ICTHUS: More thoughts on Christ and Culture

There is no “Christianity” apart from a “Church”. That is to say adamantly that to be a “Christian” is to be a part of a people.

That seems to be the missing first step, especially today, in this Age of Empire, when the Church prefers to be something other than the Church, and remain silent as the Nationalistic Religions fill the airwaves and the halls of Churches with talk of “morals” that include not much morality, and make shambles of it by approving of the war machine and the sacredness of the “cause”.

But aside from the war question, and the lack of contrary voices, there is the abandonment of any serious attempt to “get at” the living of community, and in showing much interest at all in the treasure source that waits to be tapped by our getting serious about truly becoming responsible for one another’s journeys in a real and personal way. My friends in the blog world know SO MUCH more of me than people in my face to face world, and I feel this most acutely when I sit bathed in its absence in the Church. I am “bathed” because I experience this absence of shared story most acutely there, in various activities and obeservances, and often might be seen visibly shaking my head as I ask myself “How did we become such a culturally captive Church? How did we become a place where the last subject you might expect a to be the topic of a convseration that you happen upon to be something to do with what ministry is or what Christian community is. It’s usually filled with the same niceties one would hear anywhere else. And this is sad, and it is infuriating. I can blame Church of the Saviour for that deep dissatisfaction on my part. I keep looking for that type of determination to keep listening with one another for God, and to find the call of God often in the midst of our sharing hourneys, and EXPECTING that others will want to know where we’ve been this week on this journey.