Review of Pete Ward, Liquid Church, Paternoster, (2002). ISBN: 184227161x.
The whole emerging church thing is something I often think is the sort of thing I would expect to get quite enthused about: I am for example keen on Brian Maclaren's Little Britainesque approach to ecumenism (eg., Q. Are you an Anabaptist? A. Yeah but no but...) which he calls Generous Orthodoxy (which is perhaps not surprising since I was a part of what was erroneously seen as the postdenominational phase of charismatic Christianity).
Ward, who is a Lecturer in Youth Ministry and Theological Education at King's College, London takes the liquid motif thats flows ( clever huh?) thoughout the book from the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Modernity thesis. In a review of Bauman's later book Identity Dolan Cummings summarises Bauman's approach:
The idea of liquid modernity could be seen as Bauman's attempt to resolve the tension that exists in much social theory between explaining social phenomena as aspects of modernity, and accounting for their appearance only recently. After all, the modern condition, with its overturning of tradition, has dominated the past two centuries. Liquid modernity seems perhaps to be the late realisation of a tendency that has characterised modernity from the start. What remains at issue is whether the 'solid' institutions of prior modernity were merely the residue of tradition, or pointed towards a more enduring potential of modernity itself. Most pertinently, is the rational self-determining subject of modernity any more than an illusion that has had its day?
Inevitably, the undermining of familiar institutions, an aspect of modernity that has certainly been intensified in recent years, has had important consequences for people's sense of identity. There is nothing new about the observation that national and class-based identities (both of which had seemed almost definitively modern) have been upset by the end of the Cold War and various other developments discussed under the heading of 'globalisation'. Similarly, Bauman notes that while the workplace was traditionally a very important source of personal identity, changes in the economy have rendered it far less reliable. He suggests that the enduring identities once associated with work have given way to looser and more provisional identities, and conceptions of community, that are subject to constant change and renegotiation. Indeed, Bauman points to a more profound transformation of how we understand what it means to be human in the absence of transcendent ideologies (traditional or otherwise) such as have characterised modernity until recently.
Not having read Bauman I cannot comment on the persuasive of the Liquid Modernity thesis itself, although I suspect I would be in broad agreement - on an empirical level - although I would be interested to see how - if in fact he does how the liquidity of community relates to the upsurge in identity politics (to which philosophical communitarianism could also be said to be linked); a case could no doubt be made that they are dialectically related: the militancy with which a particular position is held is itself a reaction to the dissolution of "solid modernity".
Nonetheless it is clear why Bauman's liquid modernity should prove a fertile soil for a sociological analysis of contemporary Christianity (in truth I consider Ward's book more a piece of popular sociology then theology). In the UK the "Solid" churches are, - if the statisticians are to be believed, - in a period of terminal decline (In
God is Dead Steve Bruce predicts the Methodist church will disappear by 2031). One only needs to enter an average mainline denomination Church to be hit with a sea of grey hair.
Unlike the many "10 ways to grow your church" books out there Liquid Church does not attempt to propose a "prepackaged how-to manual for contemporary ministry" (p. 1). I give it credit for that; instead, Ward is more concerned with diagnosing the problem of contemporary Christianity. The primary gripe Ward has with solid church is its congregationalism:
Congregation characterizes solid church. By congregation I mean the tendency to emphasize one central meeting . Usually this meeting is a worship service held weekly on a Sunday morning. Gathering in one place [and out of another place?] to do the same thing together is one of the values of solid church (p. 17-18).
Solid church in its stubborn resistance to loosening the congregational gathered church mentality is doing its longterm health significant harm. The church, says Ward, should learn let go of its need for structure:
In place of going to church, the emphasis could be on living as Christ's body in the world ... worship and meeting will be decentered and reworked in ways that are designed to connect to the growing spiritual hunger in society rather being a place for the committed to belong (p. 2).
Ward introduces this way of thinking by relating a conversation he had with one of his research students who said that immediately prior to their meeting he was in a coffee shop with Christian friends. This, said the friend was church as here the fellowship and love of God were shared among the people of God.
Now I don't want to deny the premise of this argument; after all, it is not I think a mistake that some of the key analogies of the church in scripture are organic (eg, the Body of Christ). However, it in is here that my problems with the emerging church raise their head; in practice, Ward's approach threatens the catholicity of the Church.
About three weeks ago I posted a review of Cass Sunstein's Republic.com. While Suntein's thesis is overstated he does raise the issue of how, to put it simplistically, in the sociological arena 'like attracts like'. I fear the same is true within the ecclesiological arena and the way in which Ward emphasises reducing the communal meeting and reducing church coffee-shop meetings of the like-minded and similarly aged in practice denies the catholicity of the church. It is I think telling that there is little discussion of the eucharist in Ward's little book. For in the eucharist the whole church comes together in spirit in worship and participation together.
I have no doubt that Ward has a good point in emphasising the importance of fellowship for the Body of Christ, indeed, his emphasis on the lived faith that takes the Church out of its one hour slot every Sunday is vital. However, if the goal is to increase the numbers of those who say they do church then yes, Ward's liquid approach will probably bear fruit. It will however result in an increasng fragmentation of the Church. Success and faithfulness are not synonymous. Ward's liquid approach may lead to a successful church in the way it is in tune with the sociological treds of contemporary life but it will not be a faithful one. Is there not a place to stand firm in a commmitment to solidity:
to say we are community of all ages, races, classes, occupations who together constitute the Body of Christ in this community. Because we are plural you will not be in tune with all we do, we make no apologies for that. The gospel we preach is not one of instant gratification and fulfilment to personal whims; ours is a universal gospel. We invite you to be part of something, to join a community of discipleship where in the midst of a rapidly changing world we worship and our disciples of one who remains the same yesterday, today and forever more.
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