The Church in local community is key to social change
and social demonstration. The Church involves those absolutely
crucial dynamics without which there can be no community. I use
the word "church" to talk about two things: the sociological
forms and the undergirding human dynamics. For the former I also
want to use the term "local religious institution."
For the sake of this talk, it does not really matter what your
particular religion is, or whether you think you have ever participated
in religion or piety, theology or comparative religions. What
really matters is that throughout history, the dynamics of the
Church and the concretion of those dynamics in local
religious Institutions has been absolutely critical
in the history of society in particular and in genera . The issue
for today is the recovery, the reforging of the local religious
institution, not for its own sake, hut for the sake of the society.
I have made the decision to love the local religious
institution. I do not like it at all, but I have decided to love
and care for it. In pondering this decision, I realized that loving
the local religious institution meant not only loving the Methodist
Church of which I am a Dart, but the entire Christian Church;
and then it shocked me to realize that this meant not only the
Christian Church, but any and all religious institutions which
have participated in forging history up to this point. This means
that if I were giving this talk to Buddhists in Sri Lanka, or
Hindus in India, or to Muslims in Egypt, I think I would give
essentially the same talk.
Bergson captured the essence of the role of religious
institutions in history when he said that every time a "mystical
awareness" comes into history, it permeates the fabric of
society. It is held in being by sociological forms until a new
mystical breakthrough emerges and then the old forms break down.
Instead of "mystical awareness." I prefer the words
image of humanness," or "new image of what it means
to he society" for describing what comes into being. This
new image then solidifies into social form and structure so that
it can be sustained and guarded, and preserved for history. The
social configuration I have chosen to call the local religious
institution, or the Church, plays such a role maintaining
and communicating an image of humanness for the rest of society.
Religious institutions are as old as history itself.
They are part of what history is. It is nonsense to believe one
can somehow separate secular and religious history. A tour of
the Museum of Natural Science makes that perfectly clear. From
man's earliest dawnings, the pot he made to carry water carried
more than water, it carried the story of his life, the understanding
of his origins, destiny and vocation. He implanted the stuff of
his life on the sides of the not used to carry the mundane stuff
called water from the river to the fire pit. Throughout history,
man has always found ways to carry his meaning with him in artifacts,
ritual, rites or stories learned at the feet of a guru. Through
such forms, man has expressed the meaning being the sustainer
of human community, being the guardian of what it means to he
man or woman, tribe or nation a people before the
Mystery in life.
How religious institutions are temporal, public,
historical happenings. They come into being under the rubrics
of a particular world view, the objective thereness of the times.
A particular social setting -- perhaps the desert, mountains or
river valley - shapes the way in which the encounter with what
it means to be human is imaged, remembered and preserved. Once
this happens, that world view literally determines the social
structure that will exist.
Confucian ethics serve to illustrate. It literally
expressed how one was to act as a human being in China; it articulated
what were crucial values and what was not. It is no wonder that
in trying to forge a new image of what it meant to be China, Mao
found it necessary to undercut Confucianism - not so some new
social formulation could happen in the society. When the essential
life articulation is being guarded as it should be within a religious
institution, then it continues to shape the picture of life for
the entire people.
Thus, religion's destinal role is to allow men in
any age, culture or society to grasp the significance of human
existence and to forge out society's structures. As an institution,
religion is always concerned with plumbing the deeps present in
the secular society and articulating them irrelevant images. Thus
it is a public reality. It functions as part of the social fabric.
Only when it becomes disassociated from the human reality does
it turn in upon itself.
In our time, religious institutions are in such a
crisis not because they are naughty, or because people
have stopped participating, but because of an objective happening
in the world. Our world view has done a total flip in such a way
that the mythology which was part of the public, secular, temporal
existence of man continued in one direction while the world, in
its selfunderstanding went in another. The public religious
institution therefore, became the private, religious club. which
assumed a different world view than the one in which man actually
found himself living day after day. This created a radical void
in symbolism, training and vocation which has allowed confusion
in man's self story. This is our present predicament. This void
is not exclusive to Western cultures or to Christian religious
institutions; Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism
are in exactly the same situation because of the dawning of the
Einstinian postmodern world we live in.
Yet, this also means that ours is a creative moment
and at the same time a dangerous cone. For It is a time when people
are living virtually devoid of mythology. It is a time, when,
perhaps, the tyranny of reduced lifeimages could simply
take over. Perhaps that is why in a time like this, mystery religions
are having a new day. People are again searching for a story of
what it means to be vocated, what it means to be human. In this
time of crisis and possibility a new articulation of spirit deeps
is being sought. I like this quotation from Theodore Roszak:
I believe the religious renewal we seek happening
about us means that we have arrived after long journeying at an
historical vantage point from which we can at last see where the
wasteland ends, and where a culture of human wholeness and fulfillment
begins. We can now recognize that the fate of the soul is the
fate of the social order.
Certainly it is not new to us that the world is in
a time of crisis and renewal. Prophets of the future have been
saying that to us for a long time. But there are some who suggest
that the present crisis means the demise of religion. I do not
think that is a viable possibility. Man has to have a way of articulating
the story of what it means to live in his world. Therefore, if
throwing away religious institutions is not the answer, one has
to ask the question, "what is the underlying reality, or
the underlying dynamic, to which every institutional form has
been and is always pointing either successfully or
partially?"
We have worked with the question of the dynamics
of the local church for some time. In part of our curriculum,
we talk about the elements or dynamic components of any primal
community using the language of primitive cultures. We talk about
the everpresent dynamic of the shamans, or those who always
discern the spirit deeps, the spirit edge of any community. They
do this not only for the religious of the community, but for everyone.
There are also those who hold the cultic in being, who hold the
story, the dance, the liturgy, the drama, the life meanings. And
there are also those who forge new directions In human settlement.
I do not know what to call them anymore; they are the pioneers,
hunterwarriors, builders. We have called those people who
hold the dynamic of the spirit deeps the Cadre. I like to add
the suffix "ing" to cadre, just to remind myself that
I am not talking now about a social structure, but about dynamics.
Congreqationing holds the cultic aspect; and the forgers, or builders
express what we call guilding.
The congregationing dynamic symbolizes or dramatizes
the story of humanness, not for its own sake, hut for the sake
of keeping a story of what it means to be human in history. I
like to think that Greek Civilization collapsed when people stopped
acting out those dramas which the local citizenry came to for
the entire day with picnic baskets to hear stories about the gods
and the human struggle. That is an Image of what I am talking
about, whatever other historical factors may have caused the collapse.
In so far as this dynamic is always present In community, it becomes
solidifiednot in a negative sense of the word
but it becomes solidified into a society's religious form, or
it religious institutions. The dynamic itself, of course, is always
much more than the institution, but it Is not other than the institution.
The congregationing dynamic also awakens selfconsciousness.
I like the picture of the Australian Aboriginals who are sitting
around a log learning from an elder. This is the seminary dynamic;
it is teaching the deepest wisdom about life and doing this very
practically.
Siqnaling corporate style is the third dimension
of the congregational dynamic, forging out for society its practical
styles of life. When the Christian Church was public in North
America, insofar as it was part and parcel of the fabric of society,
Sunday was the unquestioned, undisputed day of rest. There was
also no question a~ out an appropriate style for men and women,
or style of human care and ethical response. Whether or not one
participated selfconsciously in that congregationing, it
formed your basic images of what the style of existence needed
to be. Such is the role of the congregationing dynamic. Perhaps
the entire dynamic is about facilitating vocational engagement.
This is not to say some particular vocation, nor any superficial
implications of the term, but vocation in the sense of facilitating
man's depth engagement in the historymaking process.
Cadreing is about releasing spirit deeps. It involves
those who seek the necessary means by which man expresses the
profoundness of his human journey. Part of this is shaping the
futuric vision, or discerning trends, the great surges of history,
and the contradiction present in society. It has to do with seeing
the direction society needs to move and beginning to create images
for that direction. There is also the function of training in
the practical means, or being the ones like others
throughout history who create the methods for understanding,
for action and for spirit sustenance necessary for any society.
Further there is the dynamic of developing representational servanthood.
I suspect if we trace man's history through that screen, every
nation or tribe would include those who developed a radical embodiment
of total care and expenditure as a key to the sustaining or forging
of a new direction for community.
In guilding, I include initiating social demonstrations. Guilders are those who forge out the necessary directions by standing before the mystery of life and in their particular situation, see what is necessary, and create a sign of hope concretely for men to see. They are those involved in engaging human resources. How do you motivate, how do you recontext, educate and give new images of engagement to humankind? They are involved In formulating structural care. It is this dynamic which seeks to determine the organization
al forms and sustaining networks that allow all to
have access to the benefits of the society and release their passion
and participation for the sake of the whole. Sustaining total
expenditure describes the whole dynamic; expenditure toward the
future of any community. When a community fails to see itself
expended toward the concrete future, then it begins to disintegrate;
it begins to fail. It fan's to be able to engage its people.
Obviously, for our times, religious Institutions
are in need of renewal or reforging. I do not like the word renewal;
it sounds like an attempt to do the same old thing bigger and
better. That Is not what I mean. t prefer the word reforging.
The key to tints reforging will be a new mythology, a new morality
and a new diety.
Mew mythologv cannot be suddenly thought up. It does
not entail sitting around dreaming up neat stories; the new mythology
will emerge from the stuff of the postEinsteinian world.
Religious institutions do not create an "interesting"
mythology for the times. Instead, they give new direction and
voice to the mythology already present in the society. Religious
institutions formulate the myth of the times into rituals, rites,
stories, celebrations, dramas and songs. They relate them to the
existential happenings of the age and ground them tn concerts
and ret tonal frameworks. Certainly an aspect of responsible reconstruction
of religious Institutions Ts the clarification of the insights
present in both the longstanding mythology and the rational
frame. When people see their gifts and limitations they experience
a permission to move throuih them into a rearticulation
for the future.
The suburbs are a microcosm of some of the crises
of our times. They strike me as places with no sense of origin
and no awareness of a destiny. By "no origin", I mean
they have no story to tell about their roots. By "no destiny",
I mean they have little vision of where they are going or what
role they play in the creating of history and society. They contain
a void in the articulated significance of what it means to be
a corporate body or an individual in history today.
New morality arises from the fact that we live in
one globe, one world. Man sees indicatively his responsibility
for every other person, or that life is utterly interdependent.
How does this effect what It means to care responsibly in our
times? We are moving away from private, communal or family images
of what morality is, to a set of images that take the entire globe
into account. The new morality is requiring methods by which man
can act out kits engagement in the world. Every social vehicle
has with it understood methodologies, the common sense of how
you act and be, of what to value and what to abhor. When a social
vehicle collapses, so do the methods which spelled out significant
and responsible action.
Such mythologies are necessary for significant engagement.
The question is what are the necessary methods by which one can
be humanact humanlyin the twentieth century?
How does one think in a relative, global contextwith the
knowledge expansion and selfconsciousness of our time? It
is almost as if once you have moved into the new world, everything
you thought was "think" before, is now "unthink."
The creation of the new morality has to do with methods delivered
to people that illuminate ways in which they can be engaged.
We also have the new Piety to consider. Piety has
something to do with the necessary discipline and rubrics by which
the individual and the community can maintain steadfastness in
living; it is the means by which they can plumb the deeps of their
own Interiors, individually and corporately, and can be sustained
in their resolve to be engaged in life as they stand before its
absurdity and wonder. Somehow the new Diety has to be a means
of seeing through to the meaning of the mundane we are inwhich
is the only "in" there is to be in. It also must provide
a means of experiencing the human journey. The old forms of piety
worked, if you will, in another world view. They do not work in
our present one.
You may have observed that local religious institutions
are often reluctant about renewal. This always irritated me until
I realized that the local religious institution is called upon
to be a guardian. This is a great historical role to play and
it demands of us that we have clarity and comprehensiveness in
moving into the future. It calls into question quick moves, and
surface responses. It pushes us to deep reflection in making change.
And yet, the local religious institution wants to
be what It is called to be in its very foundational dynamics.
The seeds are in its midst. The people who care and yearn to be
engaged in the future are there. We need to find the means for
its reforging. I suppose sometime down the road this will result
in a new social form. Such a form is emerging; not because we
are doing anything, in the first instance, but because God is
doing something in His world. I have no conception of the new
form, and in some ways, I am not yet much interested in that question.
But I am Interested in the means by which we prepare for the reshaping
of these present religious forms, structures, and dynamics as
they move toward what they are called to be in the creation of
primal community.
What is called for is a revolutionary or transestablishment
force within primal community at the point of our work with local
religious institutions. The task is not that of reforming. Most
plans for local reliqTous institutions I know anything about are
reform projects. That is, finding ways to get things back to the
way they used to he in the old social vehicle and world view.
This stance expresses a radical "no" to the future.
Another option is revolt. To say, "We don't need religious
institutions anymore," is to revolt. Remember when during
some of our courses a few years ago people would indicate that
the best first step in renewing the church was to burn the buildings
down? That isn't heard much anymore, interestingly enough. Revolt
is a way of saying a "no" to the past. The revolutionary
or transestablishment is one who sees the depth insight of the
origins of any religious articulation, in any structural articulation,
and says "yes" to both its greatness and its perversions.
He takes hold of both and moves into the future.
The local religious institution has got to be dealt
with if you are going to deal with primal community. Either you
must work for its renewal or kill it. Those are the only two choices
I see. I think Mao took the route of killing it not
killing the dynamic of the church, mind you, but the religious
institution. In fact, in Hong Kong, you can buy parts of the buildings
and symbols which were dismantled and moved across the border
during the Cultural Revolution. It was Mao's way of dealing with
the fact that the religious institution sustains the old social
vehicle in being.
Our understanding is that you work through the local
religious institution and move it, always sensitive to its own
interior struggles in moving forward. It is our work to enable
people within the church to emhody the dynamic of the local church
in community.
All this calls for catalytic tactics and indirection.
For the past four years in local churches across the country we
have been Involved in illuminating the depth meaning behind everything
that is being done so that what is being done can be transformed
in a twentieth century world. We have done this so that the meaning
of the mythology, the meaning of the training, the meaning of
social action can be radically metamorphosized Tnto something
which moves ahead. Releasing methodologies that illuminate the
thinking and action necessary for the postmodern era into
the life of the local churches serves to point toward the new
mythology, and thereby release the means by which local churchmen
who already care for community can act out that care significantly.
This entire process is both local and global. The
concern for local, religious institutional renewal is not for
the sake of its own community, but for the sake of the role of
all religious institutions across the globe. Unless that happens,
there is no reason to bother with the religious institution in
my community. However, those institutions are the only place where
I can concretely act out my concern for the totality of that social
form and its role in primal community.
I think this is the right time. Not only is it the
right time within Christian institutions, but within Buddhism,
Hinduism, Islam, etc. The conversations we have had with various
religious groups, over the past two years indicates that each
has a fantastic awareness of its role as guardian of the human
element. Each, too, has to go through a metamorphosis. The Church
in local communities is the key. It Is interesting that years
ago Augustine said, "The church is the congregation of the
human race." The church dynamic is a microcosm of social
direction and human depth. It is essential to primal community.
Regardless of what your particular religion is, or
what particular form of piety you practice, or whether or not
you participate self-consciously in any form of worship, if you
love, if we dare to care for primal community, we have no choice
but to dare to love the local church in order to recover our roots
as a society, and move through them into the future. This gives
us the freedom to do the necessary, revolutionary deed and gives
us the possibility of creating the future.
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