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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Category: THE CHURCH

THE CHURCH (3) Hans Kung

George 4 Comments

Already as a youngster, Küng recalled coming home “radiant” when he realized “I can swim … the water’s supporting me.” For him, this experience illustrated “the venture of faith, which cannot first be proved theoretically by a course on ‘dry land’ but simply has to be attempted: a quite rational venture, though the rationality only emerges in the act,” he wrote in his first memoir.A lifelong lover of nature, Küng spent much time in its environs — swimming almost every day of his life and skiing up to age 80 during brief holidays in Switzerland. Skiing helped him if only for a few hours to “air my brain and forget all scholarship, often defying the cold, wind, snow and storm,” he attested in his memoir.Almost all of his books were composed in longhand as Küng sat on his living-room-sized terrace in Tübingen, close to the banks of the Neckar River, or alongside his Lake Lucerne home in his native Sursee, Switzerland. Sunshine and fresh air pervade his texts as much as do research, history, exhaustive scholarship, and analysis of and solutions to specific theological and philosophical problems.

‘The nicest liturgical words and the highest praise of Christ — unless backed by Scripture and understood by the people — are just not useful.’—Hans Küng

‘My theology obviously isn’t for the pope [I will do theology] for my fellow human beings … for those people who may need my theology.’ —Hans Küng

Continuing to examine my understanding of church, this post will use Hans Kung’s book “THE CHURCH” to set a framework for further inquiry. As I wrote earlier, “THE CHURCH” was a highly influential factor in reimagining my ecclesiology. It is has continued to be a reference over the past several decades.

The Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, which took place from 1962 to 1965, was one of the most important councils in church history, and it profoundly changed the structures and practices of the church. It sought, in the words of Pope John XXIII, aggiornaménto, “to bring the church up to date,” and many of the council’s decrees did bring the church into the modern world. Although the reforms were welcomed by many, they produced internal disruptions greater than any the church has known since the Protestant Reformation. 

Written in the shadow of Vatican II — Kung’s states the purpose for his book in the preface.
One can only know what the Church should be now if one also knows what he church was originally. This means knowing what the Church of today should be in the light of the Gospel, It is the purpose of this book to answer that question.

For Kung, Church always refers to the Roman Catholic Church, a point to be aware of in his writing, but the applicability of his observations and critiques are unmistakably relevant to the catholic [whole] church. There is some attraction to the idea of a “Vatican II” kind of council for the church today — to bring the church up to date— but the Protestant diaspora that followed the Protestant Reformation makes that impractical. You can’t herd cats.
Perhaps these posts can serve as a mini-council? Restoration II 🙂

A presumption shared among many Christians today, and motivation for these posts, is that the church is headed in the wrong direction. Holding that assumption, Kung says the vital question is: “… by what criterion are we to judge that the church is now headed in the wrong direction?”

Answering, Kung eliminates paths most frequently chosen in response to concerns that the church is headed in the wrong direction — adapt itself to the present — because to do so would mean adapting itself to the evil, the anti-God elements, the indifferentism in the world — or secondly, — hold fast to the past, because that would mean ignoring what is good and acceptable and perfect, holding to what has gone simply because to do so is convenient, less disruptive. Clinging tenaciously to the past in this way is no less dangerous than a misdirected adaptation to the present….therefore, that where adaptation to the present is inadequate, because it leads to modernism, clinging to the past is no better, for it leads to traditionalism.

How do we know the church is headed in the right direction? Kung answers:

…The Church is headed in the right direction when, whatever the age in which it lives, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is its criterion, the Gospel which Christ proclaimed and to which the church and the apostles witnessed. The church did not come about of itself. God himself called it into being as the Ecclesia, the body of those who answered the call, and this he did in the world, from among mankind. God himself convoked the Church in the call issued through Jesus, the Christ. This call is the Euangelion, the good news: the news of the dominion of God over this world, the news that the hopes and desires of man should be directed to God alone, the news of God’s love, and man’s love for God and his fellow men. …

The Church, therefore, is the pilgrim community of Believers, not of those who already see and know. The Church must never again wander wander through the desert, through the darkness of sin and error. Fo the Church can also err and for this reason must always be prepared to orientate itself anew, to renew itself.It must always be prepared to seek out a new path, a way that might be as difficult to find as a desert track, or a path through darkness.

There is however, one guiding light it is never without, just as God’s people in the desert always had a guide: God’s word is always there to lead the Church. Through Jesus, the Christ it has been definitively revealed to us. …
With the message of Jesus Christ behind it, the Church is headed in the right direction. Thus armed, it is empowered to take new directions, now and again must do in an attempt to perfect God’s rule which it so frequently inclined to forget.

He further observes:

The Church today does not impenitently leave things as they were, but reforms and renews its life, structures and teaching, adapting itself to the world as it actually is. But it has not just developed a craze for modernity: it is looking for its own origins, to the events that gave it life.
The Church must return to the place from which it proceeded; must return to its origins, to Jesus, to the Gospel. And as a direct consequence, this can only mean forward to a new future, the future God had in mind for mankind.

There is a lot to digest in these citations, only a brief portion of his preface to THE CHURCH. A dissident in the Catholic Church, Kung’s, critiques were a delightful, he voiced criticisms of the Catholic Church I had heard and repeated for many years. It was only when I began to look in the mirror that I realized how relevant he was to the whole church and for me, and the church of Christ in particular.

In listening to those who believe the church is headed in the wrong direction, which, ironically, may be our greatest point of agreement, there are two dogmatic positions — adapt to the present —or— hold fast to the past. Those who do not fall into those categories, most usually, are sympathetic to some amalgamation of the two. In any case, Kung paints us all into a corner.

I am confident that this brief look at THE CHURCH through Kung’s eyes will not scrub our windows clean, but perhaps, there is a bit more light coming through that will illuminate the path as we move forward. My next post will explore restoring the New Testament church.

Still on the journey.

THE CHURCH -2 [Church History]

George 0 Comments

It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong. 

— Terry Pratchett

Perhaps somewhere, there is someone who dwells among unicorns that does not have preconceived notions about church. If you are that rare creature, you should wait for my next post. For me, I need to unravel my church history to understand how it shapes my perceptions and expectations about church. At this point, with regard to church, I’m not sure where I am and I don’t know where I am going. As Pratchett posits, it is important to know where you come from.

“Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in.” 
Alan Alda

Choosing to believe my windows are crystal clear, I resist challenges to my assumptions. My adopted mantra…”I could be wrong” prompts me to forge ahead. Church history in this post refers to personal experience with church rather than 2000 years of Church History. Most people have a church history, all of which differ in some way; but none of us can escape the influence of our personal experience of church. Perhaps, as you walk with me through my church history, you will recall you own and recognize ways in which your perceptions and expectations about church have been shaped and together we can see where we should go.

I have no memory of life without church. There was the church Dad and I attended— church of Christ— and the church Mother attended— The Methodist Church. I have no recollection of animosity between them, although I can’t imagine there wasn’t. As a youngster, it was clear churches differed, some were right and others were not. The church of Christ was the former. There was only one true church— the church of Christ— all others were not the true church.

Members of the church of Christ do not conceive of themselves as a new church started near the beginning of the 19th century. Rather, the whole movement is designed to reproduce in contemporary times the church originally established on Pentecost, A.D. 33. The strength of the appeal lies in the restoration of Christ’s original church.
—Batsell Barrett Baxter

I wrote in some detail about my experience in the church of Christ in an earlier post, you can read it HERE. I learned early, the best way to know what you shouldn’t be doing was to look at what other churches (non-church of Christ) were doing. Such logic about church is clearly irrational and I reject it intellectually, but I cannot help but wonder if it doesn’t reside somewhere in the depths of my assumptions about church. explaining my tendency to be critical and wary.

I learned church was a place. Not any place, but a building —not any building but a building that reflected the nature and character of the church we believed it was established on the day of Pentecost AD 33. You could tell if it was the correct building because the cornerstone would be engraved —”Established AD 33” . Memorials to good stewardship and proper doctrine and ecclesiology , buildings were sparse, devoid of decorations, including a cross on an occasional steeple. Interiors were consistent with the absence of icons, banners or crucifix. The only semblance of an altar would be a communion table —”Do this in remembrance of Me”— flanked by the pulpit beneath a baptistery.
Ornate and extravagant church buildings were evidence of departure from the New Testament church and delineated “in” from “out”.

Church was where religion happened. There were certain things that could and couldn’t be done at church — within the church building and particularly in the auditorium (not the sanctuary). Everything changed when I went to church— clothes, language, demeanor, music. It was confusing to observe activity regularly condemned in preaching and teaching to somehow be allowed, if not permissible, as long as it wasn’t “in church”. Unwittingly, my life was being shaped into two discrete realities, sacred and secular.

Church was home. I felt welcomed and loved. There was fellowship — koinonia —the preacher called it. My religious identity was church of Christ. We were a special people, Campbellites — a derisive appellation, worn proudly because it affirmed our righteous sectarianism. To put it another way, we were a tribe — families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect — our tribalism was most evident in our assertion that members of the church of Christ th were the only ones going to heaven. It was home.

The above are just a few examples of my church history. There is much more for me to reflect on, including theology, doctrine, hermeneutics, ecclesiology, to understand my underlying assumptions about church. These are biases about church. Despite the fact that my view of church has changed dramatically over the course of my spiritual journey, biases from my church history will resist and/or filter new or different understandings about church.

This exercises requires self-awareness and self examination, both rare commodities.

…even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare
quality: We estimate that only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the
criteria. *

It is my contention that any effort to re-examine church, absent a clear understanding of our mostly hidden but powerfully influential biases about church, will produce little more than confirmation of those biases. If you are inclined to walk with me on this trek, I encourage you to examine your church history — know where you have been and where you are —so we can see where we should go.

Still on the journey.

THE CHURCH

George 2 Comments

“The problem of God is more important than the problem of the church; but the latter often stands in the way of the former.”

Hans Kung

This is the first post in a series entitled THE CHURCH. It is my intention to share some thoughts as I rethink the subject of church. I have been prompted to write on the subject for several reasons.

Most recently Gallup data on church attendance was startling and generated predictable and appropriate response from pulpits across the country.

Additionally, the recent death of Hans Kung reminded me of his influence on me through his book “The Church”. You can read my post HERE. I am re-reading his book and finding it still relevant 40+ years later.

Third, is the pandemic experience and its impact on church attendance. For over a year we have not attended a church service in person. We have been faithfully “attending” church on-line. Actually our “attendance” has increased over the past year. as we joined more than one church on-line each Sunday, praising, praying and taking communion.

Thinking about that experience, I was reminded of a convicting question presented many years ago. A teacher, I don’t remember, asked, ” If by some supernatural event, the Holy Spirit was removed from your life, what difference would it make ?” …a question still worth pondering.
In the last year we experienced a supernatural event that removed church, as we know it, from our lives. The question I am pondering is: …what difference did it make?
The answer will differ for each person, but for me, the answer is troubling and curious… I do not perceive my faith has weakened…my prayer life has grown and deepened…I’m more aware of my sinfulness and God’s mercy and grace… I have engaged scripture and teaching that have challenged and changed me. Contrary to some people’s expectations, not going to church did not have the negative impact I would have expected.
I am not implying my positive experience over the last year was a result of not going to church, but apparently, not going to church did not impeded my spiritual growth. For that reason, I am re-examining my understanding of church. I have no idea to what end this will lead but you are welcome to walk with me.

Still on the journey

Intersections – Strange Bedfellows

George 2 Comments

strange bedfellows – A pair of people, things, or groups connected in a certain situation or activity but extremely different in overall characteristics, opinions, ideologies, lifestyles, behaviors, etc.

This post continues a series entitled intersections. As I reflect on my life’s journey, various intersections along the way come to mind. My ambition was for a straight and narrow path. but, that’s not how life goes.

Meet my old friend Hans Kung.

I was surprised to learn of the passing of Catholic theologian Hans Kung. I was grieved as he and I were strange bedfellows. You can read about his amazing life and career HERE.
I found the following quotes reminiscent of my engagement with Kung.

Truth-seeking was the chosen task to which Küng brought his insatiable probing and unquenchable intellect.

… the audience with Paul VI confronted him vividly with the question: For whom was he doing theology? Already in late 1965, Küng understood: “My theology obviously isn’t for the pope (and his followers), who clearly doesn’t want my theology as it is.” On that very day Küng resolved he would do theology “for my fellow human beings … for those people who may need my theology.”

I list Kung’s “The Church” as one of the most influential books in the development of my ecclesiology, ultimately, a key factor shaping my spiritual journey. To understand how ironic that is and just just how strange a bedfellow he was, I need to share the providential nature of our relationship.
For those familiar with my religious heritage in the Church of Christ, you will understand the weirdness of a Catholic theologian being a bedfellow, very strange indeed. In my early experience Catholics were to be avoided (except attractive girls), strange Friday fish eating, beer drinking, rhythm method weirdos, not to mention their seemingly pagan worship practices, eating and drinking the real body and blood of Christ and those inexplicably long masses.If there was anything to be learned from Catholics, it was what not to do.

Those preconceptions remained in my subconscious even after a personal spiritual revival prompted me to return to college after a ten year absence. One of the early courses I took was “Church of Christ” taught by Dr. Everett Ferguson, PhD, a distinguished scholar. The class was eye-opening, to say the least. I still have my handwritten notes. Most surprising was the assigned reading of “The Church” by Catholic theologian Hans Kung. I still remember being shocked by Kung’s bold analysis and critiques of the Church. It began to dawn on me that although “the Church” he was referring to was the Roman Catholic church , the issues he was addressing were echoes of my concerns with the “Church of Christ”, my church. Being in the beginning of my struggle with the incongruity of my church experience and what I was coming to understand from scripture, Kung was a game changer. What a shock to discover your religious heritage’s ecclesiology was closer to Catholicism than the New Testament church which we thought we had restored.

The book I purchased for the class was a paperback edition, worn and marked up, I lost it somewhere along the line. A decade or more later, my ecclesiastical angst re-emerged, unable to locate my book, I purchased the book pictured above. Because The Church is out of print I was pleased to get a used copy and it remains a useful reference, seemingly more relevant than ever.

Perusing some bookmarks and faded highlights, here are excerpts I thought worth sharing:

The problem of God is more important than the problem of the Church; but the latter often stand in the way of the former.

Ther is no doubts that the message of Jesus has had, if not a destructive, at least a disturbing effect on the Church in any age, challenging it, rousing it, goading it into new life; in short, it has always been a “stumbling block”.

The Church is not the kingdom of God, but it looks towards the kingdom of God, waits for it, or rather makes a pilgrimage towards it and is its herald, proclaiming it to the world.
The Church on its pilgrimage is not deserted or forgotten by God; it is not wandering totally in the dark. Even though it is not the kingdom of God which is to come, it is already under the reign of God which has begun; though looking forward to the final victory of the reign of God, it can look back to the decisive victory: in Jesus the Christ; while still wandering in the shadow of death, it has the resurrection not only ahead of it, but its decisive form behind it; in Jesus the risenKyrios.

…by baptism in the spirit received in faith all believers are consecrated as priests. Christians do not stand on the threshold of the temple like impure people begging for grace, in fear and trembling, through the priest as a holy middleman. They themselves stand in the very midst of the holy temple of God, as holy priests chosen by God, able to communicate directly with God.

The Church confronts this ambivalent world with an ultimate freedom; it must not bury itself in the world nor flee from it, it must not abandon itself to the world nor be hostile to it, but it must approve while it denies, and deny while it approves, resisting it while it devotes itself to it and devoting itself to it while it resists it.

The Church does not wish to remain isolated. It wishes to be a vanguard. As a vanguard of mankind the people of God journeys on its way- but where is it going? Once again the question arises: has the Church a future?

Although my encounter with him was a minuscule ripple on the far edges of his influence, I am indebted to Hans Kung. Important as the ecclesiastical understandings I gained from him are, perhaps, the more important lesson came from the realization of how small and sectarian my world was. He was a gateway to an adventure that continues to this day.
Seeking God’s presence can produce some very strange bedfellows.

Still on the journey.

In praise of Pot Lucks

George 0 Comments

In Praise of Pot-Lucks

Church is a meal. The question we have to answer together is whether we’re going out to a restaurant or a pot-luck. If it’s a restaurant, our individual taste matter. We can pick and choose from the menu and request our salad dressing be served “on the side.” We can rightly regard the pace, kindness, and delivery of service. If we like it, we can leave a tip befitting what we believe we’ve received. A pot-luck is entirely different. If church is a pot-luck, we know to arrive with an offering and prepared to serve and be served. We demonstrate gratitude to the others who have come equally prepared to provide a feast for all .

 

Do we consume at pot-lucks? Yes. But we consume in an environment in which we also share and serve.

Sean Palmer