Church for a changing culture: an introduction to alternative worship

5: Some theology

In order to discuss the underlying theology of Alternative Worship, that which distinguishes it from other kinds of Christian response to contemporary culture, it is helpful to make use of some concepts drawn from mathematical set theory.

A 'closed set' is defined by a boundary - all that is inside belongs to the set, all that is outside does not. An 'open set' has no such 'territorial' boundary, but belonging is defined by relationship with a centre: all that is moving towards the centre, seeking relationship, belongs; all that is moving away, abandoning relationship, does not.

Churches that operate on a 'closed set' model attempt to define the Kingdom with a boundary, usually coincident with declared membership of the Church - in more extreme cases, membership of a particular church. 'Conversion' comes by moving people from one side of the boundary to the other. The task of the Church is to extend its boundary, to take territory for God. It encourages people across the boundary by providing a world that looks familiar while being based on a different value system.

The Alternative Worship movement sees membership of the Kingdom as defined by movement towards or away from Christ as centre.

Clearly there are still those that belong and those that don't, but definitive separation is impossible this side of the final Judgement. Those who appear to be close to Christ may be moving away from him, those that seem far away may be heading towards him. C.S. Lewis makes the point in 'Mere Christianity' that choosing God is an ongoing process, and that all our choices add up to a direction towards or away from God. So it might be said that the Kingdom consists of, or at least is present in, those who are moving towards Christ - following him one might say - whether they are yet conscious of it or not.

This theology has a direct effect on the Alternative Worship approach to the world.

The concern is for direction of movement, in so far as it can be gauged, rather than declared allegiance to Christ. "You will know them by their fruit." The whole world, not just the organised Church, is seen as the site of God's activity, and the attention of believers is turned outward into it to discern, and then follow wherever God is seen.

The Kingdom is not identified with the visible organised Church. The emphasis is on discovery of the Kingdom wherever it may be found, and then served, rather than believing that we have to assimilate things into organised Christianity before they can be classified as Kingdom.

For many people in Alternative Worship the starting point was surprise at the unmistakeable presence of God in a place that they had never expected, or had not been taught to expect by their church background. Their experiments in church form are an attempt to express what they have found, and a search for ways in which it can be nurtured, where the God-signal can be amplified and fed back into the world.

Alternative worshippers expect to increase the Kingdom by cultivation more than conquest. 'Secular' things will be encouraged towards God, or made holy by being used for God's purposes, rather than being simulated by believers 'within the boundary' in the hope that people will transfer allegiance to the simulation. And since God might be discovered anywhere, it is not felt necessary to stick to 'Christian' music or art, or to refer only to Christian writers or thinkers, or to limit the topics that may be covered in worship, or to use approved religious language or behaviour.

Which set model is adhered to also affects attitudes towards risk-taking.

For 'closed set' believers, the willingness to take risk is constrained by the danger of recrossing the boundary. For 'open set' believers, the risk is that of heading in the wrong direction. But in the absence of a hard boundary between saved and unsaved it seems less fraught to explore a new road, or to change direction on discovering one is heading away from relationship with Christ.

'Closed set' Christians tend to operate from an essentialist model, where a sizeable unchanging core of Christian doctrine or tradition need only alter its surface appearance from time to time in order to communicate to whatever society it finds itself in. It is not expected that surface change should force reevaluation of core doctrines or behaviours. These are assumed to be God-given and therefore not subject to cultural change.

Alternative Worship takes a more incarnational approach.

It asks what relationship with God means within this particular society, as if like Christ we were incarnate as babies, and had to learn each time our relationship to God from scratch using what means our society provides. Any specific forms of worship or organisation only exist to resource that process, and need to be held loosely as forms that should never be taken as final templates for our activities or God's Kingdom. This is an approach in tune with postmodernity, in that it assumes no universally valid form of Christianity, but many culturally specific forms, all still rooted in the Christian story and defined by the necessities of relationship with the one absolute [but not fixed] point called God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Alternative Worship arose in response to felt needs rather than academic theories.

So the theology has emerged in pieces through reflection on the practice of remaking church. The practice of Alternative Worship is itself a theological experiment, an act of research by believers into the nature of relationship with God and with the world, in which the forms of church can continually respond to discoveries made. Brueggemann described the relationship of God and his people in terms of a dance, in which what remains constant is the relationship of the parties not their positions on the dancefloor. Our models often assume that humans move while God remains fixed, but the metaphor of dance allows that God can and does move, requiring humanity to respond creatively if the dance is to continue.