While visiting my brother a few weeks back, we had a good conversation with one of his friends about Christianity and the spiritual life. This particular friend of his had been raised in the South and reared on Protestant Christianity. Both of his parents and were pastors and his family traveled around the nation together as a ministry. Now, he is married with a little girl (and a second on the way) and runs his own recording studio, which makes it difficult for him to attend church with any regularity.
As he was discussing his situation he made a statement (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that stuck in my mind: I look at my recording studio as a ministry that I have in which I can love other people. Does God really care if I go to church or not? I don't think so. What He cares about is that I love other people wherever I'm at and whatever situation I'm in.
To be sure, there's a lot that I can agree with in this statement. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that in this statement there is a dichotomy between loving others and attending church. In a sense, you could interpret my friend as saying that it is not necessary to attend church in order to better love others. Is it safe then to infer that attending church may make it more difficult to love others as well? Does that make any sense?
At any rate, I am genuinely interested in what any readers of this blog have to say about this subject (if you're interested). What do you think about this dichotomy? If it exists, how can it be resolved? What does it mean to truly love another?
9 comments:
ideally church should aid you in loving others. if your church teaches the Word and administers the Sacraments and you walk obediently to what Christ teaches you during your time of worship then wouldn't that in turn aid you in dealing with others in everyday life? i go to church to fellowship, to worship and to learn. we are called to take what we have learned and "go out into the world" after that time and practice what we were preached. does that make sense? i think that far to often our "modern christian culture" tells people that you don't need church. all you need is God. yes...all we need is God BUT i think people end up being little secular monastics without a church home that edifies Christ. maybe i am off...
I agree with you. This was the first thought that entered my mind, 'what if Church existed to help us love; what if we couldn't really love with out it?' Of course, these questions open up a whole other can of worms (don't mean to steal the name of your blog), namely, what does it really mean to love another? Maybe that is a subject for another posting but if anyone wants to take a stab, be my guest.
If nothing else, participation in the life of the Church gives me some accountability. I am no longer an island unto myself. The sacrament of confession in the Orthodox Church is an example of this. Probably not something that I enjoy but something that I need and deep down that I crave.
To me the problem is diluting "church" down to loving people - that's sounds cold, but I think that while the two go hand in hand there is a bit more involved that makes this equation difficult. One might flow from the other, but is one the other?
But perhaps that is not necessarily your point. And perhaps this isn't either, but what first occurred to me was the Church as a sign of God's people. How does one identify with that - locally or globally - if he/she is, as you say, an island unto themself?
It occurs to me as I close that part of truly loving another is being with another - being truly Christ/the Church incarnate in his/her life. In this, your friend has a point, but I feel like the original statement arrives at that spot incorrectly.
I see your points. In resolving the dichotomy, we should not attempt to obliterate any distinctions between loving another and the Church (not that they are opposed or mutually exclusive).
There are distinctions to loving another within the Church. Perhaps this is part of what it could mean to be part of God's people, as you say.
It must be...
“Love is the crown and glory of the Church.” A. Khomiakov
This also appeals to the presupposition within the person of what he/she means by using the terms "love" and "church." The practical application of this comes from how one lives life in identification with the "church," and what the person supposes the church to be--built upon personal experience and acquired belief (dogma); but not all is brought to the denominator of ecclessiology, but rather Christology. "Who is Christ?" and how does my belief in Christ inform my action? And if the Church is the "body of Christ,' most literally, then how do we literally become "members of one another"?
I have heard it said that the lone Christian is no Christian at all...the we 'sin' individually but are 'saved' coporately (as if in being saved, we are saved unto one another)...and the difficult saying of St. Cyprian of Carthage: "Outside of the Church there is no salvation" ('extra ecclessium nula salus').
Salvation from what? From our inability to love God and others, and maybe from our ever-flexible personal "take" on reality which is limited to our own experience and perception of it. I think that our inability to love, and our difficulty in associating with a concrete historical embodiment of that reality, stems from our lack of trust--not merely the realization of our own limitation, which leads to a diluted mysticism, and an over-spiritualization of the incarnation. Trust in something external also means accepting personal limitation, abiding in loving obedience and laying aside of personal preference out of commitment to that reality--and I personally would venture to call it commitment to the person of Christ as present in the Church...and again comes the question ecclessiology...which I am attempting to avoid.
I apologize for my verbosity, but out of love for Christ, the Church, and my brother J.B., I was urged to contribute to this little conversation.
With love, in Christ always,
Symeon
Thanks for your thoughts Jeremy; I think this is a concise analysis of the subject that synthesizes some of the previous points. I like it.
What I read from you is that one is unable to speak of Christology without implying an ecclesiology as well. And I wonder why these conversations are loaded?
a quote I came upon last night from the late John Meyendorff:
"...doctrines of man and of the Church cannot be compartmentalized in neatly separated sections of theological science--'theology,' 'anthropology,' 'ecclessiology'--but are simply meaningless of approached separately."
I would also say that these are bound up with Christology because "...by Him all things were created that are in heaven and on earth...all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist."
(Col. 1)
and not least:
"...He is the head of the body, the Church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence."
(again, Col. 1)
Due to the incarnation of Christ, the sanctifying (or sacramentalization) of all of life through Christ, our reconciliation unto Himself and one another in Him, and engraftment into His very body by the Holy Spirit, it may be said that we are made "ecclessial beings." I believe that ecclessiology is the implication of Christology, the Church is the result of the incarnation, and the descent of the Holy Spirit. It is also the result of a living continuity(!).
This all has to do with love and is more practical in practice than in writing. Love because of Christ's new commandment: "Love one another..." and because "God is love..."
This is more than enough from me, forgive me.
In Christ,
Symeon
I really enjoyed reading everyone's comments re: this topic. I don't get the whole post-modern idea of church being some fluid and maleable plaything of man. It is isn't an option as far as I can read in scripture nor in history. It is important.
I also don't think that by loving others effectively or fervently it is therefore a suitable replacement for attending a worship service. Meeting God in his holy place renews and energizes men for service, but that is not it's only end. I would say that misses some major emphasis of church. Confession is a huge part (although I doubt many mainline evangelical/pentecostal churches really do this), the Sacraments are huge...but most of all...we are engaging with God almighty. We are in the presence of the God of the Universe. We bow down; we WORSHIP!!! He is bigger than us and deserves an hour or two, may I dare say an entire day to focus on his majesty and greatness.
I believe the major problem is that the post-Enlightenment man is far to comfortable with the Triune God. He has in essence made God his pal or equal and treats him like some kind of understanding college buddy that you could bail out of your plans with and everything would still be cool. The lack of the fear of God is what makes man okay with skipping out on church...imho.
I think another area touched on but not completely explored is the area of accountablility. I believe that being part of a body is being part of a community that you can grow with, lean on and support. Jeremy and I have only just found this "body" for us in the last year and a half...for 5 1/2 years we lived temporal, as if God would call us out of Toronto at any minute and in living this way specifically wanted not to create bonds with people that would cause pain in the leaving. What a waste of 5 1/2 yrs, in the time we spent avoiding love we grew lonely, the sadness was created at the begining instead of receiving all the love promised in a "body".
We have found a home in Forest Brook Community Church a brethren church in our community (much larger that we planned, but the focus is on small groups). We have bonded with families, youth, children, singles, the elderly and have truly found a home. We are not always able to attend church due to the nature of our own "Ministry" and in missing a Sunday with our "body" we truly feel it, like something is missing in us. I have had these new friends call me out when my behaviour has been out of line (come on Im and extravert, we speak before we think) and I have had to do the same to a few as well. It is done in love and with grace, but the accountablility is there.
The church was set up as a body for many reasons one of those is to allow the body to work as a whole, to serve the Lord Jesus and to proclaim his love and word to the world. The problem comes when a church becomes so self-sufficient that it needs nothing or has nothing to give to the world...we are told to "be in the world but not of it" and many churches have taken that to an extreme...that we are to be living in this crazy mixed up world, but have nothing to do with the "outside" people of it. This is where church can become disheartning.
As an example, UrbanPromise (where we work) is a para-church organization, we have no denominational affiliation...we have come into the communities of Toronto to be a light to those shunned or disenchanted with the whole "church thing". Many of our families have grown up in "church" in the caribean, which used corporal punishment to beat the devil out of the children. Many of the mothers were basically children themselves when they had babies and so were excommunicated by the church and sent to live in Canada by their parents/grandparents. This is not a loving church, this is not God fearing and loving people who know the truth of Love and who He was when He came to this horrible desolate and unloving planet to save all of us lowly unworthy people. This is what 70% of the worlds view of church is...crazy huh, sorry anyways UP goes into these communities to shower the children, youth and mothers with Christs love, mercy and forgiveness. We walk along side these families during their struggles and in their joys (court hearings, college acceptance etc) That is what Church is...should be...the unconditional love of each other where we can correct out of love and walk along side in Truth.
I know my God, and I know of His forgiveness and His grace and His Mercy, His love far exceeds mine, and I need to be rejuvenated and one of the ways that He feeds into me is by allowing me a place to focus solely on Him in the presence of others whose goal is the same and that is my Church.
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