Slightly in relation to the last post, I want to talk a bit about the notion of the local church. What brings me to mention this is the most recent post from Orthodox priest, Stephen Freeman. I've mentioned him a number of times here on this blog, and that is because I find his thoughts provoking and challenging. And although he focuses primarily on Orthodoxy, I find a lot of what he says to be equally applicable to Christianity as a whole, and especially how it is to function within American and Western culture.

Fr. Freeman describes Orthodoxy in America as a stranger in a strange land. Indeed it is--rooted in Byzantine and Eastern European culture, it seems markedly strange and different to Westerners. He makes the point that Orthodoxy seems to be designed to work best in a small village setting, and that the commuting aspect of American culture has made things difficult. Some of his parishioners travel 75 miles to come to the church. This is problematic for Orthodox believers as the gathering together of that community occurs more frequently than a Protestant church. However, Fr. Freeman is discontent with this commuter mentality, and though within the realm of evangelicalism in America it has come to widely accepted, he issues a warning:

We must, however, recognize the nature of our situation and not suggest that since the Church lives in Babylon it must do as the Babylonians do. I would gladly argue that this would be our worst mistake. Orthodoxy has a life that bears a shape, formed in a crucible, that we should not lightly change in the culture we now find ourselves in...We are strangers in a strange land, and we must assemble ourselves together as Church often. There we are fed by grace and manifest who and what we are to an even greater extent by the goodness of God.

American culture is saturated with the idea of choice. A professor of mine pulled up the statistic that in the average franchise grocery store in the United States, there will be upwards of 50,000 items available to the consumer. Half-mile stretches of road are devoted strictly to restaurants. An advertising campaign for the best selling pickup truck in North America, the Ford F-series, states that it comes in over three million different configurations.

But this aspect of choice has filtered over to the Church as well. The schismatic nature of the American Church is deeply disturbing. The over 30,000 known denominations are evidence of this. There is a proliferation of churches on every corner (especially in the South) and this has done injury to the idea of community and commitment. We choose churches based on our needs and wants instead of being a part of the church in our community so that we can meet the needs of others and contribute with our gifts in our local setting. Some people see no issue in driving thirty miles to attend a church they like, though choosing to go that distance means they will participate far less, often only attending the weekly service. One particular church in my area has members that will commute from southern Georgia weekly to attend services--a three-hour car ride.

This is a difficult question, I realize, especially for those who tend to lay emphasis on the necessity of theological agreement between the individuals in the community, and the individual and the broader community (denomination). How much priority should be placed on aligning ourselves with like-minded believers? Many would argue that for the sake of the gospel and our witness in our communities and the world at large, these distinctions should be played down so as to present a unified front. To be sure, this is a commendable notion. American Presbyterian theologian, J. Gresham Machen, once addressed the question of when one should leave a church by stating that the point at which to withdraw from a church and go elsewhere is when being a part of that community causes you to sin. That, of course, leaves room for interpretation and the judgment of conscience, but I think it also provides something for our current, divisive Protestant landscape to think about.

But this question is not one that the Church in other places has to deal with. Those who have served on the mission field can well attest to that. Small localities in nations where the gospel does not have a significant presence are often blessed to have one church in their area. I think it goes without saying that believers in those settings are more than willing to lay aside their theological disagreements and worship together as a unified community. There are lessons to be learned from this. It involves us stepping outside the boundaries of our culture and seeing things in a different light.

The point is that I think we need to work on reviving the notion of community in our local churches. As strangers in a strange land, we need to be bound together with the unity that comes in being children of God. And that is what I think Fr. Freeman is also getting at. Community is best lived out in a geographically-local setting, whether it is an urban neighborhood or a small town somewhere in the middle of a rural area. A close community will provide the sustenance needed to live as strangers in a foreign land.

Our definition of "church" is important here. We must definitely not use it as a verb, as something we do, but should instead work towards understanding it as a proper noun, a name or title given to a body of people--indeed, an anointed title. Church encompasses so much more than a building or something that happens on Sunday. It is a way of life, a calling. Fr. Freeman makes that clear about Orthodoxy in his post, and I want to stress that point here too. If we understand our calling to be representatives of the Kingdom of God, and the Church to be at the heart and center of that calling, then the importance of the local church and community becomes more evident.

In a way then, what I have said here should precede the discussion I have had with a number of people in the last post (especially in the comments). Once we recognize the importance that the Church should play in the community, then we can begin to talk about how that should be done.

The Church is such an integral part of life in Orthodoxy, and as Fr. Freeman points out, American culture makes it difficult to maintain that understanding. Such is the case for Christianity as a whole. In an earlier post I stated that humans are meant to live in community and our churches should be reflective of that. If the Church (and by extension the Kingdom under the rule of God) is not at the heart of that community, something else will be. And for anything else to be the center of a community is nothing less than idolatry.