New Waters S4 | Episode 1
Why Church?
There are so many ideas and definitions of what the Church is and what it should be. As followers of Jesus it is more important than ever that we clarify existing thoughts and establish new language as we ask the question: what does it mean to be the Church in a sea of change?
Join Vijay and Dom as they kick off season 4 by discussing church/culture climate, institutional structures, and how the mystery of God and his Church draw people together.
+ Show Notes
Paul’s Letters
The Joe Rogan Experience - podcast
The Victory of Reason - by Rodney Stark
Soul - Disney Pixar (2020)
+ Transcript
VIJAY: Hey, welcome to the next season, chapter, of the New Waters podcast. Navigating faith in a sea of change. This is actually about being the Church in a sea of change. My name is Vijay. I'm with a really good friend, Dom Russo. We've been privileged to be a part of the podcast in the past. Dom and I met over ten years ago. We landed in the same room of a pastor mentor group that somebody invited us to be a part of. And I remember thinking.
DOM: Sweet, Cool.
VIJAY: From that day Dom, we obviously struck up a friendship. I would say a good chunk of that friendship is just a shared passion for the church, and similar life stages too.
DOM: Yeah, dads with kids.
VIJAY: Dads with kids, and the complexity of working out our faith. Walking with our families and also leading churches. You ended up, in the time that I knew you, going to plant with your wife Bev, in Montreal.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: And joining the Alliance family, which is our Denominational family. I'm still trying to figure out how to do pastoring. I still don’t know what I'm doing - in the GTA. We have talked on and off about the church, and what it means to be a part of it ourselves. What it means to be leading communities in the middle of this. So this is an ongoing part of that conversation, being the church in a sea of change.
DOM: For listeners, and those who are just exploring these questions - I think so many times when we've talked, there were moments where we thought, we wondered if our conversations would help other people, as they are working things out.
VIJAY: There's no way we're the only ones wondering about these things.
DOM: For sure. And it's not like we have the answers. But we are feeling the tension on the ground. I mean, Vijay, like you said, I never thought I'd be church planting. So, I'm doing that right now. And I'm learning what it means to do that in a very complex religious space, which is in Quebec and Montreal. So for the listeners, if you're not familiar with Montreal/Quebec, religion and church and faith are just always intertwined in a very strange way. You know, many people I know who even come to Quebec, come to see the beautiful churches, that are now empty. So, I mean, churches are kind of becoming museums. And that's not just a Quebec phenomenon. I think there's a challenge with the church, and we feel it. The stats are real. There's a major shift in not only church attendance, which is often the way it's framed, as a decline in the church, but really proper thinking, or healthy understanding of what it means to be the church. What the Bible says about the church. How the church started. What are the essential markers of the church? So, I think our hope is that this conversation, with these next few episodes, will start to stir the kind of dialogue with listeners. Maybe for some people who were in ministry, or leaders, and or other people, who are just trying to figure out where they fit in all this.
VIJAY: I think part of what we need is new language, maybe some new ideas, but also just handles, to begin to put the pieces in place and say, okay, what are we looking at? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus in the church, and to be a part of it? So that's where we would like to go.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: How would you describe the cultural climate that we find ourselves in, as it relates to the church? And you can talk about your own context maybe, to help answer that question.
DOM: That's such a huge question, and such an important one. As I think about my context now in Quebec, I want to be careful, because I think I'm going to use some words that trigger certain images for people. And we want to kind of debunk some of the way people think about ideas. But the most common phrase you hear today, and we've heard it, our listeners have heard it, and you maybe use it, is that we live in a secular culture, or in a post-Christian culture, or in a post-colonial culture. I even add now that we live in a post-membership culture. Which, for the church, is a big issue because we care about people belonging to community. I think we have to get honest about the fact that secular culture is not just typically defined as a context where people are against religion. So I think that, for years we looked at the culture, and we realized that if people are leaving church, and if people are not going to believe in God anymore, we're moving towards a secular culture that is atheistic.
VIJAY: Yeah
DOM: And we almost prepared leaders, in our seminaries, and in our churches, to defend the faith, and to prove to people that God was real.
VIJAY: Yeah, apologetics.
DOM: What we're seeing now is people actually believe in god, they just believe in many gods. And this movement to being not-religious, but very spiritual, is sometimes connected to the early church's understanding of Gnosticism. So instead of gaining atheism or atheists, we got Gnosticism, and we've got to work that out.
VIJAY: Yeah, funny story about Gnosticism. So I was with a group of pastors overseas and they were from Australia, Canada and the US. And there was a pretty prominent New Testament scholar who was speaking to us, at Oxford. It was so cool. It is the only time I'll ever be allowed in there. But you know, I had to pay to get there. And he says something about Gnosticism, and one of the guys, who's been in church conferences, church planting world for a long time.
DOM: Is he like, on a panel or something?
VIJAY: No, he was just hosting, and he said, Oh Gnosticism, do you mean Agnosticism? And of course the scholar kind of looked at him…
DOM: You silly rabbit
VIJAY: But it was like, oh, do you mean agnosticism? Meaning no, actually the opposite, but okay, fine. I didn't even know what it was either until I got into pastoral ministry and started reading some of this stuff.
DOM: Yeah, for sure.
VIJAY: What do you mean by Gnosticism? What was it? Because there was Gnostic heresy that was emerging in the first century. In some ways it existed beforehand. But then some of the letters that Paul's writing are dealing with this. What would you describe it as, and what do you mean then, that this is actually what we ended up with here in the 21st century? As opposed to sort of pure, bare, bald, atheistic secularism.
DOM: Yeah. I want to be careful. I mean, all the research out there on Gnosticism and on the first century, and even before the first century, is very complex. You know, there's not one school of Gnosticism. There's many different schools of Gnosticism, in the early church, in that period.
VIJAY: You remember when the doctor in the Simpsons is trying to explain to Homer what happened to his heart, and he keeps saying, let's just dumb this down a little, just a little more.
DOM: We can’t dumb this one down.
VIJAY: Yeah
DOM: So I'm going to try to dumb it down, by the simple idea that the word gnostic comes from a word which is gnosis, which means knowledge. And there was a movement of thinkers in the early church period that really believed that this knowledge, that leads to salvation, is an inner spark, or a light. And I often think of that image as in this inner desire for spirituality. And that inner desire for spirituality is connected to getting us out of this mess.
VIJAY: Yeah
DOM: And so that is kind of a universal way, in the early church, was a whole movement of thinking of this. And then Jesus comes on the scene. And here is what's crazy about Gnosticism, if you read about the early church, is they loved Jesus.
VIJAY: Mmm
DOM: They loved Jesus because for them, Jesus was a great Gnostic teacher.
VIJAY: Yeah, he's a rabbi.
DOM: He is. He's not that, in how we read about him in the Gospels, but they're almost able to hijack Jesus and make him this teacher who talks about the inner life, and the kingdom is here, and it's in you, and it's among you. And then gnostics are like, this is great. So there's this hyper sense of, we love everything spiritual, and we're going to work this out in a private way because it's between us, and it's highly anti- institutional. It's highly anti-structural.
VIJAY: Take the gnosticism of the first century, and add in the hyper-individual, anti-institutional, post-structural mindset of the 21st century.
DOM: 100% and the digital age.
VIJAY: It's like, oh my gosh.
DOM: It's like an explosion.
VIJAY: Yes, I can handle this myself. I don't need someone else to define it for me. In fact, part of salvation is the personal pursuit of knowing.
DOM: Yeah And not only that, it's actually advantageous to attack institutions. It's a sign of your spiritual strength to attack anything that is organized, structured. Now you think about it, if we're talking about the church, we know that the earliest Christians are not highly organized because the church is starting in a very organic way. But organic never means without order. It never means disordered. So I think for many people we're going to have to give people new language for what it means to be in a secular culture that is going to, in a certain sense, be so robust, and is going to attack Christianity in a way we never anticipated. If we don't have a healthy understanding of the church, this is going to be one of the most challenging areas for the church.
VIJAY: So, atheistic secularism was what we anticipated, and propositional truth based apologetics was the antidote to that. We've been arming ourselves with that or trying to arm our teenagers as they head off to universities.
DOM: Yeah, here’s a book to defend the faith
VIJAY: But now the conversation is not even about that. And in fact, that generation like my own kids generation, the idea of debate - they don't even want to touch that. And so this idea that evangelism would somehow be associated with that, first of all, is not going to be successful. But secondly that's not even the way the dialogue is happening.
DOM: I know.
VIJAY: And so then the cure is worse than the disease in some way. And I think we're all running into that experientially, and not just in my kids place. I feel that, as I interact with my kid’s friends, parents, and coaching baseball, or whatever it is. We're not even talking about the same thing.
DOM: Yeah, those confrontational models kind of.
VIJAY: Right. And if I can build an identity where I'm being attacked, at least I can form an identity of I'm on the margins, and we have to band together.
DOM: Defend this.
VIJAY: And so the church becomes this identity of the attacked people. But then, nobody's actually interested in attacking, nobody cares. Now it’s even worse, because now we're just adopting an oppositional combative posture in a world that's like, hey bro, chill.
DOM: I often think of my kids when they started learning karate for a little bit. I had a little pad for them - the thing that they kick. And I missed one of their classes and they came home. They said, Dad, you missed our class. We learned a spinning kick. Okay, I'll get your pad, and you just show me. So my son gets ready. He was really, really small at the time, and he's like Dad, you stand right there. He positions me. You stand right there and he goes and gets ready, and he does his spin and he kicks. And as he's turning around I push him on the floor, and he's like, Dad, you can't do that. It didn't work that way in my class. I'm say, what do you mean? Nobody on the street is going to wait for you to do a spinning kick on them. And I think for many people, defending the faith, or talking about the church, was presented to them that way. We're going to give you ten steps for, when somebody says they don't believe in God. You begin with cosmology, where did the world come from? And you realize the world doesn't think in those categories, and we don’t learn in those categories.
VIJAY: Instead, what's happening is your friend shares with you the recent Joe Rogan podcast, where he's interviewing these teenage ghost hunters.
DOM: Yeah, exactly.
VIJAY: Ya, What do you think about this?
DOM: I think of people in my church, this young family. I went to their house right before Christmas, and the wife, she's a really wonderful woman, she's a mom. She asks me if I have ever heard of Goddess cards. Have you ever heard of Goddess cards Vijay?
VIJAY: No
DOM: Okay, so Goddess cards, you're going to die. Goddess cards, on Amazon, are these cards that you buy. I think they are mostly female cards. And you flip them over and they kind of have powers associated with them. Adults use them. They're exploring spirituality in some ways. And I thought I’d look them up. There's so many different kinds of them. This is amazing. Amazing, in a sense that people are interested, and are exploring spirituality in new ways.
VIJAY: Yeah
DOM: And as Christians, and as a church, I think our natural concern, which is fair, of defensiveness, has to also come with wisdom about - what does this mean and how did we not see this coming? So I think our churches are going to have to factor all that in with this. And I'll just say, secularism is an emerging thing. It's not like we know what secularism is. It's kind of emerging.
VIJAY: And it's not homogeneous.
DOM: It's not the same everywhere.
VIJAY: No
DOM: We didn't expect the COVID factor to influence it as well.
DOM: Digital tools have made it very easy for people to stay even more disconnected from community. That's going to impact that. That's going to be a big part of it for sure.
VIJAY: So Dom, you're describing a little bit of, and we're oversimplifying here for the sake of a conversation, but certainly probably every one of our listeners can identify in some way. So when you think about inside the church, or as the church, there's all other kinds of conversations as well. There's certainly how faith is interacting in the public sphere, but then there's what we think about church.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: So I will mention a couple of things. One is, in this sort of post-structural, more anti- institutional approach to church, from within the church, which we're all a product of, modernism and then postmodernism, and then the cocktail of events that have taken place over the last little while.
DOM: You think the woundedness that people feel?
VIJAY: Yes.There's the fall of leaders, there's the disappointment of the way power was handled.
DOM: For sure
VIJAY: And so some of the things that we're hearing, you and I talked about this, is people saying we need to totally change the way church is.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: We need to think about completely new models of church, whether that's some of the people that you hear on podcasts, very popular people, saying the future of church is digital.
DOM: Mmhm
VIJAY: There's that kind of thing. Or those who are saying all of these power structures just have to come down. They keep failing us.
DOM: We have the tools to deconstruct everything.
VIJAY: Why do you keep building them? They keep failing. And of course, I get that. So there's the digital church, there's the failure of the, quote, the institution, and then maybe this is like in the early church times. It must be. And in a secular culture, we're just like house church movements, and yeah.
DOM: You know, hyper-minimalist.
VIJAY: Yes. Yeah. In all of those dynamics, you and I have had some interesting conversations about the idea of slowing down, pumping the brakes. There's more layers to this than not ignoring all those dynamics. So what do you think we need to be thinking about? What does it mean to be the church then from the inside, from within?
DOM: These are the daily questions we have. And maybe again, like those listening, we hope you feel that these are things that resonate with you. I think one is, we have to do a good job early on in these conversations. Not only in these episodes, but even in our conversations as a movement, and as leaders. To grieve with people who have had really painful experiences in church.
VIJAY: Mmhm
DOM: In no way is this us saying we're affirming or okay with some of the horrible things that have happened in the name of Jesus - with people who had power and used that to abuse their roles in leadership. I think there's a movement of other people, I think of Quebec, where I am from. For years, I mean years, people thought about the church as this institutional monster, with incredible power. There's an article that was written a few years ago that I read. Over 70%, maybe not exactly 70% but, 70% of swear words, curse words, in Quebec are church words.
VIJAY: Oh, yeah, All my French friends taught me those.
DOM: You realize this pain with the church is not a new thing. In Quebec, it's been there a long time. And so there's that painful reaction against the church. But at the same time, I often tell people that the next generation doesn't have that story. So they're not even attacking the church. They just don't care. We have to deal with the pain of years of brokenness that's happened. And then we have to deal with this new movement of people that are just being introduced to Jesus for the first time. I think one of the things we want to do, especially at this time, is to go back to some of the most important rooted ways, historical ways, that Christians started to talk about what it means to be the church together.
DOM: People familiar with the Bible know that one of the great reminders from the Scriptures for us, is that the church is a mystery. That's really, really important. The reason that's important is that Paul will use images to point to the church, because at its core it's impossible to define. So if people are asking, what's the church? Is it people who meet on Sunday? We're like, no, it's not just gathered, it's scattered. We have all these things we say. I think we need more than that. We need to say, there's a mystery about what it means. Jesus promises that his power, and his presence, is made real when we gather together to worship him as Lord.
VIJAY: The early church spent a lot of time trying to figure out the structures that would make that work. It wasn't just this sprawling vine.
DOM: Nope.
VIJAY: In fact, if you read in the letters - What is Paul doing all the way through these places? He's establishing. They're using words like deacons and overseers.
DOM: There's a structure that’s emerging.
VIJAY: Yes. You were sort of mentioning this idea, about an oversimplified myth, that a structured institution came in with Constantine, in the Roman Empire. He may have changed the clothes that the bishops were wearing, but these structures were there.
DOM: Every time the church wrestles with systems and leadership I always think of this. It's always a reminder of God's blessing that the church is growing. Because the church is growing, you need more structures. If the church has 20 people you don't need structure. Just run around, do what you want. But now there's 2000 others, now there’s 20,000. Now there's bishop, now there's regions, and there's new languages. So I'm thinking we can minimize, out of our pain, the complexity of systems because we want to just say I'm anti-institutional, I'm just about things being organic. And organic can mean disorder, and that's not the way the church works.
VIJAY: No
DOM: It never has.
VIJAY: One of the verses that is sort of helpful for me, and I've mentioned, a few times since I heard it, was when Paul is talking about Epaphroditus. He says, my brother, my co-worker, and
my fellow soldier. It's family, the church is family, the church is an organization, the church is an organism, and the church is a movement.
DOM: Wow
VIJAY: And like all of those things imply systems and structures.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: Your flesh and blood body is operating out of a nervous system, a skeletal system, a respiratory system, all of these things. You are an organic being, the movement.
DOM: And it is highly ordered.
VIJAY: And fluid. And so I think about coming back to this idea of tearing it all down. I think it is not only unwise, but it’s never not been that way.
DOM: Nope
VIJAY: But it has to be worked out. Rodney Stark in his book The Victory of Reason.
DOM: Yeah, it's a great book.
VIJAY: He's talking about the difference between Christian faith and Islam and Judaism. They are religions of orthopraxis. Practice. Just figure out what the practices are. How many times a day do you pray, which way do you face, and then just do the practices and sometimes, you know, they'll be a papal edict that changes the practice. Christianity at its heart was always a religion of orthodoxa. Right thinking, which means, we're always going to be talking about it.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: We're never going to stop having to think through how we're doing, what we're doing. So I think sometimes it’s a shallow level of thinking to just say, that didn't work, tear it all down.
I've been challenged. There's stuff underneath this, as it relates to systems, structures, people, processes, and organization. As this family organization movement. We have to talk about it at a deeper level.
DOM: So Vijay, as you were sharing that I kept thinking about your role as a pastor. Are there things you're hearing just on the ground? Questions that people have, related to the church? We know there's a certain sense of let's throw all this out. But not everybody is saying that. Is there something else that you're noticing, in a local context for you?
VIJAY: I would say people new to faith, or exploring faith, who are encountering the church community,
DOM: Right
VIJAY: They're not actually saying throw this out. Actually, it's what they're drawn to. We meet in three very different spaces.
DOM: Okay
VIJAY: That space relates to how that community is gathering.
DOM: Like in a particular location.
VIJAY: Yes. There's actually an authenticity and a validation that there's a community that actually makes them feel a little bit safe. One of the observations: There was a woman coming into our church from a Jehovah's Witness background. She had just walked away from all of it for a number of years because of how messed up that for her context was. She's come in, sitting there in church, and she's like, I'm just watching everyone, every week.
DOM: She said this to you?
VIJAY: Yeah. She said, I'm just looking around, especially during the songs.
DOM: Because she's spooked out?
VIJAY: Yeah, but she's kind of intrigued.
DOM: Okay
VIJAY: She wondered, is this real for these people? And then she realized, they actually believe what they're singing. And then she talked about a woman from the band who got up and started praying. She said she had never heard anyone talk to God like that.
DOM: Wow
VIJAY: Where else do you experience that? That’s not going to happen in a home. If you show up for dinner, and somebody bursts out into song, you would wonder, am I in a Disney musical?
DOM: Do you think we take it for granted?
VIJAY: Yes. I think when you talk about mystery, how do you fully explain it? Even when we talk about the sacraments or baptisms. How do you explain a mystery? That's a good question. You are around it.
DOM: You point to mysteries, you don’t explain them.
VIJAY: You point to mysteries, whenever you see it. And part of it is the tradition. Saying the church, for whatever reason, for 2000 years has always done this.
DOM: Yeah.
VIJAY: As moderns, we can sort of go well, we’ve always done it like that for 2000 years, let's change it. But wait, why have we danced around this thing, this mystery for so long? What is it? I'm seeing something through it that is important. And, I do think it's funny that people within, and I, take it for granted.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: But those with fresh eyes ask, what is that?
DOM: Yeah. We need fresh eyes. I think as we talk about this we'll kind of start to see some new things. I think one of the only places that mystery still kind of resides in our culture, for people who have questions about this, is a wedding.
VIJAY: Ahh, yes.
DOM: That's why the Bible uses marriage as a mystery. I often tell people whenever you go to a wedding, and even if you're a guest and don't know the bride and groom well, when they're up at the front and they kiss, it's transcendent. They're in love, and I don't know them, but everybody here knows that there's something going on there, that's a mystery. And they believe that that's going to hold them together forever.
VIJAY: At that moment everyone believes.
DOM: Yeah. Everybody believes. And the people who've had broken relationships, they want it again.
VIJAY: That’s good.
DOM: That’s why I think that is such a powerful picture. It draws you into that, and you can't really explain how it works.
VIJAY: Which is a great analogy. Why do we need the gathered expressions still? Because if you ask couples who got married during COVID.
DOM: They’re showing you on Zoom.
VIJAY: I know, and they grieve.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: Because they know there was something. It doesn't matter whether it was at a golf course or whatever.
DOM: No, it’s true.
VIJAY: There was something more than just about the people who got to be there. There is something around the transcendent. I've done so many weddings for people who aren't people of faith, but when you, when you bring God into this place of love, they suddenly go, oh, my gosh. I never.
DOM: Another image for me that I want to tease out together is that the people who are getting married, if we use that image, the people that represent this mystery, something is going on that is beyond them. The word sacrament helps us with that because the word means mystery. They also want to be in a place where there's witnesses. To see what they're doing, they want you to affirm what's going on. So there's a phrase I often think about. It is that the church always had witnesses before it had apologists. Meaning, we are first called to be witnesses to what Jesus says before we are called to be those who defend what Jesus did.
VIJAY: There’s the whole thing about stadiums being played to empty fans. And what you missed was when you grabbed your friend, and you're looking in the eyes going, did you see that? That is that witness. It's not just spectating.
DOM: No, participation.
VIJAY: It's this vicarious participation of something in whatever form that is, and that which is at its heart. It's worship, because worship is witness to that mysterious. I experienced it, and so did you, and we're unique. We're not obliterated by the experience. You know that movie Soul?
DOM: No
VIJAY: Ok, you’re kidding me.
DOM: No, I know, I know. I’m only kidding.
VIJAY: It’s just a great movie.
DOM: It is great.
VIJAY: But I remember watching it.
DOM: It's the Pixar one, where the guy dies and he becomes a cat? It’s awesome.
VIJAY: It’s so fascinating. The whole movie is so beautiful, because of these personal relationships. And yet so it's, it's like neo-Buddhist.
DOM: Yeah. For people who haven’t watched it, just explain it. The guy really dies, and he does become a cat.
VIJAY: It’s very neo-new age.
DOM: It’s a reincarnation model.
VIJAY: Yes. The goal is to disappear into the great, unknown consciousness
DOM: No, the great unknown.
VIJAY: And that's such a great line.
DOM: Totally.
VIJAY: And yet the whole movie is like, inescapably personal. Even the souls are personalized. You can't getaway from the communal aspect of it. There's this weird eerie feeling when almost everything is disappearing, and they're being absorbed as individual experience. It’s such a conundrum that the world finds itself in.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: The only reason the end is meaningful is because of all the relationships in the community leading up to it, and in the middle of it. So I think there's something here. From a missional engagement in the world.
DOM: And even inside.
VIJAY: And even inside the church.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: I guess part of what I've been saying is, Jesus, what are you saying to your church today?
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: If we are your body, your incorporated body, and you are the head of the church, and this doesn't freak you out…God, you know, you're above all things, you hold all things together.
DOM: Jesus is not confused.
VIJAY: No. What is he saying to the church right now?
DOM: This is such a beautiful thing to think through. I think we want to remember that the church in North America is just one expression of the church. I think if you travel, or if you think of our global brothers and sisters around the world, they've been navigating some of these things before us. They wouldn't call it secularism, but they've been struggling with a minority voice in the culture, not knowing their place. So I think the great joy of being able to listen to God's voice as the church, Capital C Church, is a great season for us.
VIJAY: Which is a largely, not just minority, but in some cases persecuted community.
DOM: Yeah, exactly. It's a season of shifting our gaze. Remembering that we in the West have also bought into this individual framework that we think we're the church. No, we're part of the body, the global body of the church. So that's going to be a beautiful season of learning for us. But at the same time, I think our brothers and sisters around the world don't understand secularism yet, because secularism is going to find everyone because of the Internet, because of technology, because of how consumerism works. And it weaves a web around you. And so, my hope is that as we talk about some of these important themes, we're going to unpack some new handles, some new words, some new categories, for people to think through.
VIJAY: To land the plane here a little bit - where we're going to head, to scripture. I think in the various letters, this is the beauty of scripture. It's not a monolithic sort of book. I was listening to someone teach the other day on genre and they made this beautiful comment on two different types of literature we find in Scripture that I think is really sort of important for our conversation.
They said, there’s the prophetic literature. The prophets were speaking the reality of God into the present situation. So not so much about the future, but the present, and specifically to those at the top or those with power. Because certainly in the Old Testament reality, when Israel was a kingdom, you had kings, you had the power brokers, and they were basically keeping.
DOM: Them in check.
VIJAY: Yeah. And bringing God's almost judgment, or at least critique to the leaders, whether it's the senseless shepherds of I think Isaiah, or the Kings and saying, listen, you are perpetuating systems of injustice, and not dealing with poverty.
DOM: You have the handles of this, the handles of the system.
VIJAY: And God is not happy with how you have used this power. So speaking to the leaders, and then tracing the lines, saying if you continue, this is going to end.
DOM: Right, you’re dead.
VIJAY: Then you have apocalyptic literature. Primarily only Revelations. They have bits of it in other places, which was speaking to the bottom, the martyrs under the throne. Revelation has this picture saying for those of who feel under the power, or powerless victims, or collateral damage. Because some of us, as you said, have been direct victims of injustice, and mismanaged power and authority in the church.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: To those, the apocalyptic rhetoric, seems like God is not present, but don't give up hope. This vision of Jesus on the throne, it was to those at the bottom saying, hang on, hold on. And I think both of those voices are coming to the church today. Those of us in leadership need to be cautioned, as the old leaders were, by the prophets, saying be careful. Be careful what you do with the entrustment of authority that you have and how this works as the people of God, because this can go bad. And to those of us who feel like we've been collateral damage or ignored or just directly victimized by the power structures, not just within the church but in general, hang on.
DOM: Don't lose the apocalyptic vision.
VIJAY: Yes, and don't let go of authority in general. You need the first vision John gets. It’s a Jesus he's never seen before.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: So much power, so much authority, and yet carrying it in a way that was so counter.
DOM: What's amazing is, if you go back and you read the beginning of John's vision, it says it happens on the first day of the week, which is a Sunday. There's a sense that that vision is happening in the context of a worship moment.
VIJAY: Right, Dom, I see what you just did there.
DOM: Which is one of the very first times we see in the New Testament, this shift away from the gathered worshiping of the Jewish people, to now the gathering framework of those who celebrate the first day as the resurrection.
VIJAY: Yeah
DOM: This is right at the beginning of the Book of Revelation.
VIJAY: Yeah, that's so good.
DOM: And so it's a powerful image, that in worship, new visions of Jesus at work.
VIJAY: I mean, that by itself is such an encouragement to us. To say, don't miss the things that God would have for us, in the gathered experience, of how he is going to give us.
DOM: And the earliest Christians to, will start to define the first day of the week as Sunday. I mean, in a consumerist culture like us it's Monday, but for the earliest Christians it's going to be Sunday. It is that first day, which, from that day and the way you worship on that day, orients the rest of your week, and your life. I mean, not that worship is not those other days, but there's an orienting day.
VIJAY: This conversation makes me excited to not miss the next gathered expression of my community, in case there would be some vision that God has for me.
DOM: Oh, for sure.
VIJAY: So good. Thanks Dom, I appreciate this conversation, and I'm just hoping for those of us that are listening, it is helpful to put into words, and name some of the things we're experiencing. I think we can start to realize, I'm not alone in this.
DOM: Yeah
VIJAY: There is a season that this is in, and language helps me know where I am, and hopefully, I know where to go next, or how to put one foot in front of the other.
DOM: Yeah. And that the complexity that awaits us in the future will require that we think more deeply about these things.
VIJAY: It’s good.
DOM: So it's going to be great.