Читать книгу Worship Beyond Nationalism - Rob Hewell - Страница 5

Listen to the conversations at just about any gathering of Christians, regardless of the purpose for the gathering, and at some point the topic of worship is likely to come up. There is plenty of fuel for those moments, since worship is considered to be so central to our understanding of faith and life and there are so many dimensions to be considered. It is a much-studied facet of the church’s internal atmosphere and external identity. Any review of pertinent websites or available titles from online or on-the-shelf suppliers affirms that reality. The discussion of worship nears the level of sport in many quarters of Christianity.

While everyone seems to have an opinion as to what worship is or is not, or a preference for how it should be expressed, one truth seems evident: worship is in danger of being misunderstood or misappropriated. If worship truly is in any danger, it is so at least partially because of our readiness to be satisfied far too quickly with something that seems suitable even though it may not be complete or anywhere near correct.

There is no attempt here to get at the full range of possible perilous misunderstandings or misappropriations; the possibilities are far too numerous. This book does, however, seek to provide some perspective on one such possibility: to offer clarity regarding worship in light of the politics of God’s reign in Christ. In other words, this book is about worship as a political act.

Faithfulness to the triune God in worship is in and of itself a precarious proposition since it challenges our affections and loyalties for all things temporal and worldly. Such faithfulness is at stake on this count. A distinct word on this matter is crucial if confusions and misperceptions are to be minimized—if not avoided altogether.

Getting at this subject adequately requires some grasp of concepts regarding the church’s witness and history, the gospel, worship in its many dimensions, and culture. It also requires some understanding of the way power is leveraged for the strength and sustenance of nation-states and partisan political entities, and how religion, and even the church and its symbols and narrative, are sometimes used (and even abused) for those ends. Drawing these concepts into the same discussion with the nature of worship necessitates caution, finesse, nuance, and no small amount of courage.

Indeed, the interrelatedness of politics and religion is a timely subject in our world, particularly in the United States (U.S.), and specifically among evangelical Christians in this country. Calls for specifying the U.S. as a Christian nation in some quarters, matched by calls for the firm separation of church and state in others, enjoy daily media exposure. Without a doubt, the nation’s founding documents—definitely political in their own right—afford Christians the freedom to worship freely and openly. The same freedom is cast to groups and persons who choose other religious persuasions, or who prefer to ignore or even defame religious practice altogether. In theory at least, all faith or faithless expressions have equal opportunity to participate in the broader society.

Although lacking formal terminological cachet in America’s founding documents, the separation of church and state is the customary defining boundary between the two institutions. It is valuable and worth sustaining, and is deeply embedded in the doctrinal DNA in many quarters of evangelicalism. It is a functional dichotomy, however, belying an arguably weightier reality—politics and religion entwine enthusiastically in the open marketplace of pluralist ideologies. The passions stirred by each become hard-to-resist compelling forces, drawing each toward the other with magnetic abandon.

From its earliest inception, this nation’s patriotic demeanor has readily invoked a religious tenor. The story of national essence is emboldened by what is generally accepted as divine providence in its founding and flourishing. No doubt nationalism is a powerful force, propelling the U.S. through its headiest days while sustaining it through its darkest nights. Even further, the tendency toward America’s well-intended hegemony has generally fostered a forceful partisan political practice within virtually all of its spheres of influence.

Evangelicalism’s penchant for institution building is a reflection of its participation in Christendom in general and in American culture in particular. The church as institution in the U.S. has been well schooled in such tendencies, seeking to exercise its will by trading on the influences of partisan clout. Arguably, these influences generally lack deep consonance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. While not always overtly anti-gospel, they nonetheless give ultimate priority to the fitness and maintenance of the American statist agenda. Even when components of this nationalized agenda appear on the surface to be compatible with biblical mandates, jingoistic intent tends to insist on the subjugation of the gospel to that intent. It is no stretch to suggest that these dynamics are at least partially responsible for the compromise of faithfulness in worship among evangelical congregations within the American experience.

When nationalism propagates itself through a cross-pollination of the stories, symbols, and celebrations of religious groups with the nation-state, the stage is set for a national history bearing the character of sacrosanct myth. The stage is also set for confusion within the life of the church. Such civil religious activity is likely to create dissonance for Christ’s followers between what they understand to be biblical and what civil religion supports as religiously valid.

I am certainly not alone in a deepening conviction that the faithfulness of communal worship in the evangelical tradition in America has been compromised in various ways, this lack of clarity about politics being just one concern. The dilemma might be stated this way: How is it possible for Christ’s followers to worship faithfully in a nationalistic environment where religion and politics enjoy a vigorous affiliation while the separation of church and state is celebrated as the standard for the relationship between nation and faith?

No doubt religion in the U.S. exists in a highly-charged political environment. Political activity is certainly a necessary element of civilized society. Being political is part and parcel of American citizenship—no less for Christians who live in this country than for anyone else. Turning a collective back on political activity is a tempting option. Yet leaving politicality to a realm outside of faith is unsatisfactory for various reasons, not the least would be the danger of diminishing the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Absent an appropriate balancing influence, the political character of the life, teachings, and ministry of Christ falls too easily into worldly maneuvers that are inconsistent with biblical faith. (So also the witness of Christ’s followers.) The kingdom of God exists in, but not of, this world and has political responsibilities that are yet distinct from the machinations of this world. It is my conviction that the necessary balancing influence for the political character of God’s reign in Christ is liturgical. In spite of modernity’s ability to deftly separate elements of life into sacred and secular dominions, what appears to be two—political and liturgical—may indeed be more nearly one in the economy of the kingdom of heaven.

There are political implications for faithfulness in Christian worship. To deny that is to diminish the truth about worship. The challenge lies in subtlety, at times, for what is added to worship that may be questionable, but more frequently for what is not sufficiently manifest. Worship among evangelicals in the U.S. is rarely flagrantly nationalistic on a weekly basis. Yet is it often enough unclear about which—or whose—politics it favors, those of Caesar or those of God revealed in the story of ancient Israel and in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus was clear in his pronouncements about the reign of God. These truths were not always easily understood by those who walked with Jesus and heard his teachings. Even today truths about God’s kingdom require an entirely dissimilar orientation to reality than the world has always assumed as correct. The followers of Jesus must be obvious in living as witnesses to the reign of God. Doing so is somewhat complicated for Christians in America, a country whose national ethos-myth is steeped in a blatant worldly exercise of power within its own borders as well as on the global stage. Followers of Jesus have a citizenship that transcends and supersedes all earthly loyalties. Faithful worship makes this distinction clear.

It is not enough to simply inquire about the political character of worship. This work would be incomplete without some regard for the witness that faithful worshipers bear into this world. That witness calls for service, humility, and a conviction that God has come in Christ to be Lord of all creation, not confined to one realm or another. The church exists for the glory of God and for the sake of the world. Therefore, the quality of worship among Christians has a direct influence on the value of their witness in the world. The measure of encounters with the world will be revealed by the depth and richness of encounters with God in worship.

Faithfulness to triune God in worship is crucial for navigating such challenges encountered by congregations as they seek to live their witness into the world through actions that proclaim the reign of God. It must give substance to our understanding of Christ’s injunctions to his followers who are to be salt and light in the world without being of the world. Herein is a dynamic rubric for interpreting the dimensions, elements, and acts of worship in light of God’s politics, which represent a reign already begun but not yet fully revealed.

Worship Beyond Nationalism is an exploration of topics identified in this Introduction. It is not intended to be an overarching volume on worship per se. The focus is intentionally narrow in scope. No doubt there are many related topics not addressed here. What the reader will encounter in these pages is probably more descriptive than prescriptive—more consider this than do this. The thoughts presented in these pages will probably raise as many questions as they answer. While I have sought to write confidently about these matters, there is no attempt to declare these to be complete or final words on any of them. My purpose is to be faithful with concepts as I have come to understand them, and to foster significant conversations within the church regarding its worship and witness.

The terms world and worldly will appear frequently throughout Worship Beyond Nationalism. In this context, it should be understood to refer to the social, cultural, spiritual, and political paradigms present in human experience in any given age in history. In general the term will be used to refer to ways of life that are distinct from the living witness of Christians—explicitly identified as Christ’s followers representing faithfulness to God in worship, the church’s identity as the body of Christ, and the church’s Christ-formed agency on behalf of God’s kingdom.

Faithful worship requires absolute clarity about the worship of God in Christ. It properly orients Christ’s followers to the politics of God’s reign rather than those of worldly Caesars, and shapes the church for liturgical participation in missio Dei. It is precisely as the people of God become a holy nation and a royal priesthood that they indeed become church in the fullest, most biblical sense.

Worship Beyond Nationalism explores faithful worship as a political act by which the church declares allegiance to God in Christ rather than to any worldly empires. Faithful worship enables congregations to enact the reality of God’s kingdom and to embody the gospel for the glory of God and for the sake of the world.