Theology and California by Sanders Fred Sexton Jason S. & Jason S. Sexton

Author:Sanders, Fred, Sexton, Jason S. & Jason S. Sexton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing Ltd
Published: 2014-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Casting Call

(Pseudo) Community

A network of individuals seeking authentic community to defragment our fragmented lives is what appears to be the outcome at Saddleback. And this is a type of community setting; but is it the authentic community so desperately needed? By participating in the life of the church—the body of Christ—such fragmentation can become de-fragmented as believers experience the healing, renewal, and wholeness promised in the gospel. The very recognition for the need of community, however, “suggests that there are many who are seeking a new form of spirituality that goes beyond the individualistic questing that characterizes much of the sociological literature on spirituality.”51 For Saddleback this occurs or is intended to occur through its small group ministry. The intent of small groups at Saddleback is to “recapitulate the fragmented, decentralized, and diverse nature of postsuburbia through performances that allow a realization of postsuburbia’s binary other: integration, centralization, and uniformity.”52 However, not everyone involved in a small group at Saddleback even attends Saddleback’s weekend services—a phenomena for many Orange County megachurches. So what then builds integration, centralization, and uniformity? For Saddleback’s small group ministry, uniformity is based on affinity. That is, contrary to the natural grain of a place as culturally diverse as southern California, small groups at Saddleback are made up of “like-minded individuals.”53 It is this outcome that is the problem of a church paradigm that has at its core an individualized, consumer driven mindset.

Much of what is taken as church today and as witnessed from the model of Saddleback is hardly a gathered ecclesial body, flock, or bride, but can easily be designated a voluntary association of religious people. However, far from being a voluntary association of religious individuals, the church is what William Cavanaugh calls the Eucharistic community.54 It is the community which “participates in the life of the triune God, who is the only good that can be common to all. Its reality is global and eternal, anticipating the heavenly polity on earth.”55 To anticipate heaven on earth means to live out the hope of heaven here and now. This however, cannot occur through isolated lives, nor can it occur through lives bent towards the trajectory of loving only that which is like. Life is meant to be experienced in authentic community since it is in and through such community that authentic living occurs.

Living by faith, or faith-living, should take place in all settings if it is authentic. Saddleback aims for this, attempting to cultivate a lifestyle of “spiritual action” which “is seen to properly take place in the personalized settings of one’s own life: in the small group … at work, or in the grocery store.”56 But how does one enact and sustain such action or performance without an expectation of commitment? The Saddleback model, despite the stories of members that “suggest communal reintegration” and a stated mission to “deepen the connection of its members to the body of Christ,” tends toward a varied amount of commitment. Wilford acknowledged seeing members (both old

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