Filed under: Thoughts on The Church of Peter
Let us not forget where our journey is leading us – to hope for authenticity and organicism through decomposition[1] of our own thoughts on the New Testament Church. I may be jumping around quite a bit in the NT but my main concern is to ideally help develop a biblical Church, tho not in the since of the word that we understand. By no means am I jumping on the hott new bandwagon of imitating or replicating first-century church, nor am I trying to make it generationally relative. I am instead trying to understand why our Messiah would choose a man like Peter to found the church that He intends.
I have a new found skepticism toward developing theologies from Paul, not from dislike of him, but because the Evangelical Church tends to idolize him as the true founder of modern Christianity. It seems that we strive to break down Jesus’ plan for His church into simple ‘do and don’t/black and white’ methods of doing church, and we have taken Paul’s suggestions of holiness and righteousness and created moral doctrines from them. My problem with our current dogma is that the name of Jesus can be removed from our Gospel and unfortunately our church would look the same as it does now. We have removed the organic dimension of faith that Jesus requires of His Church and replaced it with “7 Steps to a Better You”. Our pastors preach against Humanitarianism from the pulpit but fail to give us a corporeal alternative to put our faith in. Perhaps it is fear that their congregation will realize that humanitarianism is doing a better job of being the Church that Christ intended than they are. Of course some then would say that the emerging church is simply a humanitarian act to better society because it’s ‘the right thing to do’ and faith in any kind of God would be obsolete. At least that is what Evangelists tell me when I preach ‘sell your possessions and give to the poor’.
Anyway, as I was saying, I am simply striving to find, or rebuild, an Ekklhsia[2] that isn’t afraid to trade their moral regulations and traditions for a biblically supported living, breathing, life giving communion with God and his people. And I feel that we can better know how Christ intended for us to be if we decompose our set in stone ways of reading the New Testament. I suggested before that the book of Acts was not a prescriptive manual to making a Godly church, but rather a descriptive narrative of what kind of church we could be if we depend and rely on Christ and live by his teachings. I know it is cool to look through Acts, pick out rituals and traditions, and replicate it with an archaic and premodern feel, but I disagree with those who say that Acts is the only way God intended his church to be. In order to be an authentic Ekklhsia, I prescribe that we first spend time with Christ, listening and learning from Him, and then it will organically develop and we wont need hundreds of books and blogs about how to be a better church.
But what do I know, I’m an a/theist[3]…
[1] “Decomposition” RLV def. “To let die naturally and organically, to allow for rebirth through death of a process of breaking down, organic de-construction” (2009)
[2] Frank Viola, Pagan Christianity
[3]Peter Rollins “Set Apart” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M65JTRhObV4
