This is a repost from an old blog 'o mine. If you're interested in reading more like this, check out the posts from June/July 2009.

Isaiah 19 is one of the most scandalous (and therefore obscure?) passages in the Bible. Do you remember the story of the Exodus? Remember how in Egypt, the people of Israel (descendents of the sons of Jacob-renamed “Israel” – the God wrestler) were brutally enslaved? The Egyptians tried to throw all the Israelites baby boys in the Nile? The Israelites cried out to God and then God smote the Egyptians so Israel could go free?

Change scenes: hundreds of years later, after Israel is a well-established kingdom, the story goes on to say (2 Kings/Jeremiah) that God uses Assyria to discipline Israel for its idolatry and treatment of the poor and vulnerable. Assyria had the reputation as the most brutal empire on earth, which is why Jonah wanted them destroyed, if you also remember that story. In this latter context, Egypt is a weak and ineffective ally for Israel; an ally that fails her.  

Well, most of Isaiah 19, written hundreds of years later, is about how God wants to save and redeem Egypt, basically doing the same thing for Egypt that was done for Israel and then... this. The section closes with this crazy passage in v.23-25:
“In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance."

Isaiah proclaims that God's will is a joint worship-service and blessings upon these nations, while calling Israel “the third, along with...” them. That would have made some people really mad. Exceptionalism is not a new idea (most nations experience it) and Isaiah isn’t the only prophet that messes with this idea in the biblical context.

Amos 9:7
7 "Are not you Israelites
the same to me as the Cushites?"
declares the LORD .
"Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt,
the Philistines from Caphtor
and the Arameans from Kir?”

Huh? What was God doing with the Cushites, Philistines and the Arameans? The biblical narrative doesn't have much more to say about it, but one of the things I love about the confusing and mysterious God revealed in the Hebrew and Greek scriptures (the Bible) is that God seems partial, but then is revealed as radically impartial. 

I wonder what kind of prophetic word God might have for Americans. Let's do an experiment.  Try this:

1) Muster up your most patriotic sentiments.

2) Next, think of the groups of people (and/or their countries) that your kind of Americans most despise or look down upon, or feel threatened by.  Then, fill in the blanks below with the name/s of those people and/or their countries.  Go ahead.

“In that day there will be a highway from ____________ to ____________. The ____________s will go to ________ and the ______________s to ___________. The _______________s and _____________s will worship together. In that day America will be the third, along with _____________ and _____________, a blessing on the earth. The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, Blessed be _____________ my people, _____________ my handiwork, and America my inheritance.

AND

 "Are not you Americans
the same to me as the _____________s?"
declares the LORD .
"Did I not bring Americans up from (WHEREVER YOU CAME FROM),**
the _____________s from _____________
and the _____________s from _____________?”

3) Now imagine God saying this to us as Americans (or whatever group of Americans you identify with). Reflect on that a bit.

I really believe that this is the kind of God who is really out there. I believe that God’s will is the reconciliation of all people. If we encounter this God, we might just find that the people we despise end up blessed, while we learn FROM THEM what it is to repent and worship (once again, see Jonah, or Luke 4).  More to come...

* Note: I’m afraid that some people will accuse me here of being anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. I won’t try to credential myself as a non-bigot. Let me just say that my reflections on this have led me to believe that 1) Israel was indeed special as the vessel for so much of God’s wisdom, God's story, God's self-revelation and God's us-revelation. I continue to learn a lot from Jews and Judaism.  By the way "Semitic" refers to the (theoretical) descendants of Noah's son Shem, and so also includes Arabs and others.  2) biblical Israel was the vessel of nurture for God-incarnate when Jesus of Nazareth brought salve to all that ails us, the damaged images of God that we are and, 3) beyond that, I think Israel, Israelis and Jews (religious or not) are as deeply beloved of God and as deeply deserving of honor and respect as the rest of God’s children.

** Note 2: This one is problematic because many large-scale movements of human beings are caught up with various evils. Although I believe in God’s overall sovereignty, I don’t think God was the immediate orchestrator of every human migration (ex. the trans-Atlantic slave trade). I hope you don't think so either.  

Stunning Painting of the African American Experience of America

George MacDonald (1824-1905)
 
A couple years ago, I was talking with a friend who had troubles.  He was dealing with financial instability, serious health issues in his family and addiction. All of this was also challenging his faith and causing him to engage God… differently. He shared with me (at-length) some very honest things he’d been saying to God recently. He hadn’t “lost faith” per se, but his pain was very raw and it was hard for me to see him going through all this.
 
When he finished, I had a sense of a major theme in his rant. I remember saying, “It sounds like you feel abandoned by God and you want God to take some responsibility for you.” He thought for a moment and then said, “Yeah. I guess I do.”
 
I could tell he was a little sheepish about this. I sense that he was affected by a major strain of evangelical thought and preaching, namely, “You’re a sinner. God doesn’t owe you anything except judgment.” That’s the point of GRACE isn’t it? If God owed us something, it wouldn’t be grace! We’re sinners, and we aren’t entitled to anything from God. Okay. Maybe. But is this the only way to think about it?
 
Normally, we assume that people are responsible for the things they create. Furthermore, the greater the ‘distance’ between the creator and the thing created, the greater the responsibility of the creator. Parents are responsible for their children and that responsibility moves from greater to lesser as the children “grow-up” and close the gap, and responsibility shifts to the “child.” Of course, only God knows the true extent of the difference between God and us and how much of that great gap we ever really close. MacDonald’s over-arching idea about God (it seems to me) is that we ought not ascribe to God anything that we would not ascribe to a truly loving human father. In the end, what God wants for us and what God wants from us are the same, to be reconciled and united in righteous fellowship.
 
I hadn’t read MacDonald on this yet, but I remember telling him, “That makes sense. God made you. In scripture, God seems to want us to know him and trust Him as children ought to be able to know and trust their Father. I think God does want to take responsibility for you in some sense.”
 
I leave you with MacDonald’s lengthy exposition on this, from his sermon on Job (the entirety can be found at: http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/unspoken-sermons/22/ ):
 
"The grandeur of the poem is that Job pleads his cause with God against all the remonstrance of religious authority, recognizing no one but God, and justified therein. And the grandest of all is this, that he implies, if he does not actually say, that God owes something to his creature. This is the beginning of the greatest discovery of all--that God owes himself to the creature he has made in his image, for so he has made him incapable of living without him. This, his creatures' highest claim upon him, is his divinest gift to them… Perhaps the worst thing in a theology constructed out of man's dull possible, and not out of the being and deeds and words of Jesus Christ, is the impression it conveys throughout that God acknowledges no such obligation. Are not we the clay, and he the potter? How can the clay claim from the potter? We are the clay, it is true, but his clay, but spiritual clay, live clay, with needs and desires--and rights; we are clay, but clay worth the Son of God's dying for, that it might learn to consent to be shaped unto honour. We can have no merits--a merit is a thing impossible; but God has given us rights. Out of him we have nothing; but, created by him, come forth from him, we have even rights towards him--ah, never, never against him! His whole desire and labour is to make us capable of claiming, and induce us to claim of him the things whose rights he bestowed in creating us. No claim had we to be created: that involves an absurdity; but, being made, we have claims on him who made us: our needs are our claims. A man who will not provide for the hunger of his child, is condemned by the whole world.
 
'Ah, but,' says the partisan of God, 'the Almighty stands in a relation very different from that of an earthly father: there is no parallel.' I grant it: there is no parallel. The man did not create the child, he only yielded to an impulse created in himself: God is infinitely more bound to provide for his child than any man is to provide for his. The relation is infinitely, divinely closer. It is God to whom every hunger, every aspiration, every desire, every longing of our nature is to be referred; he made all our needs--made us the creatures of a thousand necessities--and have we no claim on him? Nay, we have claims innumerable, infinite; and his one great claim on us is that we should claim our claims of him.
 
It is terrible to represent God as unrelated to us in the way of appeal to his righteousness. How should he be righteous without owing us anything? How would there be any right for the judge of all the earth to do if he owed nothing? Verily he owes us nothing that he does not pay like a God; but it is of the devil to imagine imperfection and disgrace in obligation. So far is God from thinking so that in every act of his being he lays himself under obligation to his creatures. Oh, the grandeur of his goodness, and righteousness, and fearless unselfishness! When doubt and dread invade, and the voice of love in the soul is dumb, what can please the father of men better than to hear his child cry to him from whom he came, 'Here I am, O God! Thou hast made me: give me that which thou hast made me needing.'
 
The child has, and must have, a claim on the father, a claim which it is the joy of the father's heart to acknowledge. A created need is a created claim. God is the origin of both need and supply, the father of our necessities, the abundant giver of the good things. Right gloriously he meets the claims of his child! The story of Jesus is the heart of his answer, not primarily to the prayers, but to the divine necessities of the children he has sent out into his universe.
 
Away with the thought that God could have been a perfect, an adorable creator, doing anything less than he has done for his children! That any other kind of being than Jesus Christ could have been worthy of all-glorifying worship! That his nature demanded less of him than he has done! That his nature is not absolute love, absolute self-devotion--could have been without these highest splendours!
…
I protest, therefore, against all such teaching as, originating in and fostered by the faithlessness of the human heart, gives the impression that the exceeding goodness of God towards man is not the natural and necessary outcome of his being. The root of every heresy popular in the church draws its nourishment merely and only from the soil of unbelief. The idea that God would be God all the same, as glorious as he needed to be, had he not taken upon himself the divine toil of bringing home his wandered children, had he done nothing to seek and save the lost, is false as hell. Lying for God could go no farther. As if the idea of God admitted of his being less than he is, less than perfect, less than all-in-all, less than Jesus Christ! Less than Love absolute, less than entire unselfishness! As if the God revealed to us in the New Testament were not his own perfect necessity of loving-kindness, but one who has made himself better than, by his own nature, by his own love, by the laws which he willed the laws of his existence, he needed to be! They would have it that, being unbound, he deserves the greater homage! So it might be, if he were not our father. But to think of the living God not as our father, but as one who has condescended greatly, being nowise, in his own willed grandeur of righteous nature, bound to do as he has done, is killing to all but a slavish devotion. It is to think of him as nothing like the God we see in Jesus Christ.
 
It will be answered that we have fallen, and God is thereby freed from any obligation, if any ever were. It is but another lie. No amount of wrong-doing in a child can ever free a parent from the divine necessity of doing all he can to deliver his child; the bond between them cannot be broken. It is the vulgar, slavish, worldly idea of freedom, that it consists in being bound to nothing. Not such is God's idea of liberty! To speak as a man--the more of vital obligation he lays on himself, the more children he creates, with the more claims upon him, the freer is he as creator and giver of life, which is the essence of his Godhead: to make scope for his essence is to be free. Our Lord teaches us that the truth, known by obedience to him, will make us free: our freedom lies in living the truth of our relations to God and man. For a man to be alone in the universe would be to be a slave to unspeakable longings and lonelinesses. And again to speak after the manner of men: God could not be satisfied with himself without doing all that a God and Father could do for the creatures he had made--that is, without doing just what he has done, what he is doing, what he will do, to deliver his sons and daughters, and bring them home with rejoicing."

for more great material on George MacDonald, visit: ​http://www.george-macdonald.com/index.html_

​John Macleod Campbell (1800-1872) was eight years younger than Edward Irving (see last post in this series), and defrocked by the Church of Scotland two years sooner.
 
The tension that led to Campbell’s trial might be rooted in his concept of faith, which in turn was affected by his pastoral experience with Reformed (Calvinist) Scots of the Dordt/Westminster variety (think TULIP). Here’s the problem (every theological tradition runs into them, as they attempt to work out things that God hasn’t clearly revealed):

1. Salvation is entirely a matter of who God chooses to save – unconditional election. Christ died only for “the elect” and God forgives only the elect. God effectually “damns” the rest by His choice as well.
2. Calvinism has consistently taught that God works in the people he chooses in order to “sanctify” them (make them joyful, holy and good-work-doing folks) and assure that they persevere in the faith to the end.
3. But in Reformed/Calvinist communities, people are often encouraged to see themselves as elect and “act” the part OR to examine themselves for “fruit” that would be signs of assurance that they are elect
4. Nonetheless, even if you give intellectual assent to the doctrines, if you aren’t “feeling it” and aren’t “doing” the faith, it makes sense to wonder whether maybe you aren’t elect (or maybe are elected to damnation instead), in which case, why bother? This is known as the problem of “antinomianism” (lawlessness) that troubles various forms of grace-based Christianity.

 
Campbell saw a lot of spiritual malaise in his congregation and reverse-engineered the problem. Ultimately, this experiential problem can only be solved, Campbell thought, by deep experiential knowledge of oneself as the beloved child of God, already forgiven, which gives birth to love of God (this is true faith, trusting love of God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ). Campbell sensed that in a system of limited election, only rare individuals seemed to truly “know” this about themselves. However, appealing to the more universal-sounding passages of scripture, Campbell arrived at, and began to preach, that God truly loved everyone, Jesus died for everyone (1 John 2:2, 1 Tim. 4:10, 2 Cor. 5:14), and everyone is already forgiven by God. Everyone who believed this, embraced it with joy and persevered in trusting in God’s salvation would be saved. Those who rejected God’s salvation or fell away, well… They went to hell with their sins forgiven, essentially rejecting God’s salvation and forgiveness to the end.
 
Michael Jinkins, writing about Campbell's trial (in a fascinating piece on heresy), states,
“Campbell taught that Christ died to reveal the loving heart of God toward all humanity, not to change God’s heart toward us or to win the benefits of salvation for a select few. He laid out his arguments, citing the Bible and other confessions, including the Heidelberg Catechism and the Scots Confession, to support his teachings. But he was sternly told by opponents: “We are far from appealing to the word of God on this ground; it is by the [Westminster] Confession of Faith that we must stand; by it we hold our livings.” In other words, the Westminster Confession tells us what the Bible means.”
 
Of course, Campbell's view had its own problems (the problems that tend to lurk around Arminian theology): How can everyone be equal before God and not all be saved? How can the one who merely “receives the gift” not end up patting himself or herself on the back as wiser, humbler, etc. than the person who rejects the message. Those who reject must in some innate sense be too proud, selfish, foolish, hard-hearted to have faith (ie. they must be innately more sinful in some sense than those who accept the message). This is a problem, but it wasn’t the problem Campbell was facing.
 
Campbell did not resolve the role of the Holy Spirit in God's plan or in the subjective experience of faith, but what he attempted to do was to preserve God’s universal loving care (and action) for all humanity as essential to the character of God as love. The records indicate that Campbell’s congregation was refreshed in their faith by his ministry, several notable people regarded his trial as a travesty and he kept preaching (outside the Church of Scotland) to popular response. His book on the Nature of the Atonement (online here) influenced T.F. and James Torrance in their own monumental theological accomplishments.
 
- For a lengthy and helpful review of Campbell’s theology, trial and preaching life, see this article by James C. Goodloe IV (Princeton).
- For some great theology podcasts (once you get past the cheesy intro music) from the unlimited atonement Barthian/Torrance “Reformed” tradition, see the “You’re Included” podcast by Grace Communion International (which used to be a crazy legalistic cult, but “reformed” literally in the 90s).

image from apostolicarchives.com

Edward Irving (1792-1834) died of tuberculosis at about my age. He had been defrocked for heresy the previous year after taking a little London congregation from 50 to 1000 people. Reading this account at christianity.com, it seems as though his downfall was pride, rather than TB.
 
He was also at the center of the proto-charismatic circle (and may have inadvertently founded the Catholic Apostolic Church) I alluded to in my last post, and he seems to have encountered some of the most consistently disastrous flaws of some charismatics (eschewing medical help out of certainty that God will heal, disorder in the church).
 
A brilliant preacher, he sometimes looked down on others, but in pastoral-care he was amazingly Christ-like, and there may be a theological source of inspiration for this compassion: The theological issue that brought him down was a theme rehashed from Gregory of Nazianzus: that Christ, in his incarnation had taken on, not just a human nature, but a sinful nature, and had remained sinless only through his intimate connection with the Holy Spirit. This has the benefit of giving believers a much greater sense of Christ’s commonality with us; a greater sense that we can mutually “relate” to each other. Irving’s atonement theology therefore emphasized Christ’s Representative rather than substitutionary function, in relation to humanity in his life, death and resurrection (one theme of Hebrews and Romans in the New Testament). Although the two words imply similar concepts, Representational theories emphasize Christ's incarnation and representation of humanity as essential and even primary aspects of reconciling humanity with God. Protestants after the Reformation have tended to emphasize (rather exclusively) Christ’s death; almost implying that everything else in the Gospels is mere commentary and logistics for the cross (and maybe the resurrection). Irving’s approach was broader, but the precise point on which he was attacked were his references to Christ’s “sinful flesh” which may have implied something that Irving did not intend. Nazianzus had written that "what is unassumed is unredeemed" (or something like that), meaning that if Christ had NOT taken on everything it means to be human (including our "fallen" condition) then he could not have redeemed us in our humanity. Whatever was made of Irving's phraseology, that's some good theology. 

A few years ago, I was doing some personal research on atonement theology and came across the work of John Mcleod Campbell, a 19th century Scottish minister who became a major influence on the Torrances, the theological dynasty of 20th century Scotland. I found Campbell’s ideas very refreshing; and then I found out he was defrocked by the Church of Scotland for heresy by Westminster standards.
 
Recently, I’ve been reading George MacDonald, a Scottish Congregationalist minister who also wrote fantasy literature (“fairy stories”) and influenced C.S. Lewis (if you’ve read The Great Divorce, MacDonald shows up to talk with the protagonist in heaven), as well as Tolkein, Chesterton, L’Engle, Oswald Chambers, Lewis Carrol and W.H. Auden. I’ve found MacDonald equally refreshing; and it turns out… in his first pastorate, his salary was halved because he was accused of preaching heresy. Now, I’m not sure what's more disturbing: that this inspirational Trinitarian lover of God was labeled a heretic or that his congregation THOUGHT he was a heretic, and decided to keep him on at half-salary!
 
Recently, I wondered: “I wonder if these guys ever met each other? Scotland is not that big. I should google something.” (Yes, when I wonder, I actually think, “I wonder…”)  Anyway, it appears that at some points, they did run in the same circles. Even stranger (I thought), these circles seem to intersect with small-scale “charismatic” happenings in 19th century Scotland that I didn’t know anything about but which roughly correspond to the 2nd Great Awakening in the U.S.
 
So, why am I drawn to proto-charismatic heretical Scottish theologians? I would have sworn, “I just stumbled across these guys! I wasn’t looking for trouble! I’m not an incorrigible contrarian! It has nothing to do with ethnicity!” but… maybe its because I come from a line of Scottish non-conformists. James Hunter and the Regulators of North Carolina apparently come up in the popular Outlander series, but I just grew up hearing the tale of their opposition to colonial governance from my grandfather. In more recent history, an ancestor who might fall in line somewhere between myself and the aforementioned grandfather failed to pledge a fraternity at UNC when he knocked a senior frat “brother” off the frat-house porch when said brother threatened to paddle him for wearing Argyle socks with his penny-loafers (never try to separate a Highlander from his Argyle!). So, maybe it's in the blood.
 
Anyway, in the next couple posts, I’ll try to give some sense of what I appreciate about these transgressive Scottish evangelical theologians.

 Image above from churchnewspaper.com review of Andrew Davison's book on the sacraments for Anglicans.

After my post yesterday, I realized that I probably left the impression that Christians today are bereft of the theological resources they need. This is certainly not the case and of course I am not the only one talking about this. In fact, even though many of cradle evangelicals in America are looking for deeper roots (or, maybe cooler aesthetics) in liturgical churches, it still seems to me that a lot of evangelical churches still aren't aware of those resources or aren't interested (great reflection/diagnosis HERE). I think part of this has to do with a residue of Anti-Catholicism, but even without that, evangelicals tend to disdain "ritualism" and associate "required" Christian practices with "legalism" and "works-righteousness" even though many of their historical heroes did not feel this way. Methodist minister Gregory S. Neal has pointed out that: "In general, Methodists – like many other catholic Christians – affirm that God's grace comes to us through instrumental means; Baptists, on the other hand, tend to affirm that God's grace is either neutral toward instrumental means, or entirely independent from them." And, I personally feel that this Baptist theological distinctive is pervasive well beyond those churches that call themselves Baptist.

So, let me briefly sketch a sacramental theology of the "in-between" and then suggest some resources for further reading. Briefly, let me describe what I am calling a "theology of the in-between": recognizing or bestowing a level of sacredness or "God-presentness" on some moments, places, and objects in-between the individualistic personal encounter with God and the grand awareness of God's presence everywhere, making all creation sacred. 

Two biblical principles for a theology of the in-between:
1. incarnation - the 2nd person of the Trinity becomes local, locatable, singularly present in space and time, finite and material in Jesus Christ
2. election - throughout the Bible, God chooses and uses certain places, times, material objects to reveal Himself and manifest his redemption in unique ways, thereby not choosing all times, places, objects and locations in the same way (though certainly God was and is present in all times, places and material objects in other ways).

The Christian theology of the communally practiced sacraments flows out of the perception that Jesus, in his own election of certain times, places and material objects, for use in his ministry and/or the ministry of his followers, has gifted the repetition of these practices to the church.

Resources for further inquiry (besides the links above):
Anabaptist Liturgy: Sacramental Theology by Michelle Ferguson
​Mark Galli, Beyond Smells and Bells - there's a nice pdf of the intro HERE
Biola Center for Christian Thought has some great resources HERE. I especially like Reformed philosopher James K.A. Smith's work on "Cultural Liturgies" as it relates to sacramental practice.
For a clearly articulated statement/defense of Catholic sacramentalism read Alan Schreck's book Catholic and Christian.

And yet, I can't resist 1950s style religious-education images. Its my quirky sense of humor. Sorry. Sort of.

Image above from fredbroom.blogspot - sorry Father!

I'm teaching a class on the Reformation right now. One of the interesting things my (mostly Protestant) students are learning is that the "heroes" of the Protestant Reformation cared deeply about some things that they (and maybe their churches) don't care very much about at all: the Christian sacraments.
          For those unfamiliar with the word "sacrament," the sacraments are material and ritual practices of most Christian churches that Christians believe were instituted by Jesus, the most universal being baptism and the Lord's Supper (also known as Communion, the Eucharist and even "the Love Feast" for some Anabapists), although some Anabaptists include footwashing (which makes as much sense to me as any others) and Catholics and Orthodox Christians recognize 7 Sacraments. A common (though largely Catholic) definition of a sacrament is "an outward sign of an inward grace."
Many people today are emphasizing a "sacramental theology" that recognizes the possibility (maybe even the tendency) for God's presence to be recognized in a great multitude of mundane places, objects and circumstances (ie. "the sacrament of the present moment"). I think all of this has a great deal of merit.
         Here's the thing: during the Reformation, Luther, Zwingli, Melancthon, Bullinger, Bucer, Calvin and obviously a great number of Catholic thinkers, all argued passionately about the nature of the Lord's Supper. Distinctively, all of the previous people thought it was okay to kill Anabaptists (and Anabaptists were willing to die) for their views on... baptism, obviously. Theologian Brian Gerrish has recently argued that the Eucharist, not predestination, was really the central concept in John Calvin's thought.
        I understand why many people now see these arguments as petty, overly rationalized fights about things that are really rather mysterious. However, in my observations of many evangelical churches in the United States, the biggest issues regarding the sacraments at many (not all) churches have become logistical. How can we distribute some portion of grape juice and cracker to so many people, quickly and efficiently, so that we can get them to eat and drink in unison? Perhaps because of the logistical problems involved, many Protestant churches only partake of Communion once a month or even once a "quarter." Baptism involves fewer people (usually), but more liquid and wardrobe changes. 
       I really don't want to restart the sacrament "wars" that have divided Christians over the centuries, but if Christians believe that they should continue to practice the sacraments (as Christians have done since very early in the church's history), shouldn't our foremost question be "how do we imbue this practice with as much of the meaning it has held and can hold as our theology will allow?" rather than merely, "how do we pull this off, quickly and efficiently?"
​        Maybe theology is where the change needs to start. Christians need to embrace a theology that expands beyond human-brains-believing-things-attached-to-eyes-that-read-the-Bible-and-mouths-that-talk-about-it. And yet, Christians need a theology that is willing to contract and mark out certain times and spaces and objects as special and sacred for us (as a community) in a way that other things are not. It's entirely well and good for individual Christians to experience God in a multitude of settings, but not if those individual experiences negate participation in the community. We need a theology that goes beyond individualism and yet stops short of making everything generically holy and spiritual. A theology of the in-between.

 What is the church? Metaphors abound: the Body of Christ, the Family of God, the new Israel, a Hospital, etc.

In these posts, I will consider 3 approaches to "church" in the U.S. that seem to have some staying power. These are not the only approaches. They are not mutually exclusive, but they can be. These posts are more observational than prescriptive, but, I think every "type" of church can learn from the others. I will try to lay out some pros and cons of each approach, but this is not exhaustive and if you happen to have some personal connection to the metaphors I've chosen and you're offended, well, sorry, but please get over it. The previous post was about the "Volunteer Fire Department."
​Today's metaphor is the monastery.  Image below from traveladventures.org