanks again. And I do hope that you or someone else takes up some engagement with the theses, if only (selfishly) for the sake of the kind of critical theological conversation and dialogue and questioning without which I myself do not know how to learn.

[geoffrey holsclaw]

Nate,

I don't understand how the apocalyptic singularity of the in-breaking Kingdom should "disorient us with regards to how we think 'church' and 'world.'" Indeed, this seems to be exactly the opposite of the case. Before Jesus there was Jew and Gentile as the fundamental distinction, after Jesus, only after his apocalyptic in-breaking, can we know/see/(is disclosed for us) the distinction between the church and the world. This person/work (if I might be allowed such terms) creates the distinction, he doesn't ambiguate it.

And it feels like a clear dodge to put on Jamie (and/or myself b/c I agree that clarity is needed) a perverse desire for clarity regarding "world" especially when you then make reference to an "apocalyptic realism." to which world does such realism refer? the phenomenological world? psycho-symbolic? sinful? spiritual? redeemed? socio-political? created?

so regarding basic issues, I don't think "religion" creates the church/world distinction, but Jesus' apocalyptic historicity does, and for a good reason.

[francis]

“Love Not The World”

”For the WHOLE world(not just a portion) is under the control of the evil one”.......(I John 5:19)

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world will pass away, and the lust thereof: but he that does the will of The Only True GOD will abide for ever.”(IJohn2:15-17)

“If you were of the world, the world would love it’s own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept My saying, they will keep yours also.” (John15:19-20)

“Where do wars and fighting among you come from? Do they not come of your lusts that war in your members? You lust, and have not: you kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: you fight and war yet you have not, because you ask not. You ask, and receive not, because you ask amiss, that you may consume it upon your lusts. You adulterers and adulteresses, don’t you know that friendship with the world is to be at enmity with The Only True GOD? Therefore whoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of The Only True GOD.” (James 4:1-4)

“The world cannot hate you; but the world hates Me, because I testify that the works of this world are evil.” (John 7:7)” and “The Messiah gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of The Only True God, Our Father.”(Gal 1:4)

The Messiah testified: “If the world hates you know that it hated Me before it hated you.”(John 5:18) Truly, Truly, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life in this world shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall have it unto life eternal.” (John 12:24-25)

John testified: “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you.” (I John 3:13) “ James testified, “Whoever would be a friend of this world is the enemy of GOD”(James4:4)

The “earth and it's life forms” are The Creation of The ONE and Only True GOD, Father of ALL! The “worldly” systems are the creation of, and under the dominion of “the god of this world”, he who is “the father of lies”, he who “has blinded the minds of those who believe not The Messiah”! All the nations of this world are under the dominion of, and serve, the “god of this world” for he provides the fuel that feeds mankind’s “imag”ination. And sadly, mankind’s “imag”ination is destroying Creation(air, water, land vegetation, creatures) and perverting that which is Spirit(Truth, Light, Life, Faith, Love, Peace,, All that is Truly Good) ;-(

Once again, the “earth and it's life forms” are The Creation of The Only True GOD, Father of ALL! The current “worldly” systems are the creation of, and under the dominion of “the god of this world”.

Those who “love this world” all serve “the god of this world”, and have their portion in the processes that are progressively destroying The Creation of The Only True GOD. “And The Only True GOD will destroy them who destroy the earth.” (Rev 11:18c)

Global warming, polluted air, land and waters, toxic wastes, sexual perversion, evil inventions of destruction, greed, hate, carnal warfare, dis-ease(no-peace),,etc,, are all destructive processes that have their root in “the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life” all of which fuel the fires of mankind’s “imag”ination ;-(

Thankfully The Truth Is Alive in those who have been born of The Spirit for “they no longer love this wicked, evil world and it’s things, nor do they love their own lives in this world”. They but seek and desire The Will of GOD, their Father and Creator, as they await their final transformation. “Corruptible to Incorruptible" indeed and Truth! Home, Home at last!

Now “the ground was cursed(notice that the ground was cursed, not Adam) for Adam’s sake” because he “hearkened unto the woman”.

Adam listened to a woman rather than obeying The Only True GOD. Yet because of Faithful Noah, The Only True GOD “no longer would curse the ground for man’s sake” because Noah obeyed The Only True GOD rather than a woman! (Genesis8:21-22) And the Faithful today are exhorted to “love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.”

Be not of those who deny and defy “The One GOD, Father of All”. Be not of those who are destroying Creation(water, air, land, vegetation, creatures) and perverting that which is Spirit(Truth, Light, Life, Love, Peace, Hope, Mercy, Faith, Wisdom, Grace, Faith, Miralces,.etc.) ;-(

“Set your affections on things above”. Desire Heavenly, eternal things. Be not joined together with those serving ‘time’ in the prison that is this world! Take heed unto The Call of "The Only True GOD" to ”Come Out of her, MY people!”

“Come out” from among those who are destroying Creation and perverting that which is Spirit. Be of those who follow The Messiah on The Way to The Truth of The Life.

“Come out” of the worldly systems, which are but the product of mankind’s “imag”ination, and especially this world’s systems of theo’ry’logical religion.

"Pure religion and undefiled before GOD The Father is this, to visit the fatherless(those who know not their Father[Creator]) and widows(those who have not been joined together as One with The Messiah and Our Father) in their affliction and to keep oneself uncontaminated by the world." (James1:27)

Simply, all other religion is impure, defiled and of this wicked, evil world.

"Pure religion and undefiled" is declared to be personal(oneself), not corporate.

Faith will not create a system of religion!

Faith is Family, not "religion", and The Brethren of The Messiah yet seek and desire that which The Messiah sought and desired above all else:

"Father, not my will, But THY Will Be Done"

Peace, in spite of the dis-ease(no-peace) that is of this world and it's systems of religion, for "the WHOLE world(not just a portion) is under the control of the evil one" indeed and Truth......

Truth IS and IS Forever, a lie is not.......

Abide in The Truth....... francis

[Bruce Hamill]

Thanks Jamie for this engagement. I am working on a partial engagement in paper I am doing for an ecclesiology conference in NZ. I think the key sentence about the purported 'ontological priority of church' is the one loaded with ambiguity. It seems to me there are at least two ways to conceive of the priority of Church over world. Your version comes close to one I would affirm (in reconstructing a fallen world God creates a new sociality called world as a foretaste of the kingdom), whereas the variety that David Congden mentions in his recent response to questions over at Fire and Rose is one I would deny (God relates to a thing called church before he relates to a thing called world). I also agree about the problems of being clear how we are using the term 'world'. This is simply a matter of saying what we mean. The other ambiguity surrounds the concept of 'ecclesiocentricity'. Does it refer to a church centred on itself, or a church at the centre of God's engagement with the world. If God's transformative engagement with the world in JC is centrally related to the formation of a new sociality as a reversal of fallenness then this latter ecclesiocentricity has a place in my view. I agree that the former version of ecclesiocentricity is a problem but am not convinced about its theoretical roots.

[Bruce Hamill]

oops that should be 'a new sociality called 'church'...' better late than never.