Thanks for this engagement, I too was struck with the way power was used in the COH story. When there is clear evidence of injustice and marginalization - we want to act definitively, and rightly so. The temptation to use top-down power can be tricky. I also noted at the way the pastors seemed to have quite a bit of authority even though they saw there communities as more flat in structure. In our Anabaptist communities how we as leaders use power is often hard to discern. In a recent podcast from Jonathan Martin - about sexuality - he shares how we are in leadership or the one who is inviting folks to the table - it can be easy to be complacent about who is outside of that welcome.
That seems to be the other side of this challenge to not take the road of disengagement or deferring when we are wrestling as communities of faith around this challenging questions.
I've been reading Eugene Peterson's Wisdom of Each Other and Scot McKnight's Philippian's work on the "common life" wondering how to get along with the people inside the church walls. If THAT gets cleared up, in a Jesus way, maybe, just maybe, taking that way of being outside the church walls will be productive. Personally, I haven't noticed much progress.
I don't think believers know enough about their human creation. There's a lot of disrespect for most others. But we are all designed the same way . . . to be seen, belong, listened to. Inside boundaries. There needs to be some ground rules.
Fitch, I think much of what you describe and what seems to be the description of CoH, feels a lot like a community trying to embody Marx's class consciousness. (I have not read the book and like you say in your caveat this is one perspective on the narrative - so I could be wrong).
But that being said...I'm no expert on class consciousness, but my understanding of how it works is if the class of people that is marginalized or oppressed can simply understand itself better in relation to the structures of power and their own values they will become aware enough to start a revolution that will overturn the structures of society and make them just. Marx’s theory depends heavily upon the assumption that human societies (lower classes especially) have the resources to offer rightly ordered justice from within themselves.
It seems like CoH got caught in this paradigm of justice in which they believed they needed a political consciousness born of human effort to get the work done instead of a consciousness born of the Spirit through Jesus.
Thanks for this engagement, I too was struck with the way power was used in the COH story. When there is clear evidence of injustice and marginalization - we want to act definitively, and rightly so. The temptation to use top-down power can be tricky. I also noted at the way the pastors seemed to have quite a bit of authority even though they saw there communities as more flat in structure. In our Anabaptist communities how we as leaders use power is often hard to discern. In a recent podcast from Jonathan Martin - about sexuality - he shares how we are in leadership or the one who is inviting folks to the table - it can be easy to be complacent about who is outside of that welcome.
That seems to be the other side of this challenge to not take the road of disengagement or deferring when we are wrestling as communities of faith around this challenging questions.
Thank you for addressing this very important topic. There's much to think about here.
I've been reading Eugene Peterson's Wisdom of Each Other and Scot McKnight's Philippian's work on the "common life" wondering how to get along with the people inside the church walls. If THAT gets cleared up, in a Jesus way, maybe, just maybe, taking that way of being outside the church walls will be productive. Personally, I haven't noticed much progress.
I don't think believers know enough about their human creation. There's a lot of disrespect for most others. But we are all designed the same way . . . to be seen, belong, listened to. Inside boundaries. There needs to be some ground rules.
Fitch, I think much of what you describe and what seems to be the description of CoH, feels a lot like a community trying to embody Marx's class consciousness. (I have not read the book and like you say in your caveat this is one perspective on the narrative - so I could be wrong).
But that being said...I'm no expert on class consciousness, but my understanding of how it works is if the class of people that is marginalized or oppressed can simply understand itself better in relation to the structures of power and their own values they will become aware enough to start a revolution that will overturn the structures of society and make them just. Marx’s theory depends heavily upon the assumption that human societies (lower classes especially) have the resources to offer rightly ordered justice from within themselves.
It seems like CoH got caught in this paradigm of justice in which they believed they needed a political consciousness born of human effort to get the work done instead of a consciousness born of the Spirit through Jesus.