I am slowly working my through Frank Viola's Reimagining Church. I was never able to finish Pagan Christianity--not sure why except that I prefer to be more invitational than confrontational.
Anyway, the basic premise of Reimagining Church is that current church structure "is the root problem" (p. 15). But is structure really the foundational issue? I agree that it certainly is important, and I believe that any structure that fails to maximize our ability to lead people into intimacy with God and one another and to "make disciples" in the way that Jesus made them needs to discarded. But I believe that the real root issue is that we need to re-define what it means to be "Christian." We need to "reimagine Christians" lest we simply have new structures formed around the same broken people. Just a thought.
So what would a "reimagined" Christian look like? Well, first off, we might want to rename such persons "followers of Jesus" or to use Dallas Willard's term "apprentices of Jesus." For some reason our land is filled with "Christians" who believe that being a loving, trusting obedient follower of Jesus--a disciple--is optional. Hmmm, not sure where that came from, but I can't find that anywhere in my Bible!
Second, a reimagined follower of Jesus will have the same characteristics as believers in the New Testament. Every believer in the New Testament had entered the Kingdom of God through genuine repentance from sin and self-efforts to please God. S/he had placed total and continuing trust in Jesus as not only savior but also Lord of her/his life. S/he had encountered God's Spirit in such a way that there was no question that s/he had been "born from above" and had also been inundated by the Spirit in such a powerful way that Paul called this experience with the Spirit a "downpayment guaranteeing heaven" (Ephesians 1:14) and the writer of Hebrews (Priscilla? :-)) called it a taste of the powers of the age to come (Hebrews 6:5). This NT believer had also experienced deliverance from demonic bondages as needed and been baptized in water to indicate his/her complete identification with Jesus and His people. And this is just the beginning.
Beyond these basics, a reimagined Christian is also someone who is constantly hearing the voice of God and obeying that voice, primarily as it comes in the form of the "still, small voice" as it is informed by God's word and also imprinted upon the heart of those who have learned to be still and to promptly obey. (This is what being "led by the Spirit" means, I think). To be a "follower of Jesus" implies that the person is indeed continuously following Jesus--kind of makes sense, eh?
Finally, at least for now, a reimagined Christian is someone who is growing in her/his understanding of what it means to have the Godhead dwell in her/him. For some reason, we as believers still usually think of God as "out there" instead of "Christ in me, the hope of glory." Concerning this, Dallas Willard, in Hearing God says, "Some Christians too commonly demonstrate that notions of 'faith in Christ' and 'love for Christ' leave Christ outside the personality of the believer...These exterior notions of Christ's faith and love will never be strong enough to yield the confident statement, 'It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me' (Galatians 2:20)"
So how are you doing with all this? I could write much more, I think. But let me summarize with this: We as believers can indeed live out the life of the Kingdom of God as it is described in the New Testament, a life of "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" (Romans 14:17), a life that is overflowing with "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23). But this reality comes only to those who have had a truly New Testament encounter with God and who are willing to every day "deny self, take up the cross daily and follow Jesus" (Luke 9:23).
I am becoming a truly reimagined Christian from what I used to believe a "Christian" was. Care to join me?
Tom, Daddy's little boy
4 comments:
Wow, this is right along with what Keith is teaching on lately, although not quite this in depth. He calls us "Christ Followers." How cool.
I was glad when you said you would try to post every week. I had been looking forward to your posts.
I learned alot from Pagan Christianity, but don't come down as strong on some issues as he does.
Good idea to reimagine what a Christian should look like.
Enjoyed your post. I'm nearly done with Pagan Christianity and Reimagining Church is next so your thoughts are timely for me. Like you, I'm also skeptical that structure is the foundational issue, especially if that means the solution is to exchange one structure for another... even if it's The Way They Did It In The New Testament. I think we are intended to have a lot more freedom than that in the "how" to be Church together.
Re. reimagining Christians, I also resonate strongly with Galatians 5 there. Yet I've wrestled with trying to find language that includes people who are sort of "working on it." That is, people who are growing towards the fullness of that vision (like, basically, all of us!) The best I've come up with so far for that is to say; "A Christian is a person who is entrusting their entire life into Jesus' care, and is investing their entire life into his Mission." The "entire" language gets at the sense of completeness, (telos is you will) while the "-ing" endings are there to recognize that it's an ongoing growth process towards that completion. Anyway - maybe that would be helpful, at least for a shorthand version.
Blessings!
Tim
Thanks, KC, Rich and Tim for your comments!
Tim, I like your attempt at defining a reimagined Christian. We are all at this point trying to define something that we sort of "sense" and somewhat perceive, methinks. Perhaps our vision will get clearer as we are drawn more deeply into Him and His purposes.
Tom
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