In February I'm taking a course called "Biblical Perspectives of the
Missio Dei and the Role of the People of God." I'll save the whole issue of what in the world is
missio Dei for a later post (much later, actually, since I really don't know. It was a brand new term for me until a couple of months ago.) Suffice it to say it's Latin for "Mission of God" or "God's
Mission". Or, in a McDuda paraphrase "What in the world is God doing?"
One of the assignments is a book review of
Images of the Church in Mission by John Driver. It's been a long time since I did a book review, but I guess I better read it first. What I propose to do is give some chapter summaries, with some quotes from which to write my review.
Please chime in with any comments. Let me know what you think.
Chapt 1: Images of the Church in Christendom"Catholic Christendom as well as Protestant has throughout much of its history perceived the church as a self concerned community of salvation--and end in itself. This has led to a clear separation between its own church life and it's calling to mission. Whenever interest in mission did arise, it often was carried out by Christians on the fringes, outside the structures of the church. In Catholicism, there are the missionary orders. In Protestantism, they're the mission agencies." (p. 11). Ouch!
"The Bible employs a rich variety of metaphors that illumine our understanding of the identity and mission of the Church. Images can communicate a vision with power. They reflect a sense of identity which characterized the early Christian communities. Images also inspire the church and challenge it to live up to its real reason for being. The images we used to reflect what we are; they also largely determine what we will become" (p.12).
The thesis of this book is that the church has abandoned the biblical metaphors for its self understanding and replace them with either nonbiblical images or a distortion of the biblical ones.
For instance, "as early as the third century, the church was facing problems arising out of internal disciplinary practices. Leaders compared the church to ark of Noah, with unclean as well as clean animals (Genesis 6-8). Such a misuse of the biblical image led the church to accept unholiness in the lives of its members. This was notably different from the NT vision of a Church of holy people, "a holy nation" (first Peter 2:9).
"In the fourth century, problems arose out of the Constantinian detour. The Church ceased to be a persecuted minority; it came to be tolerated in the Roman Empire and even became popular. Hence, the church saw itself like a field in which weeds and wheat are left to grow together until the end of the age (Matthew 13:20 4-30, 36-43). Here again, the image tended to create a church quite different from the apostolic community, which understood that “the field as the world" rather than the church (13:38) (p. 17-18).
“However, there is a far greater problem. The church often draws the controlling images of itself-understanding from secular society rather than from the NT. Even so, the church has generally continue to articulate its vision of self-identity and roll with the traditional images at those images have been wrenched out of context and twisted from their primary intention.
"One of the results of the fourth century Constantinian ship visit the church began to draw its models from the Roman Empire. In a graduate largely and conscious process, changes were instituted until the church's hierarchy began to look much like the bureaucracy of the Roman government.”
"In the Middle Ages, the church adopted feudal models for its self-understanding." (p. 18).
"The great century Protestant missionary activity was also this entry of imperial expansion. The predominantly Protestant powers of the Northern Hemisphere ruled throughout what has since come to be called the Third World. Not unexpectedly the imperial model is color the church's self-understanding of its nature as well as its mission” (p. 19).
"During the colonial period in North America, churches bar from the democratic model of social organization. That image is largely shaped their self-understanding" (p.19).
"More recently corporate business model has become a prominent image for the churches self-understanding in North America. Management techniques have slowly but surely left their marks on church administration. The congregation's performance is evaluated in commercial terms of gain or loss. The church program is run with one eye and competition (the congregation down the street) and the other eye and keeping customers (its own members) satisfied" (p. 20).
Other images that the church is used for itself-understanding include a country club model, a therapy group model, a school model or a supermarket model.
"In the Bible the final goal of God's saving intentions the transformation of all creation. The biblical vision calls the people of God first to live out this new reality in its own midst. The antisocial and corrupt systems of society--with coercive violence, the desire to dominate, and economic greed--cannot be attacked more decisively than by the formation of a counter society in its midst. Simply through its existence, this new society is an effective attack on the old structures for transforming the world. The church as this new society can work much better than any of the many brilliantly conceived programs, carried out at no personal cost" (p. 21-22).
