Rumble Time: Incarnational vs Missional
Pat over at Mt. Si Vineyard asked me a question here about using the term missional vs. the term incarnational. My answer was too long for the comments, so I thought I’d post it here. Have fun disagreeing!
Pat,
As you know, there is no dictionary of Postmodern Lingo! But, I can tell you why I (and many of the folks I know) shy away from the term missional. As a recovering evangelicals, anything having to do with the term mission has a certain driven-ness to it. In their experience — and many of the folks I’m talking about are either MK’s or have been heavily involved in youth missions — mission is all about convincing, converting, and making someone be a disciple. This is a problem, because in our culture anyone who’s trying to convince you of something is either a) a politician or b) a marketing executive. It’s difficult to trust this kind of “let me convince you” lifestyle. It feels like a giant infomercial…or as my kid’s would say, “That’s just marketing!”
Now, we could try to reclaim this language, but frankly it’s going to be a tough sell. Look at the backlash among emergent/pomo’s against ‘The Purpose Driven Life” and you’ll see that even though many of these folks are looking for meaning in their lives, anything driven or overly prescriptive in the purpose department just doesn’t scratch where it’s itching.
That’s why some folks have moved over to incarnational. Here, incarnation is not so much about the church being the body of Christ on earth. The focus is more on the reality that Christ is incarnationally present within each person. Therefore, as followers of Christ, we can incarnate flashes and bits of him to the people around us. And of course, if we manage to live together in ways which allow all these various flashes-and-bits to be present, then we as the church really can be a more complete incarnation of Jesus here and now. We aren’t usually so good at this, because we usually insist that in order to be together we all have to be on the same page theologically and have the same mission or vision at hand. But that really has to do with how we define belonging, and that’s another topic.
Anyway as I was saying… incarnational living isn’t so much a goal to convince as a life lived as a gift offered. It appeals to those folks who dislike the mechanical nature of hunt-and-convert, but who ring with the model of I-Thou living (Martin Buber.) As one woman in my tribe put it, “I was tired of having friendship with strings attached.” It’s a dislike for hidden motivations.
As an incarnational being we can recognize and honor the divine in each person– as beings made in the image of God, as beings embedded in the story of God. But as a missional person we tend to see people only as objects to be ‘won,’ souls to be ‘saved.’ It’s an objectification which the concept of incarnational living is trying to avoid.
My beef with incarnational is that it’s a fairly unkown term and can be quite hard to unpack. Plenty of Christians don’t even know what it means! It’s like saying eschatological – only the seminarians are tracking with you. When I’m in churchy-circles I usually describe my tribe as a missional community. But in my head, I’m all about incarnational living.
Course, in the real world outside the bubble, no one needs to use any of those terms. We just get to be human, which is nice and refreshing.
Check out the article by Dwight. It’s a goodie.
Shalom,
Rachelle
Wow, a post just for me? I feel so special!
OK, that helps a lot. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the church as incarnational, except in the nebulous “body of Christ” sense which I think is far more about the global-historical church than my little crowd.
And I agree with the idea of missional being a term that’s overloaded at this point. C.f. relational evangelism; friendship evangelism: relationship for the express purpose of conversion seems quite plastic to me.
This concept again brings me back to one of my favorite hard-candy style Scriptures (let it roll around the tongue to savor): “Christ in me, the hope of glory”.
I suspect I’ll be on the other side of eternity before that one fully manifests in my thoughts and life.
Rachelle,
I like the term incarnational on so many levels…
**Christ** in me - That it is the power and person of Jesus shaping me.
Christ **in** me - He is not contained in a small little part of me, he is in all of me. In my body (not just a little imaginary corner called my heart), in my relationships, in the way I love people, in my desires and passions.
Christ in **me** - I too am his. I too get to join the other believers through all time and place. I am a part of His great story.
This also all turns around and I benefit from Christ in you. Jesus loves me through others that are his own. He loves me in a lot of other ways too, but it seems that one of the main ways is through others.
I think the prayer of Saint Patrick expresses this so well. (It was the writing of Leanne Payne where I read the connection between this prayer and what she calls Incarnational Reality)…
Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.
I like your words, Rachelle. I also use the word “confessional” in my faith stance, and maybe it pushes the edge out a little bit, but see what you think.
To be “confessional” in one’s faith is to declare that for oneself, this or that stance is true, lifegiving, and good. But my relationship with God is not Your relationship with God, my stance is not your stance, and the Divine is in both, as you suggest–my stance is not superior to yours or another’s necessarily.
It recognizes that we none of us have a monopoly on the truth or correct perception of God, and hopefully adds a dash of humility to our spiritual journey.
Enjoy the conference!
All of these labels we use are interesting. We use words that would only make sense to a Christian, and then we still have to take 4 or 5 paragraphs to explain them to each other. I have noticed that it isn’t long before the latest word catches on and then everyone is using it. At that point, the original meaning is so muddied that is likely, lost. Some examples, evangelical, pentacostal, charismatic, postmodern, emergent, missional and soon, incarnational. I don’t know if there is a better way to describe who we are and what we are trying to be and do. But, boy, I can’t wait until that Postmodern Dictionary is published…
Blessings,
Charlie Wear
I think the Postmodern Dictionary will have to be a wiki: kept on the Internet, updated in real-time, and whoever has an opinion can change the last person’s work drastically
Dear Rachel,
Nice effort in unpacking incarnational! Incarnational is obviously not something “NEW” (or postmodern) but has been the primary theology of those who hold to a more universal, “catholic” faith for 2,000 years. For many the understanding of salvation does not begin with the cross, it begins with God creating humans and then BECOMING human. God becomes one of us, as we are created in the image of God, God thus creates in a sense God’s self in the image of humanity– God became fully human. (so much for what God thought of the human race) Just as Mary was pregnant with God, we too as Christians are pregnant with Christ and bearers of the Christ-child in the world.
I have had several conversations with people who think that they have something to do with their “salvation”. The recent phenomenon (past 80-100 years) of “did you accept Jeus as your Lord and personal savior?” Has often placed the burden of one’s life with God into the person’s hands. it reminds me of network marketing. I smilied when I read your thoughts about mission. You are “saved” if you do X. Versus Gods created and incarnated and we are redeemed… awaken to the reality.
Anyhow, I am rambling. Nice to have found you (again?) Thanks for the post… AND for allowing me to put in my $0.15.
Rick
I just linked to this from Jason’s site over in the UK. The “Emergent Rule” he posted the other day sparked some comments from me about words and I got targeted. Glad to know I’ve got a kindred spirit. I even pointed to wiki, though I misspelled it. Right on, Pat.
It’s interesting to read the various povs on Incarnation. I got the final version of my idea of it from what I’ve read about Eastern Orthodoxy. I’m reading (slowly) a book that caught my eye in an Orthodox bookstore in Santa Rosa last month called “Being As Communion”. I positvely lust aver their thoughts on Incarnation. The Hope of Glory - indeed, Pat. Amen again.
As a Christian Goth I think I have a bit of a “sick” - in the good sense - view on it. “The Life is in the Blood”. Because God took on “Flesh with the Blood still in it”, and He told us we can have no part of Him unless we eat and drink… we then receive His life by one of the most culturally offensive ideas known to the Western world. No one could accept it. No one. While I don’t need to buy into the whole trans-substantiation deal - a result of external, modern reductionstic pressure anyway - I do believe that when He said that His Blood was real drink and His Flesh was real food He meant something more than the rememberance contemplation thing that we get in most evangelical type settings.
I too am a recovering evangelical. Not enough room there for sicko’s like me, methinks.