The Zone Gathering

Being the Body
By Charles Colson and Ellen Vaughn
Reviewed by Heather Newman

The Body was first published in 1992 and revised, updated and republished in 2003 as Being the Body. The authors’ central purpose is to explain to 21^st century Christians what it means to be the hands and feet and show the love of Jesus to a post-Christian world. It isn’t about ‘going’ to church but rather about ‘being’ the church. To accomplish this goal they separate the book into three sections: 1) What is the church? 2) The church against the world; and 3) The church in the world.

Part one starts with a challenge and uses the events of September 11 to frame the discussion. The Judeo-Christian worldview is presented as diametrically opposed to the Muslim worldview and Christians are called to understand the particulars of our faith so that we can articulate the gaps and inconsistencies in other worldviews.

Colson and Vaughn challenge us to go deeper, to reexamine our purpose. Through great stories from around the world and from inside prisons the authors challenge us to ‘go and tell’ (or in NCC terms to ‘be one, make one, for one’). They discuss four qualities necessary for the church in the world: humility, courage, united and evangelize.

The authors draw a distinction between the church universal and the church particular. The universal church is the one bride of Christ that crosses all times and creeds and is composed of all who have confessed Jesus as their Lord and Savior. The church particular is the local gathering where we grow in discipleship, serve each other, and bless our communities. To be a Christian means to unite yourself with a local or ‘particular’ church. God’s saving grace unites us and is infinitely grander than any points of difference on doctrine.

To grow in humility we must guard against triumphalism – the real temptation that we/our church/our denomination have all the truth. There isn’t a set formula that all must follow to accept Christ. If we spend our time questioning the faith of those from other traditions be it St. Assisi, Mother Teresa or a Catholic neighbor, we become guilty of the sin of presumption. Such disunity is destructive to the building of true community and may turn off watching non-Christians. As Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel at all times; use words if necessary.” In this way we witness through the example of our life rather than by knocking on doors or shouting on street corners.

American culture has swung far towards individual rights often at the expense of group or community good and unity within and among particular churches has also suffered. We do things because of what we will get out of it rather than out of loyalty or strong conviction and often we approach hunting for a church in the same way. Too often Christians are swept along by a consumer culture that approaches church as just one more item on the shopping list. If my needs aren’t met, I’m quick to drop one church and start a new search.

In part two the authors contend against the pervasive postmodern relativist view. The promise of postmodernism is that meaning is unique to each person and can be found by looking within yourself for answers and purpose. People are considered to be basically good and all actions should be judged in practical/pragmatic/greatest good terms. If you believe in literal absolute truth, you are labeled a fundamentalist. In sharp contrast to the postmodern view, the authors posit that real absolute truth exists and is found in the person of Jesus Christ (I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life). Without this foundation, there is no basis for values; everything becomes subjective and relative. Jesus is not one truth among many but rather the one and only truth among many imitations and hollow promises.

There are five ways to know truth: 1) Special revelation – God’s Word 2) General revelation – God’s creation 3) Truth in us – our conscience 4) Truth is intelligible – understandable to our intellect 5) What conforms to reality is truth. Truth is not dependent on the majority (i.e. the world was round even when the majority thought it was flat).

This section concludes with a look at Martin Luther’s quest for truth and the resulting transformation of western culture. Many of the freedoms on which America is based owe their roots to Martin Luther. For example, his emphasis on the priesthood of all believers led to the valuing of every human life and his elevation of work (all work done to honor God was seen as noble) let to the protestant work ethic.

The third part focused on living in the world. The pastor doesn’t do ministry but rather equips the laity/the saints to minister, to show God’s love to a dark and dying world. To be effective we must guard against the tendency to emulate our culture and place our pastors on pedestals. When we view our leaders as celebrities rather than as fellow travelers, we create an unhealthy culture that encourages pride. Instead we should encourage accountability so that servant leadership remains at the heart of all we do. We all must be true Christians from the inside out. We are called to be salt sprinkled in every work place and community. To reach all we must engage our culture through new words to convey timeless truth.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 6th, 2007 at 2:32 am and is filed under Book Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.