tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846864049524846128.post421223073794178162..comments2014-04-23T10:32:16.250+12:00Comments on The Elves are Heading West: The Empty Church (Part 1)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846864049524846128.post-12645406804241700472012-02-08T22:57:56.983+13:002012-02-08T22:57:56.983+13:00Thanks for this Sue
I think you are right about Gr...Thanks for this Sue<br />I think you are right about Grace!<br />Of course now the church doesn't have huge cultural and social power. In the UK it still has the echoes of these things but working now in a context where Christendom was transplanted after it had already expired there is no sense that the Church has any public status. I wonder if the movement of the spirit is in fact some kind of revivication?Eric Kytehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615490361688382580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846864049524846128.post-10381772205995784992012-02-08T06:47:21.479+13:002012-02-08T06:47:21.479+13:00Church today is certainly different to the early c...Church today is certainly different to the early church, which was network and mission (dynamic and on the move), rather than institution. So the Church now does all the things which institution does, such as preserving its own structures and power base. But I am not sure it is an historic "accident" because it was inevitable that Christianity would become the victim of its own success. Once something grows to that extent and gains huge cultural and social power then preserving the institution per se will become the overiding concern - and that has a deadening effect on the gospel message and Christ is lost. Except - at least so I see it- the Holy Spirit still moves in the church and Christ is still present but not so much in the higher echelons but more in pockets and in people (as always.) Grace is sometimes the Church's best kept secret. :)Suemhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03128736092253293640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846864049524846128.post-68105639103057641662012-02-07T13:07:47.776+13:002012-02-07T13:07:47.776+13:00Hi Suem and thank you for your very thoughtful com...Hi Suem and thank you for your very thoughtful comments. <br /><br />I agree with much of what you say here and I am sure there are many who 'Attend' church week by week, yet who rarely pray or read the Bible outside of that context. I would say that the case is stronger for Bible reading than prayer, which I think is the right way round. <br /><br />I think that in a sense you've beautifully highlighted what I'm driving at both with your remarks about how church assists us in maintaining faith and also with your comment: 'our relationship with God (as distinct from our relationship to Church)'. This is Very helpful as it reminds me, were such reminder needed of my sometimes inability to write in a coherent fashion! :)<br /><br />What I am trying to argue here is that perhaps this assumption of disconnection, between Christ and his people is largely an historic accident? That perhaps the fact that we do so readily express such matters in these terms is a sign of something which has gone awry?<br /><br />I have argued elsewhere that in seeing faith as Primarily personal and only secondarily Communal we have turned our thinking on its head as people of faith, and of course many of us have argued long and hard that church is not primarily something we go to, but a people we belong to.<br /><br />The basic movement as I see it is that at the outset the Church and Christ were to use an inadequate word synonymous. Thus the infant church acts as if it Is the body of Christ, quite literally. 'You (plural) will do even greater things than these'. <br /><br />At some stage (which came to its culmination at the height of Christendom, the Church stopped living in day to day dependence upon the Life of God and started to stand on its own two feet. Out of this we constructed a large and impressive edifice, The Church which spoke of the power of God, in terms at one and the same time entirely understandable by culture, and entirely misrepresenting the One who comes to us in utter vulnerability. Church became Fully Institution and except for brief sparks suggested little of the Other worldly yet Transformative Life of its Lord. Silver and Gold had we plenty, but we had no words of hope for the paralysed world except 'don't worry - it will all come right in heaven'<br /><br />Latterly, as the World has grown weary of this power demonstration, as it does of all such Human Empires, witness Great Britain, Rome, etc. etc. we in the church have tended to look back and rightly see that the Church was only witnessing to God negatively, by its denial . . . and then ditch the church. The problem is not that Church is Wrong, but that it got it wrong. However we had now succesfully uncoupled Christ and His Church. Church was no longer of the Essence of faith - Christ could be known outside of the Community of faith.<br /><br />Now, a case may be made that the church now finds itself in the same position historically as the Jewish people following the era of the Kings, but most theologians would argue that Christ came to correct the faith of the people, not to replace it. That the identification of God and people was meant to be, both then and I argue now.<br /><br />My Very Sincere apologies for answering with an essay :) Brevity is a gift I LACK! :)<br /><br />My Very Sincere sorrow also that we have to have this conversation thru the Very limited medium of text - I always find that these conversations are more fruitful face to face and over a bottle of wine! (I think a certain parish priest of our acquaintance will bear me out in this! :) )<br /><br />Grace and Peace to you<br /><br />EricEric Kytehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615490361688382580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846864049524846128.post-66611805735705073092012-02-07T08:48:44.328+13:002012-02-07T08:48:44.328+13:00Hmmm. I think most vicars absolutely loathe it whe...Hmmm. I think most vicars absolutely loathe it when people say to them, " you can be a christian without going to church" - and I don't blame them at all! <br /> This is an interesting topic for me because I did stop attending church altogether about seven/ eight years ago. My faith didn't stop and I continued to pray and read the bible. I was a christian, but I didn't go to church and I was quite sure that just having a personal and private faith would be enough ( I did have some contact with other christians.) However, I noticed over time that it was a lot more difficult to maintain a Christian faith without attending church. I also hadn't realised how central taking communion was to my faith and how I didn't feel right without it. I concluded that maybe you CAN be a Christian without going to church - but it is much more difficult! Church provides a structure for personal faith and also gives a chance to worship - there is also something very important about communal worship.<br />Having said that, I don't think it is the end of the world if someone makes a decision to miss church in order to do something "more pressing". You say that such people think, "church can be dropped, because it isn't the highest Priority." I think the pressing question is that of what is our "priority" and if our highest priority is our relationship with God (as distinct from our relationship to Church) what's not to like? Remember, it is quite possible to attend church regularly but to rarely pray or read the bible outside of church.Suemhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03128736092253293640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846864049524846128.post-68636877774169220322012-02-06T14:42:38.540+13:002012-02-06T14:42:38.540+13:00Thank you very much for this James - very helpful...Thank you very much for this James - very helpful and succinct<br /><br />I think the disconnect between theology and Liturgy is a highly pertinent point to make in this regard<br /><br />Liturgy I think is increasingly been driven by a desire to connect with the world - dragging down heaven to earth, rather than raising Earth to heaven. Theology is similarly, increasingly world oriented, directed towards confirming us in our perceptions. How long is it, we may ask, since we read some theology which brought us to our knees in worship?<br /><br />We are in the year of MArk, which is a radically disorienting gospel - we are faced with a choice of following Christ who is going we know not where, or staying putEric Kytehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615490361688382580noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846864049524846128.post-42960136876537879212012-02-06T13:55:01.544+13:002012-02-06T13:55:01.544+13:00For some reason, I've been thinking about this...For some reason, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, but before I go any further, let me confess that I am as guilty as anyone of going to a rugby match instead of worship (Ireland beat Italy - it was great). It seems to me that two things have happened in the Anglican Church at least that seem to reflect an unwillingness to recognise that our first priority is to render praise to God, and then, growing out of that, to show sacrificial love to our neighbour. The first thing is, as you say, the separation of Christ and Church. In our context that separation is helped along by the fact that we are (perhaps I should say thankfully) not a church facing martyrdom - yet our brothers and sisters around the world still are. It's also helped along by the welter of distractions that get in the way - the rugby, the garden, the book review due next week, the essays that need to be written or marked, etc. But none of these distractions should ever be allowed to get in the way of what is truly important. The second thing, which I think has been more on my mind lately, is the extent to which the liturgy and the theology behind it have been separated from one another and then diluted, until the otherness, the holiness of God has been all but lost. This is why we need a revival of commitment to beautiful and demanding worship, rich Gospel teaching from the pulpit and in study groups, the daily office. All of these things presuppose a community, of course (even those who are hermits are distantly connected, through prayer and in other ways, with a community); we cannot be Christians on our own. Christianity is not a matter of my personal contract with God, but of witness to God's love in community, centred on the Eucharist.Jameshttp://www.otago.ac.nz/theology/staff/otago013676.htmlnoreply@blogger.com