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Since I began pastoring a Mennonite church (Little Flowers Community), I have been learning more about the Radical Reformation, a term coined by George H. Williams in the break-through book by the same name (“The Radical Reformation”, Truman State University Press, Jan. 2003). While diverse in their beliefs and expressions, the communities of the Radical Reformation did share some common characteristics. Namely, the formation of congregations independent of institutional authority, both civil and ecclesial, and the freedom of individuals to voluntarily join said communities.
This emerged from a world where such freedoms were not found or affirmed, by in large, by the Roman Catholic or Protestant traditions. Despite the often violent differences between these two movements, they were both built around the parish, a model that based ones Church (and civil) involvement on ones geography. Drawing a great deal on the monastic traditions in respect to the individuals right to choose their vocation, they significantly contributed to western culture in the areas of individual freedom, and specifically the freedom to identify and participate in groups according to those rights. In part, this shift was to counter the abusive power of institutional authorities.
As I consider the heritage of this shift towards congregational over parish emphases, I can see many important changes that I strongly affirm. At the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the affirmation of the value of every individual. Further, I am a strong believer in discerning communities of faith leading together, not absolutely subject to institutional powers so distant from daily life. There is much I am grateful for in this movement.
However, I am also aware how quickly those freedoms have been co-opted and corrupted by individualism and consumerism. Focus on the individual has gone so far as to undermine our communal identity and calling as Christ’s unified Body. Our right to freely associate as we choose has often fed into treating church and faith as commodities to be sampled. While the parish system was formed and thrived when portable wealth was virtually unheard of- and thus required geographical proximity- our commuter culture has made us strangers in our own neighbourhoods, closer to online avatars than the person next door.
One of the greatest strengths of the parish system was that it required that we know both our neighbour and our neighbourhood. While there is always be smaller communities drawn together by uniquely shared convictions (even affinities), we too often allow that freedom to rob us of the necessary trials and chaos that comes with relating to people truly different than us. These very dynamics are the fires of formation in the kiln of true community. We rightfully fight the heavy hierarchies in favour of mutual and shared leadership, yet fail to develop the capacity to be people of genuine and humble submission.
Perhaps we have, in our attempt to correct the failings of the past, swung too far in that corrective. Perhaps there is another way, a way that both affirms the freedoms of Christ for every individual, while still requiring of us the difficult, but necessary rootedness in our communities.
What do you think?
