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Planting ethnic churches presupposes that people of different ethnic backgrounds may legitimately worship separately. Theologically, the Knox-Robinson model of church asserts the integrity of the local assembly as a spontaneous, Spirit-guided expression of the heavenly assembly. But integrity does not entail independent self-sufficiency. Catholicity is an aspect of the heavenly assembly around the glorified Christ, not its earthly expressions. On the contrary:This is because the Christian life is about fellowship.Both Christians and congregations need fellowship to grow in Christ-likeness [for] they are part of the larger heavenly church of Christ, and [they need] to experience that wider fellowship. This is the contribution that denominations make to the spiritual growth and joy of the Christian and the congregation. [Collected Works of D. Broughton Knox, Vol. II: Church & Ministry: 95-96]
A fellowship […] must be absolutely other-person-centred, knowing no limits to its fellowship. Such is the fellowship of heaven, and the limits we know in our earthly fellowship are simply the limits of human life and not of attitude. (DBK Collected Works II: 97)I see no great difference between Knox and the classic 'low church' Reformed view of the integrity but non-independence of local churches, exemplified by Louis Berkhof:
Protestants insist that the invisible Church [which is the earthly Church as God sees her] is primarily the real Catholic Church, because she includes all believers on earth at any particular time… [Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, New Combined Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1996 [1932]): 575. For insertion re the invisible church, see Berkof: 564]
- Attend conventions eg Katoomba conventions;
- Deliberately pair up with a different church & collaborate in ministry;
- Get involved in para-church ministry eg ECOM City Bible Forum & AFES.
Other ideas...?
5 comments:
Kamal
I agree with you that the Knox-Robinson view actually ends up close to the Reformed view. I think it is closer to that than to the National Church Presbyterian view that comes from 16th C Scotland. (I am happier with the Reformed Churches view as well).
I also agree that the Knox-Robinson view may not make issues of authority and accountability as clear as they should. A local church should seek to express its existence as a part of the universal church through a fellowship which recognise the proper authority of congregations acting in fellowship. So an "ethnic-specific church" should seek to be part of wider body if that is possible, as well as sharing the ministry activities you suggest.
Last night at Presbytery we heard about the possibility of a large "ethnic-specific church" sharing in a church plant with a PCA church so that the congregation would come under the care of the Session and Presbytery. Hope it work out.
Hi Kamal :)
I don't know if you're coming to this, but leaving aside theologizing for the moment and coming back to the NT, I think I'd want to query the notion that "Catholicity is an aspect of the heavenly assembly around the glorified Christ, not its earthly expressions."
The pastoral setting of many NT letters appears to be precisely about concrete catholicity in the here-and-now — Jew and Gentile (Paul); rich and poor (James and John and Paul). This seems to be a serious 'gospel issue' — the gospel should unite people of different ethnic and social backgrounds into one new humanity. The forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of a new humanity seem to be necessarily intertwined (e.g. Ephesians 2 and everywhere Tom Wright wants to link 'justification' to 'inclusion in Abraham's family').
I don't see how this can be done in the abstract, or simply by sitting in the same big room (at conventions) or working on isolated projects. Surely the hard edge of gospel reconciliation is sharing life, sharing tables (e.g. Galatians 2; 1 Corinthians 11:7f). It would've been much easier for them to just separate off into ethnic churches, but that doesn't seem to be an option for them.
So seeking unity around anything else (age, socio-economic background, ethnicity) — anything other than Christ — just seems, well, gospel-denying to me. Is that too extreme?
Good to hear from you, Stuart.
I think we are free to create ethnically-specific churches, although we don’t have to. We are also free to deliberately create heterogenous churches, if in our particular situation, that would advance the kingdom better.
I do not think any one localised church can be truly Catholic. This is because true Catholicity is bigger than ethnicity. It also encompasses geography and time.
No-one thinks we can actually have physically have fellowship with Christians from the past, who are now dead. But we identify with them – we have ‘fellowship’ with them – through our common faith, and by appropriating the forms of worship they also used. I love the three great Catholic Creeds, and the Protestant forms of worship, which, I am convinced, are true descendents of the forms of worship enacted in the early church.
In New Testament times, the Apostles did not expect all the Christians in the Roman Empire to physically meet. But they did expect them to have ‘fellowship’, in the sense of mutual, sacrificial generosity (the collection for the poor: Acts 11:29-30; Rom 15, 2 Cor 8-9) and accountability (1 Corinthians 11:16: “we have no other practice, nor do the churches of God”). Back then, at least it was physically possible for all the believers who lived in one city to physically assemble together. Nowadays, we can’t realistically even do that.
So, because of the limitations inherent with our embodied-ness, every church will have some sort of homogeneity – even if it’s simply sufficient geographic proximity so we can travel to one place to meet together.
In a previous post (http://kamalsmmm.blogspot.com/2009/03/whats-culture-got-to-do-with-it.html), I argued that humans are irreducibly ‘enculturated’, insofar as we are born in a certain place and learn certain languages, thought-forms, and patterns of behaviour. I can’t see how being ‘located’ in our ethnicity is any different from being ‘located’ in time and space. They’re all limitations inherent in our created located-ness.
This is the sort of thing MacGavran explored with ‘homogenous units’. It’s not a question of seeking unity other than Christ. Our embodied limitations mean we do have unities other than Christ. We can’t help it.
The challenge has always been to relativise this homogeneity, in comparison to the greater unity we share in Christ. Temporally, we must remember that we are part of God’s one people that stretches back to Adam and Eve (Scot’s Confession, chapter 5). Geographically, we belong to the global visible church. Ethnically, the Church of God is international.
The challenge for any localised church is to consider its responsibilities outside itself. Every church must avoid the ‘comfort zone’. It might be being with people from your own ethnic background. Or it might be hanging with people from your own social strata. Or with people who do the same job as you. Or whatever. But as you can see, I don’t think this is a uniquely ethnic-church problem.
I'm just about to pop up a post about the 'comfort zone'. Have a look, tell me what you think.
Hi, Kamal. Let me pick up a couple of things:
I think we are free to create ethnically-specific churches, although we don’t have to. We are also free to deliberately create heterogenous churches, if in our particular situation, that would advance the kingdom better.
I think this begs the question: from my reading, 'advancing the kingdom' necessitates something heterogeneous. With homogeneity, we're seeking somehow to reconcile people to God without reconciling them to one another.
In New Testament times, the Apostles did not expect all the Christians in the Roman Empire to physically meet. But they did expect them to have ‘fellowship’...Back then, at least it was physically possible for all the believers who lived in one city to physically assemble together...
I think there are several underlying assumptions here that I'd query. Firstly, 'church' and 'physically meeting in the same place' are not the same thing. 'Church' is bigger than 'assembly'. A local church is a body of believers committed to one another in familial love. Hence the question of 'physically meeting' is almost irrelevant — I can sit in the same room as someone (e.g. at a convention) without having any meaningful 'fellowship' with them.
Secondly, 'fellowship' exists on different levels. As a finite creature, I can only love a certain number of people in deep, sacrificial ways. I might have 'institutional fellowship' with a body of, say, 100 people who meet in the same place on a Sunday morning, or with thousands of people who share a similar church tradition to me, or with the millions of people who call on the name of the Lord Jesus. But I can only have 'familial, life-sharing fellowship' with, say, 20–30 people. The point is, having heterogeneous 'institutional fellowship' just doesn't seem to be enough. If it were, then the rich Gentile Romans could have just met together and done mission to other rich Gentile Romans, occasionally sending funds to poorer Gentile Romans or hearing a guest Jewish preacher. But that is never on view in the NT: people of different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds are compelled to have familial fellowship together by the fact that they have one heavenly Father.
It's interesting that you pick up the Jerusalem collection. Surely this is a great indication of how seriously Paul took heterogeneity — he was willing to put off his pioneering evangelistic efforts and to put his own life in danger in order to be personally involved in the Gentiles sharing their material blessings with the Jewish poor.
I can’t see how being ‘located’ in our ethnicity is any different from being ‘located’ in time and space. They’re all limitations inherent in our created located-ness...Our embodied limitations mean wedo have unities other than Christ. We can’t help it.
I think the limitations of the various aspects of our 'facticity' are quite different. I can't change the colour of my skin. But the gospel transforms how I relate to people of different-coloured skin. (So this is not a 'limitation'.) I can't change the social milieu into which I was born. But the Spirit teaches me to be generous to all. (So this is not a 'limitation'.)
In contrast, geography is an entirely different kind of restraint. Because of my created finitude, I can't act very well at a distance. The gospel doesn't transform my geography. But geography dictates who my 'neighbour' is. And I am called to love my neighbour — that is, to show concrete expressions of God's grace to the people who live near me. Pointedly, the 'neighbour' I should love is not determined by social class or ethnicity or cultural background.
So no, we can't help our sin of Babel, our other-than-Christ unities. But God can.
And from a missionary perspective, this is why it seems wrong to me to intentionally do mission primarily to people who are 'like me'. Anyone can create 'church growth' through appealing to those other-than-Christ unities (see Hillsong or the cult of Oprah). But only the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, working by his Spirit, can create a unified new humanity where none of the old tribal boundary-markers apply. What a witness it is to unbelievers, then, when we have a loving church family composed of odd-bods who would never associate in the fleshly world — old and young, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, jock and emo and hipster and grey nomad. To a watching world, such a community speaks at once a word of judgment (on its Babel-like rebellion) and a word of hope (that old animosities can be broken down in Christ).
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