At Reba Place Fellowship, a conversation has been occurring about Primitivism, and how it might go well with a Christian vision of Sermon on the Mount. Hunter-gatherer societies, so the narrative might go, traversed the world taking each day’s blessing of provision as a blessing from God/ the earth. The story could be told that they saw themselves in harmony with the creation, and if they were to find food presented to them on a particular day, there might be something within them not in harmony with their fellow creatures. It also creates a sort of pro-mobility narrative. While the Israelites wandered in the desert eating manna from heaven, things weren’t too bad. The real problems started when they put down roots and tried to violently take over and claim ownership of a land.
Hopefully that did justice to the account; I am still very unfamiliar with it, but this is what I’ve gleaned from the brief conversations on it so far. Recently, Halden has been posting a few things as well regarding “place,” claiming it isn’t just about putting down roots anywhere, but one has to ask “which place?” Halden first affirms an aspect of this emphasis that new monastics often do (i.e., The Wisdom of Stability):
“I understand that Fitch is emphasizing “place” (as many missional and new monastic folks do, including myself) in an attempt to combat certain elements of the contemporary evangelical church, such as suburban commuter churches in which the congregates don’t share much in the way of meaningful common life. In the face of churches whose members may live anywhere and not necessarily anywhere near one another, the call to “place” seems to make some sense. Certainly the church is not faithful if it construes itself as a sort of abstract meeting place that does not call us into common life and mission together.”
But, at the same time, Halden is skeptical that “place” can do all that it often is cracked up to do.
It seems to me that the more pertinent call to the church is not simply to embrace “place”, as if that were some overarching category. Rather the church must discern how different spaces are created in this world, how the principalities and powers seek to divide, enslave, and dehumanize those for whom Christ died and in whom he still suffers. It is into those spaces, the spaces claimed by the idolatrous powers that the church must be found if it is to be counted faithful to the Messiah who proclaimed salvation and restoration to “the least.” In entering these spaces we are not promised the security of “place.” Quite the opposite: “The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Discipleship calls us, I believe, not into the security of place, but into the insecurity of obedience, of suffering with and bringing the good news to those who are being ground under the oppressive wheel of the powers. It may be that “place” is not a gift we will always be able to claim or assume upon. It may be instead that we are called to die to the security of “place,” and be driven, by the Spirit to pour ourselves out as a drink offering with, for, and alongside those who are driven out of “place.”
This seems to really resonate with some of the primitivism language I was talking about earlier. A few months ago, I did a paper on church architecture, and since all the best papers are arguments in which you should pick a side, I decided to argue for an articulation of church architecture in which it was distinctly churchy– that is to say, a gothic church building emphasizes beauty and the unique contribution that Christianity can give society, whereas I would not readily support church buildings that de-emphasize the peculiarity of what it means to be a Christian and look like community centers that are often stripped of Christian symbolism other than a simple cross.
However, I could have taken a different position, and that is what I call the “house church” model. This is the model that says any space can be used for Christian worship, there is no sacred-secular distinction, and refurbishing or renting buiildings that were or are used for different things emphasizes our temporaryness. This notion of mobility, of not putting down roots because we are only “resident aliens” so to speak, also makes a lot of sense to me as well.
However, now that I have quoted Halden extensively, I should also make sure to state my differing opinion with him as well. His second post goes on to talk about the incarnation. He restates the questions others had been asking of him:
“If we relativize “place,” does that amount to a denial of the incarnation, in which God in Christ comes and dwells in a particular place and culture? If we are to be in the world as Christ himself was, does that not also mean that the church ought to enculturate itself, establishing rootedness, identity and longevity by stabilizing its life in a particular place, thus imitating and participating in Christ’s incarnation?”
Halden goes on to say that:
“This use of “incarnation” I take to be an extremely widespread problem in a lot of contemporary ecclesiological and missional discourse and practice. It relies on an an unbiblical expansion of “incarnation” into a theological category that neglects the actual meaning of that doctrine in terms of the concrete history of Jesus Christ. That is to say, “incarnation” does not name a broad theological principle or metaphysical-ecclesiological quality. Rather it is a doctrine about Christ’s singular person and work that is derived from the radical event of his crucifixion and resurrection. “Incarnation” must be understood concretely in terms of Christ’s own history, his concrete story.”
Now, my response would be to say you can “relativize place” while not denying the theological category of the incarnation. As Halden goes on to talk about, Jesus did not literally put down roots, he traversed a lot of geography, and Paul later traversed oceans and continents as well for the sake of the Gospel. However, I do not identify the mystery of the incarnation, and the call to live incarnationally myself, as synonymous with the assertion that I need to put down roots. Instead, I think the doctrine of incarnation is more about the type of God that God is– he wants to be present in a material way and affirm materiality. The church, then, as the imago dei, should also affirm materiality by being earthy people, connected to the dirt that we were created from, not trying to escape things like water, bread, and blood by spiritualizing it into theoretical principles about salvation. Being incarnational, to me, means caring about the bodies of others, not just their minds. Sometimes that can be done by committing to living in a place over time. Perhaps sometimes it can be done better by a good sense of mobility. But you can be mobile while still appreciating your body. In fact, mobility might heighten our self-awareness of our body as it gets tired and strained through the instability of mobility, and by being reminded of our own embodiment, we remember the embodiment of others, and we try to relieve their strains and weariness.
I think it’s perfectly legitimate to have the incarnation be a theological category that is applicable to us and our lives, not just Christ’s; but it does not mean we have to put down roots at the expense of marginalization and oppression of others.
I think its worth noting that in the history of Christianity it’s the high liturgical churches with ornate buildings that have been consistently more mission minded than us Protestants. We came pretty late to the game. While I suspect some would say much of that mission was imperialistic, which is true to some debatable extent for Roman Catholicism, it would not be a critique that applies so easily to Eastern Orthodoxy (whose missionary efforts far exceeded the Roman Catholics).
Also, I thought you might be interested to know of a conference that will address these views more explicitly. The Jesus Radicals Conference will be held in the Twin Cities this year at the Missio Dei community July 29-30. See more info here: http://www.jesusradicals.com/conference/
Thanks Blake, I would love to go to the Jesus Radicals Conference, but I don’t think it will work out this year. This is an annual conference I hope?
That is interesting to consider that the more ornate buildings have a solid base for mission work. Kuyper has a distinction between church as organism and church as institute, and that for the church to be the light shining into the spheres of the world (organism) it must first be renewed by the light by returning frequently to the church as institute.
Also, some have noticed that for refugees and people who have been displaced in an oppressive way, the stability of an established church is more desirable for them.
Yes, it’s an annual conference. There will be a group leaving from Elkhart/South Bend, IN if the only thing keeping you from going were costs. They move the conference every year. Last year I think it was in Philadelphia or Seattle and two years before that it was in Dubuque, IA.
I should clarify it’s not the ornate buildings themselves that were making missionaries although the Eastern Orthodox at least might assert the theology in the decorum may have inspired some. Ornate buildings as a feature of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy did not hinder them from doing far more mission than Protestants did for hundreds of years before we got our act together.