re-church network

by Zane Yi

This is the sixth post in a six-part series in the re-church Summer Reading Group. The six posts correspond to the six chapters of What Would Jesus Deconstruct?, by John D. Caputo. Thanks to all who participated!

What is a/the church?

Our forays together into the murky waters of Derridian deconstruction end with us pondering this question (and also with what is my favorite chapter of the book).

We’re familiar with some of the standard definitions of church. The church is “the communion of the saints”; where the bishop or priest offers the sacrament, where the Word is preached and where people are baptized; it comprised of “those that keep the commandments of Jesus.”

Caputo offers none of these standard definitions. Rather, he juxtaposes two kinds of churches, the Big church”, i.e. the institutional church, and “the working church.” The former is visible with “bishops, buildings, power, and the photocopying machines”, the latter exists on the margins and “is left on it’s own to face a brutal world” (119).

To illustrate the difference and relationship between the two churches, Caputo describes the ministry of John McNamee, a Catholic priest who serves St. Malachy’s Church in Philadelphia. The concerns of this priest and his community are far removed from news of “clerical changes, the gossip of the diocesan newspaper, and fundraising campaigns” (119). Rather, McNamee spends his days helping “people who need detoxification programs, jobs, a priest to testify at a bail hearing or in night court, or a handout for food or an unpaid bill” (119). His ministry is about “helping people without health insurance get admitted to a hospital, or about a ride home in the middle of the night, the priest being the one with a car (eventually stolen)” (119).

The list goes on and on.

Here’s the surprising fact; the Big church, if it could avoid the negative press, would shut St. Malachy’s down. Why? “No money. No Catholics” (119). In other words, the tithe and offerings generated by the few parishioners that attend the church cannot justify a full-time pastor or priest.

Off the beaten track, without money, and with out power, MacNamee’s ministry seems to be a futile cause. It causes MacNamee’s life to exist in a tension of despair and hope. He confesses “two forces within me ebb and flow…Nothing is out there. No one. Never was….The other is that sense which seems deeper and stronger: love has you here at all, sustains you, draws you to this Mystery” (121).

In other words, according to Caputo, “The two voices together; the one never giving the other any peace. Doubt as the condition of faith, not its opposite, making faith possible as (the) im/possible” (121). Or,

“A faith insulated from doubt fuels fanaticism and high-handed triumphalism and is in love with itself and its own power. Such faith soundproofs the walls of the intramural boys club called ‘the Church,’ the big visible one on top with all the bureaucrats and vestments.” (126).

So we have a contrast between two kinds of churches—the church of power and certainty, and the church of powerlessness and uncertainty.

Caputo clearly sees the latter as being the “true church.” Invoking Kierkegaard, Caputo claims, “The gospel is not a set of doctrines, but a way of life” (124). The New Testament is not a theory to be understood, but something that takes a leap of faith, and must be translated into existence. Ubi caritas, ibi ecclesia. “Where love is implemented, there is the church” (124).

The existence of the working church is deconstructive.

But Caputo reminds us, and these comments are a great summary of what has preceded this chapter:

“When something is deconstructed, it is not razed by reconfigured and transformed in response to inner and uncontainable impulses. When something is deconstructed, it takes on a certain look, not unlike the look of these two communities, among other unforeseeable and unprogrammable possibilities” (135).

“[A]n institution modeled after deconstruction would be auto-deconstructive, self-correction, removed as far as possible from the power games and rigid inflexibility of institutional life, where a minimal institutional architecture pushes to some optimal point, near but not all the way to anarchy, some point of creative ‘chaosmos’” (137).

So Caputo leaves us with a new vision for doing, or should I say being, church-being a people with out answers, without agendas, yet full of faith, hope, and love.

To be honest, Caputo’s vision of faith and church makes me deeply uncomfortable; yet, at the same time, it strikes me as being true. How does it strike you?

What kind of church do you attend, lead, or belong to? A “Big” one or a “working” one? Practically speaking, how could the two churches work better together in your context?