When looking at urban tribes through a cultural theological lens, it is important to provide a working definition of theology, which is the process of the community of God seeking truth about God and his relationship with creation through revelation within a cultural context. Theology is first a normative discipline; as Peter Hodgson states the primary focus of theology is “Theos” or “God,” making God the subject of knowing, or the absolute reference point. Theology does not exist in a vacuum; it must be a contextual discipline, which focuses on the universal questions of creation. Theological reflection is necessary in order to apply theology in real life situations, contexts, or in cultural reflection because we are not provided with a set of “ready-made” answers that can be imposed on all “peoples, contexts, and societies. Therefore, we must understand that the answers theology provides are shaped by our cultural “language, symbols, concepts, and concerns.”
Since theology involves answering questions to issues in our current cultural context, it should also involve asking questions about “how true, good, or constructive” a culture’s particular “values, beliefs, practices, and experiences” are. Cultural theologian, Gordan Lynch, proposes that to do this one must ask the following three questions: Does culture reflect a true picture of God, suffering, evil and redemption in light of revelation? Does culture manifest , “just relationships between people,” allowing communities to live authentically and promote the well being of humanity? To what extent does culture offer “constructive experience of pleasure, beauty, and transcendence?”
The revised correlational approach recognizes that Common Grace exists within creation and that truth and goodness exist outside a particular tradition or worldview by critically approaching a cultural item and identifying the positive aspects, while challenging what is damaging about the said item. The first step of Lynch’s model requires one to examine the cultural issues, idea, or material in order to understand the meaning of this aspect of culture “on its own terms without bring in any religious judgments.” That is the practice I underwent last week in my review of the book Urban Tribes. The second step of Lynn’s (should this be Lynch’s) model focuses on looking at the Christian tradition to identify similar concerns and issues that Urban Tribes addresses. In order to do this I have broken up concerns and issues into four main topics: singleness, family life, community, and dating/marriage.
Singleness
Over the history of the Church the single person has played an important role within the Church community. Jesus heralded that marriage is no longer a duty in the community of the kingdom of God, a radical new understanding during Jesus’ time for some (Matthew 19:10-12). From the beginning of the Church Paul advocated for the role of the single person as one whose attention is undivided, one who can focus on the affairs of the Lord (1 Corinthians 7:32-34). As the Church community grew under the Catholic Church, singleness was made mandatory for priests, bishops, and popes in service to the Lord. Celibacy became respected by communities when single members of the community as Church members held high power. During the Reformation many of Reformers denied the Catholic ordinances of mandatory singleness for priests, bishops, and others members of church leadership. For unknown reasons this concept soon spread and singleness quickly became taboo in the post-reformation church community. In fact, Rodney Clapp argues in his book Families at the Crossroads that this belief is still continued today in many denominational communities. Therefore, today in the church there are many of singles who find themselves ostracized from faith communities because of the family focus of many church programs and leadership, as well as the overall church community.
Family
The family has taken many shapes over the course of the life of the Church. At the time of the birth of the Church, the family looked more like a tribal family unit then today’s nuclear family. When studying the gospels it appears that Jesus believed that his family was not primarily his blood relatives, but his family was composed of those who share his obedience to the will of God (Matthew 12:49-50). In fact, Jesus warns his followers that he did not come to bring the family unit together, but instead to divide it, “father against son,” or “daughter against mother” (Luke 12: 52-54). Taking these two verses together, Clapp has argued that Jesus calls his church to be a family of families, made up of those who follow Jesus as Lord. Peter in his epistle also continues Jesus’ message of redefining the family unit when he uses the phrases “Universal Church” and “Family of God” to refer to the church community (1 Peter 4:17). Paul also uses this family imagery when he calls believers “children of God” or “heirs of God,” something everyone in the first century would have associated with the Hebrew or Greek family unit (Romans 8:16-17, 9:8; Phil. 2:15). The writer of Hebrews even continues this new understanding of families, when he or she states that if disciples are not disciplined, they become illegitimate children of God (Hebrews 12:8). The Church understood that the promises of God transformed individuals into God’s literal sons and daughters, thus creating a new family. The Church understood that the family of God is more important than the cultural family. When the Church became a part of the Roman Empire under Constantine, the Christian idea of family began to look more like the current cultural understanding of family one found themselves in. The Church somehow lost its understand of itself as a family of God, and understood itself more as a religious organization. Today the Christian idea of family is the nuclear family, which consists of a heterosexual couple and their children, in which the husband maintains authority within the household and the mother manages the home and children. It is interesting to note that even in today’s society our family unit looks a lot like our own culture, which is shaped by capitalism and nationalism as Clapp argues.
The Community
The members early Church referred to themselves as the ekklesia, which is translated “church” in English. Early in Christianity the Church extracted their understanding of who they were to be from the fact that they believed that they now existed in a new age, during the reign of the Kingdom of God. The use of this Greek word suggests that the early Christian community saw themselves as a people brought together by the Holy Spirit, bound to one another through Christ in covenant as God’s people. This type of community did not just contain one current demographic of people, but rather a mosaic of individuals such as singles, families, elderly, and slaves. In the New Testament we find three names authors use to refer to the ekklesia, which all relate to each member of the Trinitarian God: the nation of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Spirit. Theologians have suggested that the ekklesia is a representation of God, who dwells in community bound together through the Spirit. As time went on, the Church declared that its essence is contained in four marks—apostolicity, catholicity, unity, and holiness. The Catholic, Orthodox, and other high church denominations raise apostolicity as the highest of the marks. During the Reformation, some theologians shifted the focus of “the essence of the church” towards the Word and sacrament, where the more radical reformers developed an ecclesiology that became known as congregationalism, asserting that the true church is made up of those who stand within a voluntary covenant with God. This movement toward covenantalism shifted the church toward a local understanding of church, instead of a universally understood reality. It is this covenantal ideology that has greatly affected American churches today. Today many church members understand the church to a building more than a group of people who find the identity within a universal metanarrative. Some Christian movements, including the Emergent Church, are currently challenging congregationalism ideals of church, but it is yet too early to see what affects these challenges might bring.
Dating and Marriage
The Bible does not speak directly about dating, and throughout Church history the Church has usually followed the marriage/dating structure of whatever culture it exists in. In fact, dating is a rather new invention of society as it moved towards a more consumer-driven culture. In centuries past marriages were arranged by parents, mostly for the economic benefits for both families. In the United States, even in the church, individuals are allowed to date others in order to find a suitable mate. Once one finds a desired mate of one’s choosing like one finds a new car or house, one makes a covenant to be married with that person “till death do they part.” In the New Testament marriage was viewed as a reflection of Christ’s union with the Church; (Ephesians 5: 31-32) it is in this holy communion that the two are bound together as “one” (Gen 2:24). It is this view of married is still widely held by many church denominations today.
Next week we shall look at the final two steps of Lynch’s cultural theological model in hopes of finding out what urban tribes can teach the church and what the church can teach those who find themselves in urban tribes. Until next Tuesday.
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