Comments on: Whoah, That Just Felt Like Christianity!

By: Thought Provoking « Flight of the Beacon’s Butterfly

Thought Provoking « Flight of the Beacon’s Butterfly — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:15:36 +0000

[...] That Just Felt Like Christianity!” caused me to pause and do some thinking…check it out:#mce_temp_url# It may lead you to do some hard thinking as [...]

By: Cliff

Cliff — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:28:58 +0000

This post is very refreshing…

Amen to that. I had the same very thought about fellowship (http://soulofachristiantriathlete.blogspot.com/2009/02/confession-my-hinderance-to-community.html) and Francis Chan’s church clearly showed what it means to be in fellowship and commitment to each other.

By: David Fitch

David Fitch — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:25:44 +0000

Jenny,
Outstanding. I think both systems, capitalism and socialism, are systems built in autonomy from God. We simply can never espouse them as Christians as solutions to any given problem in the world. The most we can hope for is some amelioration. We should therefore never, NEVER be so strongly advocating one political solution over another as somehow God’s solution. The evangelical republicans have been guilty of this, most recently the progressive evangelicals have been equally as guilty. We should be much more humble in our political advocacy (but not abnegate either). Most of all we should be ever critically engaging the temptations to abnegate being the church by relying on government to solve all social and moral problems, whether they be moral (for the evangelical right) or social (evangelcial left). Yours was a great comment illuminating how socialism creates another set of problems for those of us seeking faithfulness to be the church in our modern times. Thanks for commenting

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:08:21 +0000

Thought provoking. Probably too late to comment on this but here goes… The tendency of people under Capitalism to, more often than not, assume that talk of bearing one anothers burdens means Socialism shows how truly ingrained we are in the politics of the world. I don’t mean that as criticism, I’m guilty too. But living in a society that is Socialist, I have come to understand the ways which this political structure can also deaden the church. Interestingly enough, from what I have observed over the past 8 years, the Socialist structure leads people to really live lives of isolation… there is always some bureaucratic structure in place to take care of one’s problems. I have seen a great apathy in the church here to do anything incarnational to meet the needs of brothers and sisters who are suffering in some way or another. Political systems are very effective at distracting us from living out the call and in whatever system we find ourselves we must be willing to cast off the status quo and listen to what our Lord is asking us to do.

By: Brianmpei

Brianmpei — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:04:43 +0000

This is exactly what we’re working through here in our local church. What does a “community of the called” look like in our time and place. Surely it’s more than a couple meetings a week. Our North Am culture though emphasizes independence. Suggesting to people that we spend time just being together makes most of us very uncomfortable.

By: Adam

Adam — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:39:50 +0000

Dave,

Thank you for posting this. Being a former gang member myself this is my story. From my early days of conversion as a teenager, right out of the gangs, I had a hard time understanding why the church wasn’t more 24/7 and taking liability for one another, particularly, economic liability. I did experience some wonderful mentoring as a young Christian, but eventually I found my way to a parachurch missionary organization that ultimately became an intentional community.

I’ve spend a good part of my adult life in intentional community, where we’ve earnestly tried to live out these truths of genuine ecclesia. But I’ve found that the average American Protestant Christian doesn’t know what to do with you, being so counter-cultural. Other cultures are more open to this and we’ve found more acceptance among Catholics, as monasticism is familiar to them.

One doesn’t have to share housing or a bank account to live out the gospel, but it seems there has to be some kind of radical sharing to embody the truths of the kingdom of God. It’s just odd to do so in our culture, and part of following this path is to bear the shame and disapproval of others, which makes this an unattractive (and understandably scary) choice for many.

By: David Fitch

David Fitch — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:05:30 +0000

This cam via e-mail yesterday.
Yo!
I just wanted to comment privately about your last post and chan’s comments. I completely understand what that gang member went through, being a former one myself. It is the one thing that drove me to ministry in the first place (I wanted to change what I experienced). For me, it was one of the most disheartening things I have gone through; gathering together with a people who theologically speak as if they are not of the world and yet live very much like the rest of society.

By: Ben Sternke

Ben Sternke — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:45:40 +0000

I am reading Vincent Miller’s book Consuming Religion, where he makes a similar point: that contrasting the values of Christianity vs. consumer culture is not enough, because consumer culture isn’t simply a system of beliefs and values, it is a structure through which people interpret everything else, including religious belief.

Thus in late capitalism it’s extremely easy to enthusiastically embrace belief without actually allowing it to affect your everyday practice. So most people would probably say that selfishness and greed are bad, that we should be less independent, more focused on community and bearing one another’s burdens, but that belief never gets translated into practice because of the structures in place that form us as pagans, like you said (single family homes, private insurance, private bank accounts, even the way our food and clothing is produced).

I agree with your assessment, in other words. But it sure it difficult to argue that viewpoint nowadays.

By: nathan colquhoun

nathan colquhoun — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 19:06:25 +0000

Thanks for this David.

I’m fascinated how central our “system” of dependency on ourselves is integrated into our lives to a point where we actually defend it before any life of following Jesus. Just try challenging people to toss away their life insurance and watch how offended they get. I don’t blame them though, because if they did they would still be part of a community that wouldn’t take care of their kids if they died and there would be no money to do it.

So what I think is crucial is for people to stand up and do exactly what the story tells of the elders doing it within their already formed close relationships. If I went to one family and said “cancel your life insurance, I make a commitment to take care of your children if you die” this is a lot more radical then me just preaching from the front challenging people to trust each other and live in community. It has to start with people just doing it, unfortunately we’re all too afraid, because what about us? What will happen if we die to our kids? No one else is doing this and we don’t think its necessary.

Thanks for posting this David, while I’m far from where I should be in regards to this I want to think its what I’m striving for and stories like this remind me and encourage me that it is right and not just crazy.