Comment to Stayrev Victor

Stavrev Victor posted in House2Harvest Network Group Page

	Stavrev Victor	10:49am Nov 25
	Is communism in the church in the west or is that a slander ? Who can give some teaching on humanism and socialism mixed with some organic vision ?

Stayrev,

While this is a short question, the answer is not short. Now, I believe that I have seen that you are based in Europe. I have lived in the U.S. all my life. I feel, therefore, I could not reasonably comment about any society I haven't lived in, and I have no idea whether you have ever been to the Americas. Anyway, I will give my opinion from where I am.

First, since you are writing from an organic church perspective, or at least on House2Harvest, which recognizes church as a group of believers, not an organization, you are probably aware that few of us can comment on what's going on outside of the church one is part of and some others nearby. From society's traditional definition of church, though, it is clear that some liberal/progressive churches have socialistic influence in them, but they aren't the true church, or have believers in them. I will also say that some of us might say that history shows that back in the days of the civil rights movement in the U.S., there appears to have been funds from communist organizations funnelled into that movement, but that doesn't negate the faith of those who were believers who were involved in it. Some of my brothers and sisters in Jesus may, though, disagree with me on whether that is actually historical. If you have never visited the U.S., "communist" is a generalized perjorative. Due to having gone to a secular liberal arts college in the early 1970's, I have actually known four persons who publicly considered themselves to be communist, and two of them overtly couldn't stand each other. A communist couldn't get onto a library board in most of this country.

Therefore, "is that a slander?" cannot be answered, in my opinion, in that I have no clue who you are thinking of.

Your third question, "Who can give some teaching on humanism and socialism mixed with organic vision?" is also quite difficult. Humanism is a point of view in many of the social sciences. As a believer in Jesus, humanism is too low a view of man and most everything in comparison to the Christian view of man, God's work, and everything. Now, one problem is that, among us believers, there are persons who are highly educated and intellegent, and others gifted towards the opposite degree, and some of our brothers and sisters will confuse "humanism" with "humanitarianism". The believers view of caring for our neighbors includes humanitarianism and more. Socialism is a political philosophy, which, to my understanding, is different in different areas. A philosophy of religion professor looking at the west (which in this use would include Europe and the Americas) would say that Catholicism is more socialistic, and Protestantism is more capitalistic. In recent weeks, you have been criticizing some of my fellow believers in the U.S. for tying their faith to conservative politics, and, in general, I would agree. I will also say that here in the U.S., there is a full fledged Christian media, and, if you watched or listened to it, there would be no indication that organic church even exists, as it is dominated by music companies that release songs that reflect basic Christian beliefs, and preaching programs that are paid for out of institutional church funds, either to get more people to come to their organization, or, at the least, allow leaders to say to other leaders, "We have a media ministry" (whether anyone is listening is another story, as in my city, we have roughly 12 Christian radio stations available).

Those generalities said, there are assuredly some points of view on certain subjects that might be labeled "humanistic" or "socialistic" that one could argue narrowly would be congruent or similar to proper belief for followers of Jesus, but that doesn't prove anything. At times, we will be in agreement with someone that we vehemently disagree with in most things, even if it is within the trivial ("It feels cold today"). That doesn't mean that one has "sold out" on important subjects. Therefore, "Who can give teaching on humanism and socialism mixed with organic vision?" If you meant that question literally, probably a brother with experience dealing with one or both of these subjects in either the practical or theoretical, and with experience and gifting for teaching in the organic setting. The Holy Spirit would need to show me the reason for that, as I cannot picture any urgent topic where I live that demands that. If you meant that question in a rhetorical manner, such as that the two are so opposite as to be impossible, this is, again, a situation where attempting to say things in too few words brings about misunderstanding. Maybe such inference is clear to the fellow English-speaking/reading believers that you are around, but the nuance was unclear to me from where I live.

On the words "postmodern" and "existential"

One of the RSS feeds I get is the House 2 Harvest Network, which emphasizes completing the work of the Great Commission through the establishment of simple, organic churches.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have been receiving the blog entries of one a certain blogger who will go nameless here.  While it is clear that this person is traditionally trained in church leadership, and now is part of, and probably one of the leaders of, a house church in northern Virginia, and what he writes does not seem to have any connection to world missions, which is supposed to be the theme of that online group, I do not see that as much of a problem, either.  We have all said or written things that are not quite on topic.

            There is one thing I find disagreement with.  From his writing, it appears that he has been in contact with Frank Viola and some other known writers on the topic of simple, organic church with regard to their functioning as church planters, and is somehow unhappy with them.  To this regard, in every blog I have received over this period of time, without regard to what subject Jim begins to write on, somewhere in the article will be a veiled or not-so-veiled criticism of Viola.  Two specific criticisms of Viola have been applying the words “postmodern” and existential” to describing either him and/or his work, and, to me, it became less and less clear what he was attempting to communicate. 

            Personally, I do not know Frank.  In writing this blog, and preparing for my radio program, I have had the opportunity to communicate with a number of persons around the country involved in simple, organic church.  One difference in communicating with Frank is that the response always comes from a person on his staff, whereas I at least feel that the other persons I have written to were the persons responding to whatever I wrote.  This, in and of itself, is not wrong, only different.  I might say that if I were to send a communication to almost any sizable traditional church pastor, the response would be from a staff person, also. 

            Anyway, this morning, I decided to do one thing I can do passably, and that is research existing ideas.  As you will see, this is not really heavy research, maybe junior high level or lower research.  What do the words in question, postmodern and existential, mean?

            According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-Modern, “post modern: Postmodernism is a tendency in contemporary culture characterized by the rejection of objective truth and global cultural narrative.” 

            According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism, “There is no consensus among scholars on the precise definition…”  With all due apologies to the anonymous writers of those definitions, the first defines postmodernism, and the second defines nothing.  Might I suggest, to use that first definition, postmodern is, therefore, a synonym to contemporary culture.

            As for the word “existential”, according to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism, “Existentialism is the philosophical and cultural movement which holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the experiences of the individual.”  Now, this definition isn’t particularly good, in that, for the believer in Jesus, our experience of the Holy Spirit speaking into our spirit before repentance is certainly part of our life experiences, but the unbeliever cannot truly understand that, and, as such the person we might think of as being existential would not see things that way.

            Another definition I found is from www.thefreedictionary.com/existential, which defines as such:  1. Of, relating to, or dealing with existence. 2. Based on experience, empirical.  3. Of, or as conceived by existentialism or existentialists: An existential moment of choice.

            I went to post this as a comment on the last blog of his I received, but I couldn’t without a Wordpress password.   Just as a note, if you have trouble leaving a comment on my site, send me an email at simplechurchminute@yahoo.com. I’m just curious; I’ve been writing this for nearly two years and never received a comment.  For about the first four months, comments weren’t turned on (my error).