Thank you for sharing your love for your people and your place.
I also appreciated this section of your newsletter -- I have long been fascinated by the ways that material reality in its various forms—technology, geography, economic reality, etc.—drives many things that we regard in narrowly ideological terms. Ecclesiology is an exemplary case here: whatever people’s doctrines of the church and whether we welcome them or not, I suspect that by far the greatest factors shaping the form of church order we work within are material ones. It would be welcome to see more conversations about our doctrine of the Church and reflection and deliberation concerning its practices registering this.
It would be interesting to hear voices from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and other areas speak to this issue.
There is a certain logic here about how churches should work in a parish model and entertain a centered geographical presence in a neighborhood. Alastair and Susannah present a pretty common argument about how unintentional many evangelical or other churches are about "neighborhood". What you say perhaps rings true in a most basic sense. Churches should be a part of their community. But, in America and elsewhere we live in very different times and places than the ideal Stoke-on-Trent life put forward here. The interesting thing for myself is that western rural Pennsylvania looks much like central England.
However, England's countryside looks the way it does for a lot of reasons that depend on a global imperial footprint over the last several hundred years and the rise of global capitalism more recently. We should also probably remember that England is part of a restored nation and continent whose beauty looks the way it does because of post-World War II modernization and development, literally billions of mid-twentieth century American dollars borrowed by the UK for that very purpose. You knock the gentrification and colonizing ways of American evangelical churches from the very perch your own country and churches established with us and tried to perfect all across the world.
The church of Christ can certainly work within a parish-based system but not every locale renders such a model sufficient for kingdom work or remains all that helpful. What would parish life look like in Hong Kong or Mexico City? Or, how about Dallas, Texas or New York City? There is certainly something to be said for purposeful living in a particular community and intentionally serving a particular neighborhood, but what really is a neighborhood in today's society?
I ask the age-old question about who is our neighbor and what is a neighborhood because it's still very relevant to the purpose and life of the church. Times and places change, so how does the church effectively serve its sphere of influence in a world where borders, locale, and even the notion of face-to-face proximity are often disappearing into thin air. Living as a community is certainly important but what does that look like in the vast open spaces of rural America compared to the isolated garden life of central England? And, what of America's swelling metroplexes and the myriad number of smaller cities and towns that dot a landscape forty times the size of England alone?
Further, what of hangouts on Discord or the massive communities of video game enthusiasts that themselves are the size of the very cities and towns in question or even larger? How about the Facebook groups and constant communication and presence we enjoy from others online? The public square has moved from the town square and seats of castle-inspired power to Twitter, Facebook, and many other "places" that exist on massive server farms quite apart from the physical location of the community's existence.
So, in one sense I'd very much like to agree with you here but given the state of our technological society and its continued sociotechnological innovation I don't see how the parish system as framed is going to work in any way similar to how it has in the past. We might also consider that the parish system developed in what we call Europe today more broadly not because it was biblical necessarily but because relevant social institutions decentralized as the Roman Empire fell to pieces. Something had to take Rome's place and the parish system gradually developed as a result along with monasteries and feudal societies. The other historical question we might ask is whether the parish system has really worked in England at all since only about 2-3% of the people even go regularly to a parish church in a country that was once thoroughly Christian. Are we really to believe that the very system of ecclesial life in question had nothing to do with the vast unfaithfulness that exists in what was once the very model of Christendom?
Such a contention seems sociologically problematic and so there is more here to discuss. Britain is what she is today precisely because of her work in the rest of the world, a social and political superstructure she was very instrumental putting in place. The church has an obligation as a matter of mission to the whole world and especially to the world that English Protestantism as a matter of empire and economic endeavors made possible. The genteel life of Stoke-on-Trent exists because all the industrial manufacturing that once clouded its skies now takes place in places like Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and Mexico. Those communities face all the challenges of a booming industrialization while English clerics might rejoice in what a beautiful green place Shakespeare's home now is. But, the truth is that the neighborhoods of Shanghai and Guadalajara are filled with people that don't know Christ and aren't the product of a near two thousand year presence of Christianity in their neighborhoods.
So, I get it. We need to be intentional in our communities but we can't treat this topic with the sort of green-treed picture heavy romanticized appraisal of neighborhood that makes us think we all should live in a Shire like nice little hobbits with that occasional episcopal visit by Gandalf, dragon fireworks and all. We do ourselves and the church no favor by pretending life is something other than what it is now or that we ought to concentrate in the main on those physically closest to us. Our mission is the Great Commission and not setting up and maintaining a great neighborhood or town. And, look, I live in a post-industrial town in western Pennsylvania that could double for whatever you find in the English countryside minus what has been there over a thousand years. But, our focus can't merely be where we live because the gospel in the main has never been just about that reality. The gospel does transform neighborhoods and cities but we don't do that without keeping our focus on the continued proclamation of God's word to the whole world.
Thank you for sharing your love for your people and your place.
I also appreciated this section of your newsletter -- I have long been fascinated by the ways that material reality in its various forms—technology, geography, economic reality, etc.—drives many things that we regard in narrowly ideological terms. Ecclesiology is an exemplary case here: whatever people’s doctrines of the church and whether we welcome them or not, I suspect that by far the greatest factors shaping the form of church order we work within are material ones. It would be welcome to see more conversations about our doctrine of the Church and reflection and deliberation concerning its practices registering this.
It would be interesting to hear voices from South Asia, Southeast Asia, and other areas speak to this issue.
There is a certain logic here about how churches should work in a parish model and entertain a centered geographical presence in a neighborhood. Alastair and Susannah present a pretty common argument about how unintentional many evangelical or other churches are about "neighborhood". What you say perhaps rings true in a most basic sense. Churches should be a part of their community. But, in America and elsewhere we live in very different times and places than the ideal Stoke-on-Trent life put forward here. The interesting thing for myself is that western rural Pennsylvania looks much like central England.
However, England's countryside looks the way it does for a lot of reasons that depend on a global imperial footprint over the last several hundred years and the rise of global capitalism more recently. We should also probably remember that England is part of a restored nation and continent whose beauty looks the way it does because of post-World War II modernization and development, literally billions of mid-twentieth century American dollars borrowed by the UK for that very purpose. You knock the gentrification and colonizing ways of American evangelical churches from the very perch your own country and churches established with us and tried to perfect all across the world.
The church of Christ can certainly work within a parish-based system but not every locale renders such a model sufficient for kingdom work or remains all that helpful. What would parish life look like in Hong Kong or Mexico City? Or, how about Dallas, Texas or New York City? There is certainly something to be said for purposeful living in a particular community and intentionally serving a particular neighborhood, but what really is a neighborhood in today's society?
I ask the age-old question about who is our neighbor and what is a neighborhood because it's still very relevant to the purpose and life of the church. Times and places change, so how does the church effectively serve its sphere of influence in a world where borders, locale, and even the notion of face-to-face proximity are often disappearing into thin air. Living as a community is certainly important but what does that look like in the vast open spaces of rural America compared to the isolated garden life of central England? And, what of America's swelling metroplexes and the myriad number of smaller cities and towns that dot a landscape forty times the size of England alone?
Further, what of hangouts on Discord or the massive communities of video game enthusiasts that themselves are the size of the very cities and towns in question or even larger? How about the Facebook groups and constant communication and presence we enjoy from others online? The public square has moved from the town square and seats of castle-inspired power to Twitter, Facebook, and many other "places" that exist on massive server farms quite apart from the physical location of the community's existence.
So, in one sense I'd very much like to agree with you here but given the state of our technological society and its continued sociotechnological innovation I don't see how the parish system as framed is going to work in any way similar to how it has in the past. We might also consider that the parish system developed in what we call Europe today more broadly not because it was biblical necessarily but because relevant social institutions decentralized as the Roman Empire fell to pieces. Something had to take Rome's place and the parish system gradually developed as a result along with monasteries and feudal societies. The other historical question we might ask is whether the parish system has really worked in England at all since only about 2-3% of the people even go regularly to a parish church in a country that was once thoroughly Christian. Are we really to believe that the very system of ecclesial life in question had nothing to do with the vast unfaithfulness that exists in what was once the very model of Christendom?
Such a contention seems sociologically problematic and so there is more here to discuss. Britain is what she is today precisely because of her work in the rest of the world, a social and political superstructure she was very instrumental putting in place. The church has an obligation as a matter of mission to the whole world and especially to the world that English Protestantism as a matter of empire and economic endeavors made possible. The genteel life of Stoke-on-Trent exists because all the industrial manufacturing that once clouded its skies now takes place in places like Malaysia, Vietnam, China, and Mexico. Those communities face all the challenges of a booming industrialization while English clerics might rejoice in what a beautiful green place Shakespeare's home now is. But, the truth is that the neighborhoods of Shanghai and Guadalajara are filled with people that don't know Christ and aren't the product of a near two thousand year presence of Christianity in their neighborhoods.
So, I get it. We need to be intentional in our communities but we can't treat this topic with the sort of green-treed picture heavy romanticized appraisal of neighborhood that makes us think we all should live in a Shire like nice little hobbits with that occasional episcopal visit by Gandalf, dragon fireworks and all. We do ourselves and the church no favor by pretending life is something other than what it is now or that we ought to concentrate in the main on those physically closest to us. Our mission is the Great Commission and not setting up and maintaining a great neighborhood or town. And, look, I live in a post-industrial town in western Pennsylvania that could double for whatever you find in the English countryside minus what has been there over a thousand years. But, our focus can't merely be where we live because the gospel in the main has never been just about that reality. The gospel does transform neighborhoods and cities but we don't do that without keeping our focus on the continued proclamation of God's word to the whole world.
Thank you. This was a lovely post. But what is happening in photo #16?