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Following Jesus in nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, we love our neighbors and enemies as God loves us all, becoming a peace church to share in God’s work to save the world.

Vision: The Church as a Model of Human Community

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ECAPC Vision

5th of 7 in a series.

5. The Church As A Model Of Human Community

    I think I am quite aware of the liabilities, as well as the possibilities, of the word “church” in any invitation for people to find a place of personal healing and social ministry. Indeed, the experience of many people with church is so laden with pain and failure that they find it very difficult, if not laughable, to view the church as a serious option for either personal resource or peace action. This has in fact led more than a few people to essentially give up on the church.

    But there’s a further twist here that we must be aware of. A significant number of the people who have given up on the church are still in the church. They are still in the church as pew sitters, maybe even teachers or volunteers of some type, or, and it goes this far, even as paid employees of church structures or bureaucracies.

    What this means is that these people will be a drag on any effort to renew the church or expect it to change. They will be a drag without intending to be, perhaps without knowing that they are. Every Church A Peace Church must be fully aware of this reality. Such people will often disclose themselves by their tendency to favor political action over church renewal, social strategizing over mining the book of the ancestors for its wisdom, and benign neglect of the voice of Jesus while listening to many other voices.

    In contrast to these realities of weakness and failure, a peace church informed and shaped by the life and teachings of Jesus remains a powerful goal to pursue and a mighty witness by its very existence. For every story of the church’s abject failure, descent into fear and violence, crass materialism and patriarchal and racist power there is a story, or three, of faithful witness, courage and compassion, generosity and sacrifice, and the inclusive, welcoming power of loving the other to the extent even of loving the enemy.

    Whether a church consists of 10 people gathered for a meal in a home or a cathedral filled with thousands of people with great organ music, when that church lives out the hope of Christ’s resurrection from the dead, the healing of his touch and compassionate life, and the truth of his words in a culture marked by religious and political pretense and fraud--then that church is a light on a hill, and people will notice. They will receive a positive message. When the apostle Paul said that the church is the body of Christ, he was saying that the life of the church makes the life of Jesus visible in the world.

    Of course, to live the life of Jesus in the world is to risk the death of Jesus in the world--but also his resurrection. It may well be that, in the end, a peace church is a church which knows what happened to the body of Christ in the world, but still wants to be the body of Christ in the world.

Comments

John:
I have meditated a great deal on Eph 3:10, asking myself the question, when have we(the church) failed to live up to God's vision. Let me cite two examples: a.) I had a church history prof who said that the reason why communism succeeded in Russia was because the church had failed. The church in Russia prior to the Russian revolution had become exceedingly wealthy in the face of the poverty of the Russian people. b.) When I speak about the church's call to non-violence, I find people arguing that the Second World War proves the need for a strong military, or(the argument goes) we would all have been living under Nazi rule. My response is that the second world war only proves the failure of the church, because the church gave its blessing to the Nazi regime, rather than confronting the evils of the regime.
I think it is essential that we wrestle with the question of what it means for the church to be faithful in our present circumstance. I argue that there is as much unfaithfulness in the violence of our entertainment as there is in the corridors of power, and the church's silence will come back to haunt us.
Thanks for your writings.

Posted by: Lorne

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