Ancient-Future Community
finally (d) a new generation of Christians which increasingly insists upon a community that not only loves and cares for its own, but also extends its arms beyond the boundaries of the church to offer compassionate help to a broken world. I find all this encouraging. I sense here a longing for a Christian community like the church Marcus belonged to in Thena. So I am relatively optimistic about the future of the Western church where Relational Solidarity is concerned.
It does not appear to me, though, that the value of Robust Boundaries gets equal time in the current buzz about Christian community. And it is not hard to see why. The association of certain segments of contemporary Christianity with philosophical and theological perspectives that have exchanged a foundationalist approach to epistemology for some form of postmodern relativism inevitably renders it nearly impossible to make the kind of categorical pronouncements about community boundaries—be they moral or theological—that leaders in the early Christian movement could make. Philosophical and theological considerations aside, moreover, from a purely pragmatic perspective, those of us who are leaders in the local church minister to a culture that increasingly resists embracing categorical truth-claims of any kind. As a result, we find it easy to get on the bandwagon of Relational Solidarity—to preach love, authenticity, and mutual support and encouragement. But the idea that we might also need to have Robust Boundaries in place to define the contours of an authentic Christian community doesn’t particularly resonate with our culture. And I get the impression that this crucial ancient church social value doesn’t particularly resonate with some of our new generation of church leaders, as well.
So I find it necessary to remind us that categorical truth-claims—about both beliefs and behaviors—were simply part of the biblical worldview of early Christianity. And these convictions, in turn, generated the kind of Robust Boundaries (a) that we saw illustrated in the story of our actor friend Marcus, and (b) that defined Christian community throughout the pre-Constantinian era of church history. Issues that served to delineate the Robust Boundaries of the New Testament church, for example, included sexual immorality (1 Corinthians 5), lack of repentance when sinning against a brother (Matthew 18), the propagation of false doctrine (1-2 Timothy), divisiveness (Titus 3), and even sloth (2 Thessalonians). Those who lived their lives according to community standards, in this regard, remained part of the family of God, those who did not were excluded.
This is hardly rocket science. The church family idea is, of course, patterned after the natural family. And as any family therapist will tell us, a healthy family needs both love (Relational Solidarity) and discipline (Robust Boundaries). Experience demonstrates, again and again, that to place a high priority on relationships, while ignoring the need for boundaries in the name of love or tolerance, inevitably results in a highly dysfunctional family.
As it goes with our natural families, so it goes with the family of God. Any church that calls itself Christian, emerging or otherwise—and that longs to blaze a trail back to community as it was experienced in early Christianity— will firmly establish along the path both of our two key trail-markers: Relational Solidarity and Robust Boundaries. Only then can we hope to recapture the social capital and prophetic power that characterized the ancient Christian church.
Joe Hellerman (M.Div., Th.M. Talbot; Ph.D. UC LA) is Professor of New Testament Languages and Literature, and also serves as co-pastor of Oceanside Christian Fellowship in El Segundo, California. Joe and his wife Joann have two daughters, Rebekah and Rachel.