Exclusion and Embrace Pt 2.

I've just been reading an article by Brian Walsh called 'With and Without Boundaries: Christian Homemaking Amidst Postmodern Homelessness', which is excellent paper on how boundaries can be positive (they define a space or a home) rather than negative (something that serves to exclude or keep out). I think it best just to give you some great quotes (try replacing 'home' with 'church'), with a little commentary from me:

If all we have is border crossing and boundary blurring in a postmodern context of radical pluralism, then we have no place from which to make ethical/political judgements, no borders or boundaries the transgression of which constitutes oppression, and no ability to discern between the cry of the oppressed and the arrogant exclamations of the powerful.

Westerhoff continues: "Boundaries are lines that afford definition, identity and protection – for persons, families, institutions, nations…. A boundary gives us something to which we can point and ascribe a name. Without a boundary, we have nothing to which we can invite or welcome anyone else".

This an extremely important point. If there are no boundaries, it suggests that there is no distinct between church and world, that they are continuous. The church, by its nature of being form by the gospel must exclude, but paradoxically perhaps, it must also, by its nature of being form by the gospel must embrace. Church should be a place of welcome and refuge in and from the world.

... home is a place of permanence and familiarity. To be at-home somewhere is more than simply having a place to stay. We can also stay in motels and hotels, but these are sites of transience. Home, by contrast, signifies a certain degree of spatial permanence, a kind of enduring presence or residence.
Edward Casey’s phenomenology of place is instructive here: To lack a primal place is to be “homeless” indeed, not only in the literal sense of having no permanently sheltering structure but also as being without any effective means of orientation in a complex and confusing world.

The church should us a place of rest and security - orientation in a complex and confusing world. Again, this suggests there is a demarcation between church and world, there is a 'border' to cross.

... a home is not merely a house, a domicile or an abode. While the occupation of space is foundational for there be an experience of at-homeless, home transforms space into place. As Brueggemann argues, “place is space which has historical meanings, where some things have happened which are now remembered and which provide continuity and identity across generations.
Place is space in which important words have been spoken which have established identity, defined vocation and envisioned destiny” ... Another way to say this is that the boundary that makes this home the home that it is and gives it the character that it has as this kind of home are the stories that have shaped the memories of life lived here. The boundaries of home-making are narratively formed. Home is a storied place and without stories, without particular memories, there is neither home nor identity.

The church is a storied place, which remembers and lives our a particular story. It lives by the story of the gospel and not any other story.

... if homes are to resist the temptation to become self-enclosed fortresses – that is, if homes are to have windows and doors that are open – then homes must be sites of hospitality ... hospitality is the unique boundary that constitutes home as home, yet keeps that home open, keeps the boundaries suffused with welcome and protection, not exclusion.

The last sentence is the most important and challenging in the whole paper. Boundaries remain exclusive if there is no embrace, no hospitality shown. In the church we need to learn again the art of hospitality, not the occasional sunday lunch with friends, but hospitality that welcomes the other/the stranger/the outsider into our home.

We belong to the web of interconnected relationships that make up this place, and yet they belong to us. And herein there are, again, boundaries to be erected and respected. To belong here is to not belong elsewhere. To be on the inside of this locus of affiliation necessarily entails that there are others who are on the outside of this home, who do not “belong” in the same way.

Comments

[mark]

Thanks for that Andy, there's been some good stuff on your blog the last few days; i've been away for a while so i'm just trying to catch up on it.

I particularly liked the thoughts at the end about the boundaries being suffused with welcome and protection not exclusion. I'm all for 'church membership' that look like that. We can easily turn it into a load of hoops to jump through and codes to conform to. I suspect that it is that kind of approach that turns people off rather than a complete rejection of commitment or membership.

[andy goodliff]

Thanks Mark - the boundaries stuff is really interesting me at the moment, motivated partly by conversations at YLF on how we distinguish belonging. I'd be interested in your reflections on membership and baptist churches.

[andy goodliff]

Actually - let me also recommend brian walsh to you - i've got a link to his stuff published on the web and his book colossians re:mixed written with wife Sylvia Keesmat is brilliant too!

[-ash]

This sounds like a fantastic paper! This has certainly gone a long way toward answering a lot of my concerns on your earlier entries on membership. It's also well written, as I had just begun to draw the same conclusions as the quotes when they popped up explicitly. Which is always encouraging... if slightly annoying that one isn't all that original!

The analogy with Home is a powerful one. I've always thought my home wasn't very welcoming because it's all a bit stuck in it's ways. But someone said to me recently just how content they feel here. Which I found rather confusing, and we talked about that, but that's another story.

You're right in a way... a clearly defined place that you are proud of and is a place that is important to you and an expression of you... these can be quite private. It is, therefore, all the more powerful to be invited in and made to feel welcome in someone's house. There are houses that can have the feeling of "transience" described here, that anyone could walk in and "make themselves at home" but not feel particularly welcome. And there are places which you know are a person's sanctuary to express themselves; and you feel even more welcome in such places oftentimes.

Yes I think this is a fantastic analogy.