Under the Oak Tree: The Church as Community of Conversation in a Conflicted and Pluralistic World

Contributors

O. Wesley Allen, Jr., Associate Professor of Homiletics and Worship, Lexington Theological Seminary, Lexington, Kentucky

Ronald J. Allen, Professor of Preaching and Gospels and Letters, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana

Pamela D. Couture, Jane and Geoffrey Martin Chair of Church and Community, Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

David J. Lose, The Marbury E. Anderson Chair in Biblical Preaching, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota

Donald M. Mackenzie, Retired minister of University Congregational United Church of Christ, Seattle, Washington, member of the Interfaith Amigos

John S. McClure, Charles G. Finney Professor of Preaching and Worship, Vanderbilt Divinity School, Nashville, Tennessee

Michael St. A. Miller, Associate Professor of Systematic and Philosophical Theology, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana

G. Lee Ramsey, Jr., Marlon and Sheila Foster Professor of Pastoral Theology and Homiletics, Memphis Theological Seminary, Memphis, Tennessee

Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, Ingraham Professor of Theology, Emerita, Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California

Marian McClure Taylor, Executive Director, The Kentucky Council of Churches, Lexington, Kentucky

Nancy Lynne Westfield, Associate Professor of Religious Education, The Theological School, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey

Introduction

Suppose your congregation is in this situation or one similar to it. An Islamic community announces they plan to build a mosque down the street from your church building. A representative from a neighborhood group asks to meet with the leadership team of the congregation to invite the congregation to join the neighborhood group in opposing the building of the mosque. As the meeting begins, the leadership team, like the congregation as a whole, contains some members who support the construction of the mosque, some who oppose it, and some who are confused as to what Islam believes, its relationship to Judaism and Christianity, and the degree to which followers of Islam may be terrorists.

How does a congregation make its way through such situations? Even more importantly, how does a congregation come to generative understandings of God and of God’s purposes, as well as of the purpose of the church and the relationship of the church with the larger world?

This book points to thinking of the church as a community of conversation as a way forward. A conversational approach to the church offers not only a practical way of approaching circumstances like the one just sketched but, more importantly, a way of coming to interpret the purposes of God, the church, and the world. This practical conversational ecclesiology is rooted in a vision of a God whose nature is conversational. Conversation here is more than a strategy. It is inherent in the nature of God, the church, and the world.

¹

What Is Conversation?

Conversation has a particular meaning in this book by referring to the act of opening ourselves to others with the possibility that we may be changed by the way in which we respond to them.² Conversation differs from monological communication in which one authoritatively declares truth to others, and from debate in which one side argumentatively attempts to persuade another of its interpretation of truth. Conversation is an interactive approach in which people enter into relationship with others. All involved honor the value of both their own voices and experience and the voices and experiences of others. Key elements of conversation include being critically aware of our own perceptions and listening carefully to others so we can understand the others from their own perspectives. The other could be a person, a group, a movement, a social situation, a written text—such as a book or a poem, an expression in the media or almost anything in life.

Under the Oak Tree: An Image for the Church

The title Under the Oak Tree derives from Genesis 18:1–15 and suggests an image for understanding the church as community of conversation. The elderly Sarah and Abraham are camped at the oaks of Mamre. Three visitors unexpectedly approach. The couple does not know the identity of the three. Nevertheless, Sarah and Abraham enact ancient near eastern hospitality by welcoming the visitors, washing their feet, and providing food and shelter (Gen 18:2–8).

A conversation takes place. Sarah and Abraham listen to what the others have to say. The couple hears something they would not have discovered on their own: Sarah will bear a child. The encounter is not simply a divine pronouncement but has the quality of give-and-take. Sarah calls attention to her own situation: barren. Sarah questions. Sarah laughs. God responds to the questions and laughter (Gen 18:9–15).

The encounter between the ancestral couple and the three visitors is a picture of the church as community of conversation: gathering under the oak tree and listening to others who might help the church understand the presence and purposes of God. Through such conversation, we believe the church has a good chance of coming to adequate understandings of God’s purposes and of how the church can respond.

What Happens in Conversation?

After Sarah and Abraham receive God’s promise, they do not settle at Mamre. They leave that camp and journey to the Promised Land (Gen 20:1). For the conversation to achieve its aim, the ancestral couple had to move out.

When we describe the church as a community of conversation to clergy and laity, people often respond, Talk. Talk. Talk. That’s what the church has always done. Where is the action? We stress, then, that conversation is seldom an end in itself but typically takes place to help the church clarify not only God’s purposes but also how to respond to God’s purposes through the internal life of the community and also through relationships and mission beyond the congregation.

David Tracy expands on what happens when the church opens itself to others with the possibility that the church may be changed by the way in which the community responds to others. As we have already noted, others may be such things as people, texts, religions, cultures, world views, works of art or experiences. Using a classic (such as a novel) as an example of the other, Tracy notes, The good interpreter is willing to put [the interpreter’s] pre-understanding [of the classic text] at risk by allowing the classic to question the interpreter’s present expectations and standards.³ When conversation takes life, "we notice that to attend to the other as other, the different as different, is also to understand the different as possible.⁴ The encounter with the other prompts us to consider how life looks from the point of view of the other. Otherness and difference can become genuine possibility: the as other, the as different become the as possible."

⁵

In the same way that one tries on a piece of clothing before buying it, in conversation we try on the other’s interpretation of life. The encounter may result in reinforcing or refining the perspective with which we began. The conversation may lead us to conclude that the other’s interpretation of some aspect of life has more merit than our own. The other may know things we do not know, have an angle of vision that allows the other to see things that we do not see, or the other may feel things we have not felt. We may be changed by the conversation. The other may be changed by the conversation.

Listening is crucial. The church in conversation will not simply project its pre-understanding of the other onto the other. This church will seek, as fully as possible, to understand how the other wants to be understood. The church learns to respect the differentness of the other and not simply see the other as an extension of itself.

Conversation is nearly always provisional. The resolution reached by a conversation is seldom fixed in stone. Conversations re-ignite in response to fresh data, fresh perspectives, and fresh circumstances. The result of a particular conversation may become the subject of a future conversation. Consequently, Tracy cautions, If one demands certainty, one is assured of failure. We can never possess absolute certainty. But we can achieve good—that is, a relatively adequate—interpretation: relative to the power of disclosure and concealment of the text, relative to the skills and attentiveness of the interpreter, relative to the kind of conversation possible in a particular culture at a particular time. Somehow, conversation and relatively adequate interpretations suffice.

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Conversation in the Church

By a conversational approach to theology, ecclesiology, ministry, and life in Christian community, then, we mean an approach that seeks to interpret God, the world, and self through reciprocal give-and-take, speaking and listening, with the full range of others in and beyond the church. This approach is based on the assumption that God and God’s purposes are omnipresent and that no one person, community or culture can claim a monopoly on the experience and interpretation of God’s character, ways, or will.

To be sure, this dialogical perspective honors the Bible, Christian doctrine, and Christian practice (often using these as starting points) but does not assume, a priori, either that all aspects of these expressions of the Christian faith as currently articulated should be normative or that a single interpretation of them is the only correct interpretation. The conversational church and its members attempt to listen carefully to how others within and beyond the church perceive ultimate reality and its consequences for the communities of humankind and nature, being open to the possibility that others have a grasp of God and of God’s purposes from which we can learn and to which we can contribute.

Indeed, the congregation can be a community of conversation in which every aspect of the church’s life is intended to facilitate many richly textured dialogues that help participants grow in their understandings of God’s purposes and in their relationship with God, others, and the world. Because human perception changes in response to new angles of vision, a conversational model of doing theology does not seek to arrive at set and permanent solutions but is ever open to fresh formulations, including new perceptions of the Bible and of Christian doctrine and practice.

From this point of view, ministers are called to promote and help manage the conversations of the church in partnership with other leaders in the community, but ministers do not feel compelled to control the conversations. Ministers encourage the church to undertake important conversations in responsible and healthy ways—insofar as possible honoring the testimony and experience of all who would engage in these conversations with honesty and openness.

This approach to doing theology and being church should not romanticize conversation. Members of the community of faith who enter into this reciprocal approach to community and meaning-making risk a certain level of vulnerability. Without dictating the outcome of theological, ecclesiological, and existential conversations, and never silencing the voices of those who engage in the conversations with integrity and openness to others, minister and church must guard against repressive interaction in the community of conversation. Otherwise, the true growth and intimacy of those participating will be hindered.

An Approach for Our Time

We believe the idea of the church as a community of conversation is fundamental to the church’s identity. For two reasons, it is also especially appropriate for the early twenty-first century, particularly in the United States.

First, the postmodern worldview is on the rise. Whereas the Enlightenment/modern worldview draws on empirical observation and philosophical first principles to arrive at statements of truth that are absolute and universally applicable in every time and place, postmodern thinkers recognize the relativity of all perception and the particular, contextual, and interpretive nature of all statements about God, humankind, and the world. Whereas modernism often leads to cultures that seek sameness, postmodernism values diversity and pluralism and seeks to respect the character of particular communities. The differences between modern and postmodern perspectives are at the heart of many differences in theology and church today.

Second, the early twenty-first century is a season of fractiousness, especially in politics and in matters of social and economic policy, in which people often segregate into groups that engage one another not through respectful listening to others but through polemic, sound bite, caricature, manipulation, and even misrepresentation. Churches sometimes intensify such polarization with rhetorics of superiority, exclusivism, and separation.

Conversation is not a magic pill that will resolve these issues. Nevertheless, while interplay between modern and postmodern worldviews is not settled, conversation can help negotiate the differences. Moreover, conversation, centered in respect for the other, offers a promising alternative to those who do not idolize their own self-interests and fields of power and who have patience and heart for the genuinely common good. A conversational approach to life among different groups is one of the most significant things the church can give to the early twenty-first century. Indeed, by modeling conversation in its own life and relating to the larger world through conversation, the church may be a light to the nations (Isa 42:6; Matt 5:16).

A Practical Approach to the Church as Community of Conversation

Eleven ministers and scholars contribute to this volume’s practical approach to how conversation can shape the entire life of congregations and other expressions of the church. The book begins with foundational matters of theology and ecclesiology and then moves to how conversation can shape particular dimensions of the church’s life and witness.

Chapter 1: the church. Ron Allen offers an ecclesiology drawing out what it means to say the church is a community of conversation.

Chapter 2: the minister. John McClure regards the basic calling of the minister to lead the community in conversation and to help the congregation carry on its conversations in theologically appropriate ways.

Chapter 3: God. Michael Miller articulates a conversational understanding of God as a theological framework for understanding conversation as a theological method.

Chapter 4: preaching. David Lose describes how a conversational perspective shapes what happens before the sermon, in the moment of preaching, and in the life of the community after the sermon.

Chapter 5: worship. Wes Allen shows how the service of worship—whether contemporary, blended, or traditional—can have a conversational character involving God, church, and world.

Chapter 6: formation (Christian education). Lynne Westfield explores how conversation can be a formative medium whether in settings traditionally associated with Christian education or in other settings.

Chapter 7: evangelism. Marjorie Suchocki deals with an aspect of the church’s life that is difficult to interpret in conversational perspective: evangelism. How does the church respectfully offer its understanding of ultimate reality to others?

Chapter 8: pastoral care. Lee Ramsey examines how conversation can be a form of pastoral care in, through, and for the congregation, as well as how pastoral counseling can contain conversational elements.

Chapter 9: mission and ecumenism. Marian McClure Taylor finds not only that mission should be a natural outcome of conversation but that ecumenism in a conversational model can be an important expression of mission.

Chapter 10: social witness. Pamela Couture explores how conversation can not only play an integral role in social witness but can itself be a form of social witness with effects that are both internal and external to the witnessing community.

Chapter 11: relationship with other religions. Don Mackenzie calls for Christianity to relate to other religions in a conversational way with the goal of mutual understanding leading to mutual respect.

Each chapter follows approximately the same outline.

Introduction to the subject of the chapter and identifying concerns appropriate to the chapter

Brief review of typical ways the church has viewed the subject of the chapter, especially in the last generation

Fresh look at the topic from the perspective of conversation (the heart of the chapter)

Practical implications for ministry

Cautions regarding the conversational perspective on the subject of the chapter

Questions for discussion

Further reading for those who want to explore the topic more.

Of course, writers occasionally adapt this structure in accord with the requirements of addressing particular subject matters.

Conversation in the Book about Conversation

While the contributors to this book share an overarching perception of conversation, they approach conversation with their own nuances of understanding and practice. From chapter to chapter, contributors differ in the ways they talk about conversation, in the voices to which they listen, in the methods through which conversations take place, and in the goals of conversation. From this point of view, a conversation about conversation is going on in this book about conversation. Such diversity not only befits the subject matter but expands the conversation about conversation.

The editors and contributors send this book forth with a prayer that it will help ministers and congregations come to generative interpretations of the presence and purposes of God. Such a church can be a transforming presence in the world.

1. This book grows out of ongoing conversation about conversation among the editors. With different accents, they take conversational approaches to preaching: e.g., O. Wesley Allen, Jr., The Homiletic of All Believers: A Conversational Approach to Proclamation and Preaching and Reading and Preaching the Lectionary: A Three Dimensional Approach to the Liturgical Year; Ronald J. Allen, Interpreting the Gospel: An Introduction to Preaching, esp.

67

–

118

; Preaching as Mutual Critical Correlation in Jana Childers, Purposes of Preaching,

1

–

22

; Preaching and the Other; John S. McClure, The Roundtable Pulpit: Where Preaching and Leadership Meet and Other-wise Preaching: A Postmodern Ethic for Homiletics. The present work expands the conversational perspective from preaching to broader consideration of ecclesiology.

2. People in the church—including ministers and scholars—sometimes use the word conversation in a more limited way that presumes the trustworthiness of Christian tradition (or some piece of tradition, such as a biblical text). The church might then engage in give-and-take to clarify the meaning of the tradition and how it applies to today, or seek to clarify the meaning of something outside the church from the perspective of how Christian tradition leads the church to interpret that phenomenon. A preacher, for instance, often prepares a sermon under the presumption that a biblical text has a message that is applicable to the life of the church and world today. By assuming the validity of Christian tradition, a priori, the church is not truly open to the possibilities presented by the other. While such give-and-take often helps the church enlarge its understanding of tradition or of issues or situations, it falls short of the kind of conversation sought in this book: openness to the other that can lead to fundamental reassessment.

3. David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion and Hope,

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.

4. Ibid.

20

. Italics in original.

5. Ibid.

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. Italics in original.

6. Ibid.

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.

Part 1

A Conversational Practical Theology

1

The Church as Community of Conversation

Ronald J. Allen

Your car pulls to a stop at red light at an intersection in an urban neighborhood.¹ You notice a church on each corner. On one corner is a red brick building with white trim and a slender spire reaching gracefully towards heaven. On another corner stands a large dark stone church with stained glass windows, a dome, and large pillars. On a third corner is a former department store now used for worship. On the last corner sits a rambling two-story house with a discreet sign in the flower bed saying that a church meets there. You might surmise that the congregations occupying these buildings are pretty much the same. However, different congregations not only understand their purposes differently but have different methods for thinking about those purposes and how to carry them out.

This chapter explores what it means to think of churches as communities of conversation. This discussion pertains not only to how churches understand their purposes but also to the methods of how churches come to understand and act on their purposes. After noting that the purpose of the church derives from how a church understands the purposes of God, the chapter explores two basic methods of arriving at a purpose and of enacting that purpose: a church that receives and applies the Bible and tradition to contemporary life, and a church that has active conversation with others in such a way as to open the possibility of changing some of its fundamental perspectives.

²

A Church Derives its Purposesfrom its Understanding of the Purposes of God

A church should not imagine its purposes out of the blue. A church that is thinking theologically derives its own purposes from its understanding of the purposes of God for individuals, households, congregations, communities, nations, and the natural world. A church usually formulates its understanding of the purposes of God in light of how it understands the condition of the world.

³

A church should point to the purposes of God not only for those who belong to the church, but for the wider human family, and indeed, for the created world. In the last generation, thinkers about the church have increasingly come to say that the mission of God (missio Dei) is the mission of the church. The mission of the church is to participate in the mission of God. O. Wesley Allen, Jr. sees a church as an institutional continuation, or an embodiment in community, of the purposes of God.

⁴

Churches interpret the purposes of God differently, and hence interpret the purposes of the church differently. A church’s perceptions come from the ways in which the church understands the Bible, Christian history and theology, the church’s own experience, the experiences of those outside the church, and how the church views nature. Churches differ greatly on how to draw on these diverse sources. We cannot speak singularly about the purpose of the church. Different churches have different understandings of God that lead to different perceptions of the church.

The sections that follow note the roles conversation plays in different churches in coming to understand the purposes of God and of the church. All churches listen to the Bible, Christian tradition, their own members, and the culture; some churches receive and listen mainly to figure out how to apply the Bible and tradition to life today. Other churches listen with an ear that is open to being challenged not only to enlarge or reframe their viewpoints, but to fundamental rethinking. A church with a conversational emphasis falls into the latter category.

Churches that Receive and Apply the Bible and Christian Tradition to Today

Many churches believe that the Bible and Christian tradition is an authoritative inheritance waiting to be received and applied. This church assumes that its interpretation of the Bible and Christian tradition and theology contains reliable insights to guide the church in every age. A key task is to reckon how to apply the church’s interpretation of those purposes to each new context.

Since many of the church’s ideas are cast in language from long ago, the church must clarify the meanings of sacred traditions and must think afresh about how to express the church’s historic values in forms that people in new situations can understand. Traffic runs one way on the bridge: from the past to how the present can appropriate the past afresh.

We may distinguish two receive and apply groups of churches. (1) One group, typically associated with fundamental and evangelical theological movements, presumes that voices in the Bible, and Christian tradition, directly apply in every time and place. (2) The other group, frequently associated with theological movements influenced by the Enlightenment and often labeled progressive, concludes that the Bible and Christian tradition contain elements that continue to be normative but are expressed in ways that are culturally bound to the times and places in which they originated. The church, then, searches for contemporary equivalents: concepts and behaviors to correlate with ancient language and prescriptions with contemporary analogues.

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Snapshots of Some Receiving and Applying Churches

We now look at six snapshots of churches in the United States that seek to receive and apply the Bible and Christian tradition to the contemporary world.⁶ Actual churches, of course, are more complex than these simple categorizations.

Elevator Lobby

Some churches are like elevator lobbies: their basic purpose is to gather people for the ride from earth to heaven. This church views today’s world as sinful and corrupt; God seeks to save people from this world. In some settings, this perspective is muted, almost behind the scenes, but in many congregations it is explicit. Within these churches we often find one or both of the following two emphases: (1) winning souls for the journey to heaven and (2) preparing for the apocalypse—the second coming of Jesus. These churches listen to the culture to determine how to shape the gospel message in ways that have a good chance of appealing to people today.

Prop Up Majority Culture

Some churches assume that the world of middle and upper class Eurocentric culture in the United States is life as God intends. God’s purpose, then, is to maintain that culture. Consequently, many churches in the United States associated with the middle class and upper class support Eurocentric ways of life. This support, however, often takes two different forms. (1) Some churches function as chaplains of majority culture. These churches assume that many dominant values and behaviors of majority Eurocentric culture are consistent with God’s purposes. The church, then, passes the hand of blessing over the culture. These churches are often pillars of the local establishment and implicitly understand one of their roles to be helping people be good citizens. These churches listen to the culture to determine what they need to do to help it prosper.

(2) The church as watchdog of majority culture thinks that God specifically calls for the politically and theologically conservative versions of majority culture values. Some of these churches subscribe to American Exceptionalism—the idea that God has appointed the United States to be different from other countries in promoting democracy, capitalism, and Christianity. These churches keep watch over the culture to maintain and extend these values. These churches listen to the culture to determine when and where they need to become assertive.

Community of Support and First Aid Station

Some congregations assume that the world is ambiguous with its moments of fulfillment and struggle. God’s primary purpose is to help people make their way through life with as much fulfillment as possible. Churches in the receiving and applying tradition believe that the Bible and Christian theology prescribe care that churches should provide members as they make their way through life. The church provides groups, experiences, programs, and relationships to help individuals and households on the journey from birth through growing up, the stages of adulthood, the shifting circumstances of life, and death. When crises occur—such as death or divorce—the church is a first aid station. Such churches are less concerned with public life than with equipping individuals and households to negotiate life. These churches listen to members of the congregation and to others to determine what people need to navigate life successfully.

Seeking to Change the Culture

Some churches take a receiving and applying approach to the goal of changing culture itself. We may distinguish two churches in this line whose purposes are similar but whose theological undergirding differs. (1) The church as agent of liberation regards various forms of oppression—such as sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism, economic exploitation, and political repression—as obstacles to the social world God desires. The Bible and Christian tradition provide the paradigm of liberation that the church applies to the culture. This church seeks to join God in liberating people from such systems. The church as receiving and applying agent of liberation listens to the culture to name oppressive persons, groups, and systems with an eye towards how such knowledge can help the church develop plans for actions that contribute to liberation. (2) Some churches hope to transform culture through direct engagement with culture. The concerns of a church that seeks to transform culture are often similar to those of the church as agent of liberation. For these churches, too, the Bible and Christian tradition reveal the direction transformation should take. However, while such churches share the goal of cultures similar to those advocated by liberation churches, these churches operate out of theological bases other than liberation theology. For example, some neo-orthodox churches want to transform culture often by engaging culture directly. Such churches listen to the culture to determine both points at which the culture distorts God’s purposes, and timely strategies for attempting to affect the culture.

Minoritized Communities Adopting Majority Theology and Practice

Many congregations are made up primarily of minoritized groups (to use Lynne Westfield’s expression in chapter 6). While some such congregations are receiving and applying churches (discussed here), many are conversational communities (discussed below). Such congregations often believe they encounter Christian tradition when gathered with people who share their own cultural history. A receiving and applying minoritized congregation seeks to conform their experience to a particular interpretation of