Charles Farhadian | Christianity: A Brief Introduction
3:16PM May 13, +0000
Speakers:
Jonathan J. Armstrong
Charles Farhadian
Keywords:
church
christianity
hinduism
people
christian
called
book
world
gospel
missionary
armenian
friends
worship
andrew
question
jonathan
tradition
christians
sacraments
faith
Today it's our pleasure to be speaking with Dr. Charles Farhadi. And Dr. Farr hogyan is professor of world religions and Christian mission at Westmont College in Montecito, California. And he's also author of the book that we'll be discussing today author of many books. But the book that we'll be discussing today is Christianity. A brief introduction, released this past year from Baker academic, Dr. Farhadi. And thanks so much for taking some time to join us for a conversation today.
Thank you very much, Jonathan. Great to be here.
Now, where are you calling from today? Dr. Farr?
How are you? I'm in sunny Santa Barbara, although it's quite cold this morning. But I'm based in Santa Barbara, California.
Superb cold probably means like 65 Fahrenheit.
Right? I hate to say it, that's all relative, isn't it?
Yeah. We've we've been having enough wet and rain here in Marburg to keep us cold for a long time. Good. Thank you for how do you you have a really cool and what I take to be unique approach to the study of Christianity. Sure, you're a theologian, you can talk theology just as well as anybody else. But if I'm not mistaken, you're approaching the whole question of Christianity, really, from a world religions perspective. And in this book, you present a portrait of Christianity that I've not really seen elsewhere, Christianity as a world religion, but from an insider's perspective. Why did you start studying Christianity? Can you share a little bit of your own story there?
Oh, sure. Yeah, thanks, Jonathan. I grew up in San Francisco Bay Area. And I became a Christian early on, actually, I grew up in the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is Eastern Orthodox. And about seven, eight years old, I say, I became a Christian in that I prayed the prayer, and I meant it. And but growing up in the San Francisco Bay area is surrounded by so much ethnic and religious diversity, I think, inspired me in many ways to think you know, what, what does it mean to be a Christian? In fact, these people who were, my friends, follow different religions. And so these were not just these other people, that I would go visit, you know, using a plane or travel or something. These are my neighbors. And these are real childhood friends. That's where it all began, is in a very germane way, on the playground, trying to say to myself, How can I share the gospel in a sensitive way to these people who follow different traditions? And they're my friends, you know, yeah, it feels like
it in the book, too. You say you learned it on the playground to begin with. But this is a lived experience. This is a common sense approach to Christianity, and one that I think makes sense to the modern worldview to a modern person. This is a tremendously useful book. In that regard. No, I don't know a great deal about the Armenian Christian church, but like I'm imagining standing surfaces with the icon of statuses in front. Is that is that your church upbringing?
Yeah, that's right. But only the first, you know, 10 710 years. But both sets of my grandparents came from Armenia. So these Eastern Orthodox congregations, like the Armenian Apostolic Church, was very ethnically based and apostolic is part of the name, as you know, because they believe that two apostles of Jesus that is fattiest, and Bartholomew went to Armenia and tried to share the gospel with with the king of Armenia. So they're very proud of that history. And actually, Christian Christianity was adopted by the king of Armenia, in the year 301. So that's a whole decade before the so called Conversion of Constantine.
Well, this is amazing, actually, now that you bring it out, Armenia is the first country to convert to Christianity, even before the Roman Empire. And a little tidbit, for those of you who might get a chance to visit, visit the map of the Vatican museum some data if my memory serves me rightly. When you come straight out of the Sistine Chapel and you're descending back to go towards the the entry of the museum, I think there's a huge statue of Gregory thermometric Gus, isn't he the apostle, the illuminator? Gregory the Illuminator, who brings the gospel to Armenia?
That's right. Well, you you you have great knowledge, He's highly venerated. And if I'm not mistaken, and I might be mistaken here. He might have also written down a creative the Armenian language, but anyway, we do give him credit for, for introducing the gospel to the king, the king was quite ill. And Gregory was in prison and nobody could, you know, heal the king and then the king said, Well, what uh, what about this guy Gregory and Gregory, pray to the Triune God, you He was healed, that is the king and then he said we'll adopt this faith.
Now one of the cool things about ethnic churches isn't just the amazing liturgy, the incense and the smell of incense, the beautiful architecture that sometimes comes with these traditional churches if they've been in cities for a while, as the Armenian Church has been in Sanford, San Francisco. Is that right?
Actually, Oakland, the city of Oakland, East Bay, but not
the food is also quite extraordinary. What are your favorite Armenian Orthodox dishes?
Well, actually, I've got one right here I was going to have for breakfast, but this is Bart arch. But yeah, there's biscuit like prot This is called barge. But you know, of course, the lamb shish kebab and the rice pilaf. And here's a great memory, we would, at the end of the service, we'd go into our fellowship hall in the Armenian Church. And I think I mentioned this actually the beginning of the book, because it was a powerful memory, that, you know, a cousin would play the UHD. And we would do Armenian dancing. And this is not, you know, disco type or, you know, rap or hip hop. This is old ethnic dancing, and the older cousins would teach us younger cousins had to dance and we'd have the food like the bottle of Oz and the bar arches and chore egg and other foods. You know, and that's an interesting piece of our conversation here is, is how Moatize send sorial worship and church experience is in many of these communities. That is all the senses are brought into that we saw continuity between this high liturgy which was impossible to understand, you know, the language is ancient Armenian, it's not even modern Armenian. We saw continuity between that space and, and dancing. And again, the dancing was ritual, dancing from the old country. And all that's gone as far as I know. I mean, even when I've gone back the last several years to visit, I don't think they they do the dancing anymore. This is amazing.
And I think your lived experience of this particular Christian tradition, yeah, bleeds out of your book. So if I can just read one thing is absolutely correct. Christianity, like other religions is not simply a set of doctrines or practices. Rather, Christianity is deeply connected to everything in life from how one understands the cosmos to how one navigates one's inner life to whom one marries and one is how one treats others. views of the body, the natural world politics, economics, ethics, one's mind, ambitions, suffering, anxiety, and hope are profoundly shaped and given meaning and purpose by Christianity. I think again, this is one of the the unique and real strengths of your book is that you're able to compellingly show Christianity as a worldview, which most of us are too deep in the tradition to be able to do or don't have the anthropological skills to set out. If you would tell me a little bit about your journey in the formal study of Christianity.
Yeah, well, that's, that's great. Um, yeah, yeah, this is yeah, this is really great. Um, so again, as a young boy, I wanted to articulate my faith to a wide variety of people who were friends, followers of different traditions, and ethnicities. And then, a powerful moment was in high school, I saw the film peace child, peace child was an old, old film, and a lot of people know this, Don and Carol Richardson. And you know, I was a high school senior, and this is the prayer I had, as a high school senior, I'll never forget it. I said, God, if you are so big, I want to go right there. Like right there in that sawI village. And God is so big. And I ended up in that village. So I spent a summer there. I was 18 years old, and I brought in several bags of salt. I lived in the jungle. I actually lived with German missionaries in the beginning, and I lived with other missionaries. And it radically changed my thinking about gospel and culture. I was still a young person being you know, 1819 years old. But I thought, What is going on here? Who are these people who are suffering? Some were not Christian, some weren't Christians. And the questions that emerged for me the curiosities that emerged for me, during that summer propelled me through all my education, my parents had not gone to college. And I just thought these are really fascinating questions. I want to ask, What did I see this summer? So I got to be very good friends with Don Richardson. And, and then eventually, Jonathan, I did a PhD on the largest tribe on that island. The Donnie people I did, I wrote a social history. It's amazing of those people. So I'm so very interested in the relationship, I'm very interested in relationship between Christianity and culture. And I will say, John, the reason I wrote this book actually, was to get one coin across. And it's kind of embedded in, it's not really throughout the whole book. And I forgot what page it's on, it's only a couple of pages, and the subheading is nothing is Christian at the start. So maybe this was a way to get to your question. I began to realize that in terms of modernity, or traditional life ways, or this or that, or a cultural system, or philosophy, philosophical system, what what our faith is about, because of who Christ is, is converting everything, turning everything to Christ. So, so the gospel can handle every condition, but it will redeem. It's about redemption. And so I've been thinking more about what are those elements in culture, philosophical systems, etc. Beauty, so called beauty that can be redeemed, and those elements that cannot be redeemed, and I think that's, in large part what our Christian mission is, it's the mission of God to begin to redeem these things that are redeemable. Wow. Wow. So that's what I say. Like, for instance, and this is what I mean, there's nothing Christian at the start. And this was really provocative. I really, and I want it to be provocative because it forces us and encourages us as Christians, to be in the world with a view to helping be voices of conversion and change. So here it is. In the book, I mentioned a couple of
ideas that we assumed to be very Christian, and maybe Christian at the start. ecclesia, church Deacon, right. Even the word redemption, there's different words that we say, well, that's a Christian word, you know, are churches Christian? Well, he actually, actually Ecclesia used to be in the Roman Empire, a voluntary organization of free, male Roman citizens. But Paul uses Ecclesia. And he says, there's no difference between Jew and Gentile, men and women, that doesn't mean distinctions are not are avoided, no particularity is maintained. But now we have to use a fancy term, an ontological unity in Christ, right, a fellowship with the divine with the triune. God. And so I think our faith is all about redeeming those things. We see it in the very beginning of the first page of Genesis. The new story, yeah.
So so I need a clarifying question here, Dr. Friday and and that is, so you've got this, what I take to be a very compelling and frankly very fascinating approach to Christianity, your your, your you've got some anthropological tools at play, and at work in your in your graduate study and in your formation. You've also got this really interesting personal religious background and experience coming off the west coast and an ethnic Armenian tradition and so on expression of Christianity. Here's what I can't figure out. So as you tease out Christianity's impact on culture, how do you know what's cultural? And what's Christian influence? How do you locate that that conversion mystic element, like we're talking about Christianity is the world's biggest religion, it's two point some billion people, how do you know that's Christian and not merely Western or not merely modern or whatever?
No, that's that's a great question. I think as a good Armenian, I think in categories of food. So and this actually, this is not my idea. But these two analogies, I think, are very helpful. And they're food analogies, and one is the kernel and the husk, you think about an ear of corn. And there are many of us who think of the gospel as a pure, unadulterated, raw message that surrounded by sheets, like the husks. And our goal, say in good preaching, or good Christian living is to pull back the husks of the corn so that we can get to the colonel which is the gospel. So there's the sense of pulling back modernity, you know, what is modern pulling, you know, pulling this back this back this back? That's one way of understanding the relationship between gospel and culture, I would add modern traditional Millers oh, let's pull back the modern and let's see, you know, the, the, the kernel of the corn in a sense, the onion metaphor or analogy is the other food item. And what the onion analogy illustrates is that when you try to pull back the, the levels of, of gospel culture excuse me, there's nothing there in the center. So in other words, looking at the onion, which I lean toward the onion approach, if you want to call it that, that the gospel can never be separated from culture. And the gospel is, in fact, carried in culture. So if we try to peel back culture to get at a gospel essence, there won't be any essence. And we can basis on our understanding of who Jesus is. We can't peel back his humanity to get some kind of divinity. I mean, it's together, his humanity carries or however, whatever word we can use to describe that, but spirit and matter and divine and the human in crystal and who Christ is, or the, the humanity and the divine come together. So that's why I think the the only the best approach is to say, this modern world, where has it fallen, this traditional world? Where is it fallen? How can it be redeemed in the light of who Christ is and revelation of Christ?
Cool. That's really helpful. Dr. Farhadi and one of the other things about this book that really caught me in intrigued me was you do a lot of summarizing of literature or perspectives on global Christianity. Now global Christianity has been out for a while in in one Atom feed a this program that we're using as a platform for communication. We've done lots of interviews on global Christianity over the last 10 years, it's been a personal interest of mine, one of the things you said that I thought was very interesting is, let's not call it global Christianity, let's just call it Christianity, because Christianity, in fact, has always been global. Well, you just popped a big bubble for me. But that was that was a very effective and good perspective. But you, you do summarize a lot of literature that's been published under the name and heading of global Christianity. And you talk about what, what the faith means in this networked world that we're living in. If I can read just a snippet here from page 57 of your text you right under that the paragraph a network's faith. In our contemporary world, missionaries no longer travel light as they did when Jesus sent out his disciples. They carry cell phones and the latest Apple and PC products to enhance communication with Mission centers and families back home. Bible translation software quickens the process of learning and translating the Bible into indigenous languages, and so on. Is Christianity in some way unique among global fates in the the level or the depth of its networked existence?
That's a great question. And I'll do my best with it. Because I think it's, you know, when you talk to an academic, they always want to say it's very complicated. Well, I'm willing to admit that there's still a lot more to learn. But I'll give you my two or three cents on that. Christianity, as you mentioned, a minute ago, some would say, was the impetus for globalization or helped to create globalization, because here was Jesus sending his disciples. And we know about the Roman roads, we know about Koinonia Greek. So there was a language that was used throughout the empire. And so Christianity would spread through through writings and a common language. And of course, Christianity then expanded outside the Roman Empire. And that's very important, the Gentile breakthrough, as well. We know that Christianity is the largest religion in the world, we also know that it is the most dispersed language in the world, religion in the world. And so it it ebbs and flows around the world geographically. Now, is it the same? I would say one thing that's fascinating to me, is the idea of translation. And this is not my idea. I'm borrowing from some of the greats like my own professor Lamine Sahni, and then a friend Andrew wall's both of these gentlemen passed away recently. But they talked a lot about the Bible being translated beginning with the name of God. And when you do that, then it allows The Word of God to be made meaningful in local contexts. And so you have this idea that the final destination of the Gospel is that remote village where God can speak that remote language of 500 people. And that that is, the beauty of the gospel power of the gospel doesn't require these people to learn a major language. But in fact, God, again, would stoop down to speak their language. That's amazing. So you don't see that in Islam, by the way, because the name of Allah remains Allah. You could talk to a Muslim, say, what is the English word God. But if you if you're in a Muslim community, it is Allah. And Buddha is Buddha. But there are different names for Buddha, but they're not. They're not translated like Christianity. So that's a really fascinating
reality and globalization, we should also keep in mind that, and actually I just mentioned the three religions, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, are considered the missionary religions. So each one of those religions sent out missionaries in order to win others. You know what I say, Jonathan, I think all religions are missionary. When I take my students to the Hindu temple in California, in Southern California, it's not unusual for a faithful Hindu to tell us about the truths of Hinduism. And it is it's a missionary moment, they're trying to enlighten us. So even the so called non missionary movements are all about movement out. So so what I would say maybe also, I would throw out there is this idea that there are products that go out as well, and preferences. And this is the big difference. If you look at the missionary movement in the Bible, for instance, look at Matthew 10, really starts at Matthew 935 935 to 11. One, you have Matthew's formal mission discourse. And so you have Jesus sending people out as fascinating. He calls disciples, and the next verse, he says, These are the apostles. So following gives rise to apostleship sending, and what does he say, don't take this, don't take this, don't take this, because they're supposed to rely on the worthy person. These are non believers, who God has prepared to receive the believers. And this is, Jonathan, this is some of the most exciting aspects of Christianity today, that there are people around the world going out, because they are so convinced. And it's true, that God the triune, God has prepared worthy people in African villages, the mountains of Asia, downtown Tokyo, to be recipients of the gospel that's happening today and all over the world. And what are they taking? They're not taking much. But I think today's missionary movement can be much more complicated in that we're seeing a lot of the materialism of the West going there, too. And maybe there's maybe there's a place for that. I've been a missionary houses that have a lot of wealth, actually. But then I say, well, they're maybe they're speaking to a different crowd. You know? Yeah.
Good. This isn't really my house behind me, by the way. Something you said that I just need to make a footnote of and that is, you mentioned that Andrew Wallace passed away, and I had not heard that news. Now, that's the when did that happen? That's that's a that's a big change. We're in another epoch now that Andrew Wallace is no longer with us down on Earth. Would you be willing to tell me how you met him and maybe a story about Andrew walls?
Yeah. Oh, boy. He was in is the real deal. Several months ago, he passed away. I knew Andrew, not as my professor, but I was on two projects with him. Actually, he was on my project. I edited a book on worship around the world. And he was a contributor. So I met with him at at Yale and in Calvin College, we had meetings there. And then I was on a multi year project with him in Singapore. So meeting around a table with Andrew and three, four other people for a week or two. Let me tell you a brief story about Andrew. Don't make it in the history books. And it's not a big deal. This is really Andrew, I'll tell you two things. One thing is a comment that there's so many scholars of world religions who have made a name for themselves using Andrews ideas. And Andrew was a real gentleman and They borrowed his ideas and they made he he was not, you know, they popularized it his ideas, and that's how ideas work. But he was always a gentleman. And he is, in a sense, the father of many great missiological ideas. The second thing is more about his character. This worship book that I put together, we had all these wonderful scholars from around the world around this table at Yale Divinity School. And I was very nervous. I was leading the meeting, and then we're going to segue to lunch. So I invited Okay, let's we're gonna go to lunch. Now. That was the youngest. I was very intimidated. Andrew walls. llaman. Sana. Dana, Robert, you know, people I respect. Who else was there? Nicholas Walter store, you know, anyway. Yeah. So they all go to lunch. Andrew goes with them. They leave the room. He comes immediately back. He says, I want to help you clean up this conference room. Wow. He had the decency to leave with them. And because he wasn't a show off, and then he came back. And that was the real Andrew. Now it was. Yeah.
When you say he was the real deal. There's a depth of Christian character. That's really beautiful.
It is. Yeah, thank you. That's the way to say it really. And humble, super bright, could quote, poem. I mean, these this is old school, where were people memorize poetry? And, and he also, you know, and he had this reputation that, that people would deliver papers, and he would be, you know, he would be asked to respond. And he would just, he would act like he was sleeping almost, and just sort of leaned back or put his head down. And you would look at him like Andrew, come on, you have to respond to this. And then and then when the papers were all done, he would have just woven together some amazing statement, you know, no notes, and he just and everyone's, you know, jotting down his words. So he was a wonderful person. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, we are in a different epoch epoch of mission history. If Andrew is no longer with us, thank you for sharing that news. That's right. Dr. Farhadi. And, hey, Chapter three of this book is about the Bible is Christianity's relationship to the Bible, basically equivalent to the relationship of the other world faiths to their holy books. What does that relationship look like when compared to other world religions?
Yeah, it's a great question. I would go to Islam as a brief example, Islamic course affirms the Quran. Quran means the recitation in Arabic. And these are recitations that the Prophet Muhammad received through 22 years of his life. And that was six years 610 to 632, when he died, it's a compilation of his recitations. Muslims do believe these are the very words of Allah. There's nothing of the personality of Mohammed that was brought into the recitation. In fact, if one were to say, there's something of Mohammed, of his ambition, of, you know, vanity, anything that got wrapped up or influenced the Koran, that would be horrendous. So it's a very different view of inspiration. I mean, even if you just read the Bible in English, you say, Wow, that sounds very Paul, or that sounds very, you could read and I know, it's complicated. And scholars argue about who wrote this, who wrote that. But you could tell these are very different writers with very different personalities. The other thing I would say is an i This is not anything new with me, or I this is not my idea. I'm borrowing from others, but so true. And I verified this by talking to Muslim friends. The way that a Muslim understands the Koran is like a Christian when understand Jesus. And it's interesting, Jonathan, because in both religions, Christianity and Islam, you have this notion of dissent. In Arabic is Townsville. Townsville is descent of the word of Allah into book. It's the word of Allah descends into a book. So and of course, our faith teaches and this is a universal statement just not for Christians. That the Triune God you know, the self disclosure of God is Carl Bart says Jesus Christ descended into real human flesh hormone goosey us with our flesh, our humanity. So it's very different. And this is why even Christians who want to respect Muslims and I think We need to be respectful of the traditions we want. We don't want to put throw the Koran on the floor. We don't want to mark it up. So different view. We don't worship the Bible, Dewey, even though that's faithful evangelicals. We don't engage in bibley olive tree, right, as the great reformer said, at least Calvin and Luther and others. The words of the Bible reveal the word, the Living Word, Jesus Christ.
Yeah. Amen. Cool. Well, we have this unique opportunity. Can you continue to educate me? What's the holy book of Buddhism? And what's the relationship there of Buddhism to that book, or Hinduism? And can you just sort of sketch that out for me?
Yeah, great. So in Hinduism, actually, when I teach Hinduism I do, I teach it historically, we start there's different books that emerged through the period of Hinduism beginning roughly and 1500 BCE, the Vedas upon Ashad. Maybe you've heard of the word Vedanta, Vedanta was upon Ashad, Puranas, the epics etc. There are so many sacred texts within Hinduism. There's one epic poem in Hinduism called the Mahabharata, which is four times as long as the Bible. And from the Mahabharata, you get a thin slice. It's the climax of the Mahabharata called the Bhagavad Gita, and maybe you've heard of Gita, Bhagavad Gita, Krishna conscious people, the Krishna Khan, people will use that, but it's a legit Hindu texts, no Hindu texts is required of Hindus, they don't have to believe it. All these texts are about the deef different deities, the different gods, their mythologies, how they can help, how you could appeal to them. In Hinduism. In a nutshell, there is a cosmic pattern to which everybody needs to align themselves with. And if they're outside of that, they don't do their dharma, their duty according to the cosmic pattern, then they'll have they'll be reborn. But there is a sense of faith also, in the tradition, anyway, a massive corpus in Hinduism, a massive corpus, but not one text is considered more important than the other. I talked to a Hindu convert years ago, three with three earned PhDs. He teaches at Liverpool, what is it called Liverpool hope, which is a Christian university in Liverpool, England, brilliant, brilliant guy. And I said, Why did you become a Christian? He said, I've read so much. So many of the sacred texts in Hinduism, there is nothing like the quality of what I read in the Bible in terms of the power of the gospel to save, there's nothing like it. So we're, you know. And then in Buddhism, you know, there are different branches of Buddhism, there's two major, but there are other branches of Buddhism. And one does affirm the words of the Buddha and philosophical reflections on those words, and, and those are called the Theravada. And people, they follow what a document called the Tripitaka. The tripping, Taka is divided into three baskets. Tripitaka means three baskets, the words of the Buddha, and philosophical discourses, etc. And the monastic rules. And so a big stream of Buddhism will follow those and and they try to shape their lives around clearing one's mind, getting access to knowledge of the way the world really is. And then the the broader branch of Buddhism can use sutras or the words of the Buddha or not, it's just not important. So yeah, it's very complicated, but it's not like we can't I think in a short time, it's hard to talk about all these tensions. But I think what you have in Christianity is our belief that the Holy Spirit actually helps us to interpret the very Word of God, and draws us back to the Triune God. And that I think that's really unique.
Does that? Does that even show us something that complexity of these literary traditions associated with Buddhism associated with Hinduism? Does that even show us something of their their differing view of what a set of scriptures is? Christians, of course, are heirs, essentially to the Jewish Scriptures and the Jewish community had a really rigid sense, relatively, of what what was in that literary tradition and what was out so Christians sort of inherited this nice, neat package of holy writing. This doesn't sound like there was any sort of comparative editorial process through the ages in Buddhism or Hinduism. Am I hearing that correctly?
Yeah, you would say I don't I don't know if you can actually use the expression open canon but but in Hinduism, scriptures can still be written, or at least there's new insights. And oftentimes they're part of what's called Vedanta. But yeah, there is there's, there's greater openness. In our faith, of course, we affirm a closed canon. And as you mentioned, we have a strong inheritance from the Jewish faith and Tradition, ritual patterns, etc. But yeah, not so in Hinduism and Buddhism, actually Hinduism you might be interested in knowing the Buddha or the historic Buddhist week, Siddhartha was a Hindu. So he, he was raised as a Hindu, and then took the fundamental ideas of Hinduism, and then re define them. Karma, reincarnation, etc. Well, he redefined them so much so that a new tradition emerged. But yeah, the scriptures tend to be much more open in Hinduism, Buddhism, and not definitely not as necessary. Yeah, well,
I'm going to take us into another chapter of your book, your Christianity, a brief introduction from Baker, I'm on page 106. I'm looking at a paragraph called coffee house church. And this is at the tail end of your chapter on what the church is as an institution and the relationship of the church to the Christian movement. I found this paragraph fascinating. let it speak for itself. You right. Rather than go to church, why not enjoy time at a local coffee house, meet with like minded Christian brothers and sisters and read Scripture together? He's reading scripture with Christian friends at the local coffee house the same as going to a church. Even the nuns, quote, unquote, of the Pew Research Center data, those who do not self identify as followers of any religious tradition, might find reading scriptures of any religion in a local coffee shop to be more palette to be a more palatable option than attending religious worship. Are such get togethers, the church and then you hinted an answer when in the next paragraph, you write churches more than sharing fellowship among Christians, despite how meaningful those times can be. Church entails shared an outward signs, sacraments that guide and provide meaning in the presence of God among us. Let's dive into what the church is. But first, I've got to ask a COVID related question. Here in Europe, we're just starting over the last 72 year, hours or so we're just starting to hear news stories about the breakup of COVID. It sounds like COVID is going to go away. Finally, praise God, we're so ready for it. Countries are in the business of dismantling. They're in the process of dismantling their COVID restrictions at this point, and it's clear, we're headed towards a COVID a non restricted future, which is a great answer to prayer. But COVID has changed a lot of our church experiences and a lot of us have been trying varieties of this coffeehouse Christianity that you described your paragraph? What is necessary for a church to be a church?
Yeah. Well, I would want to separate out, as you mentioned, in the reading there that that worship does not mean church. That fellowship does not mean church. I think church includes fellowship includes worship, but I think it also includes teaching, a kind of mutual accountability, that deep konia that fellowship, I would also say it includes sacraments. Now, sacraments can be different, but I think what we would have in the so called coffee house churches, at best, our best would be maybe the DNA of the church. And that's interesting. Maybe you've heard of the discovery, Bible studies, or discovery Bible method. Again, it's a, an approach. You can look on the internet, it's, it's being used all over the world and people who are part of the disciple making movements, which is different than church planting movements. They're trying to multiply the church very rapidly DMM disciple making movements. Oftentimes, they'll use disciple, excuse me, Discovery Bible studies to do that. Those are small groups that they would argue, do in fact, have the DNA of the church, but I get a little bit you know what I think okay, given given the reality of maybe Christian minorities having to live in really subjugated environments, maybe that's the way it has to be Eat people meeting in their homes. I'm not saying home churches, not church. But I think those elements of teaching or preaching, of course, worship discipline, I would say that we'd be part of the church, sacraments would be part of the church as well. So when we have worship, I think it's worship, it's different. In other words, if we got together with our friends and, and sang some hymns or some contemporary songs, I would say, that's not church as much as enjoying worship together, or having fellowship together. It's got to be some teaching involved, right? And some sacraments. And, again, discipline is often forgotten a body that helps to shape us. Yeah, I have a pretty low view of church. Now, my Eastern Orthodox, you know, the priests wouldn't go for that. And I understand that, right?
Even there, when you say sacraments, you probably you may or may not mean I don't want to put words in your mouth, you may or may not mean ordination. Do you mean seven sacraments, like the Roman Catholics? Or do you mean that we got to do the Lord's Supper once a quarter? Those are? Those are pretty different feels?
Yeah. Yeah. And I would say that, you know, I'm not, I'm not hard about these. I don't, I don't think there has to be a particular number seven, or the Protestant, you know, number two, or three. But and it sort of admission that the Spirit of God is working in these particular ways. And these are elevated rituals, thinking anthropologically, that not needs to be part of our service. Yeah, I think that's part of it. But again, I'm very sympathetic, because one thing we do know about Christianity is, and you're still in the west over there, although Germany is, I'm sure so different than the United States in terms of Christianity, but but when you go to an area that has a Christian minority, what can you expect, and there are many Christians, as you know, they live well, they worship in small house churches, there's not a formal teacher, or if the teacher, if there is a teacher, that person is, has maybe just a little bit more education or spent a little time studying that week, right? hasn't gone to seminary or Divinity School, maybe doesn't even have a college degree. So I think I tend to be very generous. And, of course, I'm not the one to define the church, but in my understanding of the church, I kind of throw the net quite wide, but I would hope that they would have these elements of teaching, of worship of discipline of sacraments. You've mentioned every quarter I actually go to a church, here a call it a low church, that that actually has celebrates communion every week. And boy, I really have appreciated it. Having community once a week, because a COVID will use these little throwaway. I don't know if you guys do that, that little throwaway cups. It decentralizes it, but still it's you know, your IT functions the way it functions, at least for us as a memorial. to that event. Yeah.
I just like to to observe. I've asked about the definition of the Church of what is a church, and I think you've done two things for me. You've described churches that you regard to be exemplary sociologically, you've described them here, sort of the things that happen at those churches. Yeah, you've given me some aspiration, they should, they should have these theological thrusts. But I think you kind of leave the question open. And I think that's actually part of your answer, that there's not going to be a very tight definition to what a church is. And that's different than the way an Armenian Orthodox would answer the question. Were the ordination of the priest. And being in communion with that, that sacramental community that is the definition of the church, or a Roman Catholic, where's the church? Where there's an ordained priest who is properly in communion with the Pope? And you haven't said that?
No, no. Am I hearing you correctly? There? Yeah, yes, yes. And what I'm leaving out also is the assumption is the assumption that the Church is the Body of Christ. But I would also and this is where I am I, I am wondering, and I think this is the case that people who are not Christians can be a part of the church. That doesn't mean they're going to be in leadership, but the church of all, you know, the churches in the world, as Christ was in the world. And the church always needs to be moving out and including non believers. As an active Christian witness. I had a friend who he's a head of a A motor a Christian motorcycle gang. They look like Hells Angels, but they're, they're not. They're called the black sheep. And he said to me, the mark of a good church is how many cigarette butts there are outside the entrance of the church. I was gonna say, bear with me. Yeah, there's sort of the rough and tumble people who may not identify themselves as Christians at that moment, but they're seeking they're trying to understand. But I like that idea that the church is in the world as Christ is in the world. And you know what I struggle with Jonathan? I really do. How did we acknowledge the brick and mortar reality of the Church, which everyone says a, you know, the church is not about the address, but come on come a week sort of say it's the people. But come on, really, I mean, we really do function as though the churches the building, but at any rate, how do we deal with the very modern institutional notion of church as brick and mortar, whether we like it or not, we go to church, and the movement of the Spirit, which is really I think, what the church needs to be about. So there's a dual function of the Church, which is gathering and sending. And oftentimes what we have overlooked as the church is the sending, because the church has followed in many ways, a and attractional model, that's based probably somehow on the business model of doing church, let's get these people to come to our fellowship. But some of the more innovative churches I've visited around the world, they take the church, their portable churches that literally take 600 people, and they worship in a park 600. Not like, you know, five, and then people get interested, they want to hear the music, they want to hear the stories and, and then and then they come on board. So this kind of dynamic is challenging, I think, for us in the West, we we love building up these institutions. Again, I'm just calling a brick and mortar, but how do you either reclaim or retrieve the spirit of you know, the Holy Spirit that's moving? And that ought to keep us nimble, and fluid, so we could, you know, be about the mission of God and missio dei. That's my question.
And that and you're asking the million dollar question. So now, I don't have to ask any more questions, we can just focus straight in on that. You've cited this Evan Jellicle trope. You know, you are the church and those of us who've spent time in Evan Jellicle churches, we we've had pastors preach sermons and resonated perhaps with that sentiment, the people is the church. It's not about a building or maintaining a building. Right. COVID has tested that theory in a way like no one predicted or could have foreseen. So I think in the old days, pre 2020, there was no other option or, or vision for how a church could operate. So the pastor could lean into that trope. Hey, we want an active social presence in the society. We want active small groups, etc. People could lean into that vision as much as they wanted, and there was no threat that the boat would tip. But now we've been forced into a new situation where we can at least imagine a world without church buildings, and yet thriving Christian communities. That was not imaginable previously, now we're trying to figure out what we do you happen to address that in your book at the end of chapter six, beginning of page 141. And following you have a paragraph a section called Internet Christianity. What has COVID been teaching you about what the future of Christianity might look like?
might look like their pros and cons may be and by the way, I should mention, Jonathan, when I was thinking about this book and meeting with Jim Kenney, Jim Kenney is at Baker. And we're going over the concept. He said, Why don't you write something about the future? And I'm very shy about all that because I have no confidence in how I could predict the future. So it's very humbling to say, well, this is what I think. But it seems to me we will be continually our worship. Well, our Christian experience will be potentially more disembodied. As, as the internet, it's here. It's not but what's going to happen with robotics for instance, how will we understand our identities in a really profound way? The term that comes to mind is Charles Taylor's term ex carnation. Ex carnation is this term. The steady This embodying of spiritual life. So that is less and less carried in deeply meaningful bodily forms, and lies more and more in the head, I would just say are one potential, if we continue this trajectory is that our spiritual lives, our knowledge of God will be more abstracted our identities will be more abstract, rather than embodied. On the other hand, I think we are, we are so embodied and we can't fully be disembodied, that maybe the intensity of being together will escalate, as well, somehow, I don't know what that would look like. I don't think we could ever be fully disembodied. But for instance, what can what this is what's happening now, I think I mentioned this in the book, there are churches with, you know, their virtual reality churches. So I've never been to one because I'm not really great on the computer, but you can go in, if you're a man, you could be a woman, or you're Jonathan. Now you could be Steven. And you could be Asian, or black or white, or whatever you want to be. And then you can raise your hands when you want to raise your hands. And, and then they have the internet pastors. So all these questions, who are these people? What's the really real and there's nothing like being embodied, right? And being face to face with somebody. So the strength of that is we have access to people, to people all around the world as well, like you and I speaking like this. Here's the crazy thing. Here's the crazy thing about globalization. I think it applies here. That globalization, which is a part of our now in our future, separates time and space. And here's a great example of that is, you could be at the grocery store on your cell phone. And you are talking to a dear friend, living halfway around the world, and you are much closer to that person than you are standing next to standing to this guy right next to, you know, eight inches away from you. That's what happens to our identity. And I wonder how that will impact our worship. Now, what's great, I have an elderly mom, she's no longer can go to church. She watches probably six half hour sermons on Sunday morning. She loves it. There's a real benefit to that, right. But I don't think they'll ever be a real substitute for the embodied nature. It's back to its back to you could say the Eucharist or the Lord's suffer supper. This is why, you know, this Catholic tradition is pretty nice. Sometimes they they Wow, they have a very high view. It's not just a memorial. But you cannot get away from the embodied nature of worship. And there it is on the table. You know, this kind of thing. Wow, we
are in for a very interesting future. If you'll indulge me, I'll tell one story that to me was, well, actually, I can tell that I'm getting some light interference here. So give me just one second please
forgive me. If you'll indulge me in one story, we are headed for a very strange future. And it was 2018 when I started to get sort of my first taste of what this future life might be. We had lost a good friend. He was a missionary aviator and died in a tragic plane crash in 2018 in the summer, so my wife and I had relocated to Chicago and we're at the Shedd Aquarium with our children. And we have our iPhones out and we're streaming a funeral service, which for us felt like a new experience at that time four years ago. We're streaming this funeral service partaking in this funeral service. And in this in Shedd Aquarium, they're dirt at these moments, they're showing this story of how this whale who had been on a beach is fried and so there's, you know, dramatic music and emotional music blaring and they take this, this whale up by a helicopter lift and release it back into the ocean. And just as we're seeing this, we're watching our friends casket be relocated. So my wife and I were sobbing, and we're looking at each other, trying to make sense of the terrible irony that we see. Our friend. His burial service has somehow become this Shedd Aquarium dolphin show where this whale is released back into the wild. And the power of those symbols merging I think is you know, just a little taste that I've had of the way that those symbolic realities the digital virtual world in our our incarnated form, may continue To tell a unified story in the future.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, I do. I really concur with that, John, what a powerful story. And and I would say it, I think the gospel can can can make sense of it all. I just think that we don't want to give up the embodied myths. But you're right, the Gospel can is the largest frame, right can make sense of all of it. Yeah.
Amen. Dr. Farhadi. And if I can ask one concluding question, and that is the question that we ask all of the interviewees on this program, what would it mean for the church to be united? Could you help us envision a church that is living with the unity that Jesus was praying for when he gave the the high priestly prayer in John 17?
Yeah, good. You're asking the difficult questions, aren't you? And as you know, churches that are interested denominations that are interested in unity, will put a very difficult word out there. It's visible unity. And, and I almost want to eliminate the word visible because if we just say unity, I actually think it's probably easier than visible unity. If we talk about visible unity, then, you know, we'll talk about rituals like, oh, how can we be unified when we don't see the Eucharist? Rewards suffered the same way? Right? What about racism? etc. So, are we talking about visible unity or a different kind of unity? So what does it mean? Well, I imagine it means something that we are all ontologically connected. And what is it Second Peter, one four, partakers or fellow shippers? I think that's a Greek term Koinonia somehow, but fellow shippers in the divine nature. I think that no matter no matter where we are in time and space, as believers, if we've been redeemed by Jesus Christ, forgiven and made new. We are adopted right? Ephesians In Galatians. That's a kind of unity I like, because it's unified in the triune. God, not in a visible. So maybe I'm giving up the visible unity. Because I think there's something deeper. We all can call God our Father, we are all adopted. Some maybe have, you know, if they're Jews, their errors, you know, if they've come to Christ, that the non Jews are, of course, adopted. So I would say, unity at the highest level is an ontological reality that is a new being the holy spirit among us through time and space. That should give us help us to be open to one another as believers. Yeah.
It's been our total privilege today to be speaking with Dr. Charles for hottie and professor of world religions and Christian mission at Westmont College in Montecito, California. author of many books including this beautiful book Christianity, a brief introduction. Dr. Ferrante and thank you so much for sharing your morning with us. The sun has risen in Montecito I can see the the morning has come in. Thanks so much for sharing your early morning with us.