Believing, Behaving, Belonging

For my dissertation, I’m working through Diana Butler Bass’s Christianity After Religion. She is investigating the idea of the North American culture seeking to be “spiritual” without being “religious.”

One of the things she brings to the table that I’ve thought about since reading is the idea of “believing, behaving, and belonging.” These are the three signifiers, traditionally, of religion. (Or of any “thing” people devote time/heart to)

Bass says that Western Christianity has ranked these themes in this order: believing, behaving, belonging. This is the way we frame the hope of personal transformation. Bass contends that the reverse order, belonging, behaving, believing, may be the pattern of Jesus and his disciples.

For instance, Jesus asked his disciples to “follow him” before he ever said, “believe in me.”

Jesus shows them the kingdom life, in many ways, before we hear of a literal confession of faith.

Peter does mutter an orthodox statement of belief, (Matthew 16), but we’d have to agree that a lot of water has passed under the bridge before this moment, and we’d have to admit that Peter doesn’t have it all together at that moment in the story. Peter, like all of us, needed some time to straighten out the believing and the behaving.

But, perhaps the reason Peter hung in there was because he knew that he belonged. He didn’t mind the long pilgrimage of transformation.

Do we create the idea of belonging in our local communities of faith? Wouldn’t be interesting if, under the “About Us” tab on the church’s website, along with the “We Believe” tab there was a convincing argument that people could really belong, even if their behavior and belief wasn’t quite square, yet?

3 bodies of Christ

Henri de Lubac, a Roman Catholic theologian, writes about the 3 bodies of Christ in Christian theology.

First, the literal, physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. The bod that was wounded, pierced, buried in a tomb, and resurrected on the 3rd day.

Second, the body of Jesus that is passed and celebrated during worship through the Eucharist. Jesus said, “this is my body… this is my blood.” The body of Christ is shared among one another, thinking back to Christ’s death as we await his appearing, colliding past, present, and future into a single moment in time.

Third, the body of Christ as the Church. Paul, among others, uses different imagery to communicate the Church as Jesus’ body, re-presenting him on the earth through the announcement that the tomb is empty and that Jesus is Lord.

David Fitch has noted that among the 2nd and 3rd bodies of Christ, one will be a “literal” body of Christ and the other will be “invisible” body of Christ. During the Medieval period, the “literal” body of Christ was emphasized in the Eucharist and the “invisible” body of Christ to the Church. This translated into an idea of, “We know Christ is here among us as we worship, but we are not sure where he is at among the dark world around us.”

In my mind, this idea runs parallel to something I’ve mentioned before about the “shadow” of the Reformation description of “church”, where the word is properly preached and sacraments and church discipline are properly administered. Though this was not the Reformation’s intent, it became assumed that all of God’s business happens in the Church. Therefore, Christ is present among us as we worship on Sundays and we are “kinda” on our own throughout the week until we can gather again.

Sounds familiar. Isn’t this a common issue in our church climate today?

One of the worthwhile tasks of the Church today could be to rediscover Christ’s literal presence in God’s world. Where is Jesus? What is he up to? God is a sent God and a sending God (missio dei- John 20:21); we have to believe that God is working in us and in spite of us in his own world.

CJ, a good friend of mine, mentioned during one of our early Sunday morning caffeinated beverage conversations about the wild idea of corporate worship only being “an appetizer” to the week of God’s people, rather than the main (or only) meal. One of the primary needs for this idea is to stress again the literal body of Christ that is scattered among us, as God’s people scatter between Sundays. I wonder what amazing things God would do if we realized that his business is done everywhere, even in the places the steeple shadow does not touch.

 

Need Your Help- Test Subjects for a Formation Model

I’m in the process of preparing to write a dissertation for my D.Min. The overall idea is to put together a formation/discipleship model fit in the 21st century.

This model will seek to incorporate Christian practices that will help open someone up to God, self, and others. These practices will be ancient, current, and invented.

However, I need to know if this model would even work. I’d love to find some folks who would be interested in seeing it through for a few months and note if it is making a difference in your personal life and/or corporate community.

There is probably a good chance that I would also have you write a paragraph review of the model and your experience with it.

If you are interested, please send me an email, joeskillen@hotmail.com, or reply with a comment or Facebook reply.

Thanks!