From Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship, Chapter 5 (Discipleship and the Individual):
“Through the call of Jesus men become individuals…It is no choice of their own that makes them individuals: it is Christ who makes them individuals by calling them. Every man is called separately, and must follow alone.”
and
“He (Christ) stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. He is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality”
and
“The call of Jesus teaches us that our relation to the world has been built on an illusion…now we learn that in the most intimate relationships of life…direct relationships are impossible…Between father and son, husband and wife, the individual and the nation, stands Christ the Mediator…We cannot establish direct contact outside ourselves except through him, through his word, and through our following of him. To think otherwise is to deceive ourselves.”
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Some of my friends responded to the first post by defining individuals in light of how the Godhead expresses individualism — perichoretic harmony. That is, we are individuals only in the sense that we commune with God and others, much like the expression of perfect union and communion found in the Trinity. This idea, however, was somewhat lacking for me because I had a hard time understanding how redemption of humans through the atonement of Christ applied to that conception.
Most people with whom I have discussed this topic understand that the community of believers derives the concept of community from the community expressed in the Trinity, but I haven’t ever encountered a serious theological framework which applied the cross to community. More succintly, how can sinners like us experience the community of the Godhead? I think Bonhoeffer’s discourse on individualism expounded deeply on the doctrine of Christ mediatoral relationship as the means by which we enter into communion with God as well as other individuals.
I guess what I am thinking is that community cannot be properly seen in any way other than through the lens of Christ the Mediator. The Trinity is indeed a picture of what biblical community ought to look like, but it cannot be experienced outside of the individual redemption of a person. Christ alone is capable of creating the community of believers though His atoning blood on the cross. Bottom line, our individualism, as I am seeing it, is not defined by relationship to others, but in relationship to Christ, which necessarily translates to others.
Do you think this is too individualistic of a picture? If so, can you give me some help with respect to Atonement theology which provides some explanation for how individualism is defined?
How would considering the inmplications of imputation in regards to your atonement theology affect your view of community? In other words, if you looked at the atonement in light of imputation (Rom. 5:12-21), how would that then color the implications in regards to community? Is imputation individualistic, communal, both? How could that affect affect how we look at community and the individual?
Stew,
I think your second-to-last question is ultimately the one that I am trying to answer. Perhaps I am being semantic in defining biblical community as composed of the redeemed of Christ (the “many” in Romans 5), but I guess I’ll try to demonstrate the practical outflows of thinking differently.
As we have been pursuing this question of biblical community, and it has received notable attention recently with the advent of emerging and missional alike, I think “community” has become something that has an identity of its own. Almost this thing which has life aside from those who are actually involved in it. By practically distancing community from the individuals of whom it is composed, it has sort of taken a life of its own.
I think the major thought I’m working through is basically “is the total more than just the sum of the parts?” Here’s the deal…if you allow community to be something more than that, I think you need to seriously consider a Governmental view of atonement, or at least some aspect of general redemption, which to my seriously untrained theological mind is something of a no-no.
Please don’t see this as trying to regress into a “me and Jesus” conception of salvation. It’s less of an attempt to reclaim my individualism, and more of an attempt at theological rigor.
On an entirely different note, I was really meditating hard on Acts 2:42, and how THEY were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching. For the most part, our biblical study reflects our hyper-individualistic society in elevating the personal quiet time and bible study. I’m thinking we probably need to relearn how to actually study the Word together, communally (rather than just sit around a passage and tell me what you think…). How transforming would it be if we were continually able to apply truth in the intimacy of fellowship, based on common study and application?
Look for another post on that soon…
There is no way into Trinitarian life apart from Christ. Indeed, trinitarian community can not be experienced apart from Christ, but a degree of community exists in many non-Christian groups. The doctrine of the trinity accounts for this human phenomenon–desire for relationship with one another. So while the Trinity is the pattern for human community, I agree that Christ is the center for true, loving one another community. The power of christian community is, of course, Christ and his gospel.
Just this week our church plant core team pointed out that many communities, even xn ones, have unspoken rules that generate outsiders in a church/community. Those that keep the unspoken rules (attendance, dress, level of knowledge, etc) gain better access to “community” and receive greater acceptance. The gospel deconstructs these tendencies by building the commmunity not on rules, spoken or not spoken, but upon grace and union with Christ. By participating in union with Christ and fellowship with the Trinity, we enter into community, not to leverage our identity, but to free give and receive, with gospel grace and forgiveness always being central. This, as you get at Todd and Stew, is what comprises the power of xn community, but the Trinity is always the pattern and goal of community.
[...] , Community An interesting discussion on what make Christian community christian at An Elephant and a Mouse. [...]
I think what led me to this line of questioning was the tendency toward reacting to the hyper-individualism of the “me and Jesus” idea to disregard the radically personal and individual encounter a believer has with Christ and skip ahead to a Trinitarian framework of community.
By skipping over the individual’s encounter with Christ and the nature of His redemptive, sacrificial, and mediatorial work, you can arrive at a place where you disregard the substitutionary atoning work of Christ is, in the infamous words of Steve Chalke, “cosmic child abuse”.
So in summary, I think what I was writing/thinking through was reactionary not to the Trinitarian conception of community, but to the omission in some cases of an important biblical conception of individuality based upon the Cross.
Inquisitive topic
fair enough!