Previously on Improv.

In my previous post, I briefly wrote about three temptations that Wells’ five-act narrative drama attempts to avoid. The three temptations are:

1) To see the principal location of theology as the world or society—the political whole.

2) To assume that because the sacred community is the key location of theology, because God’s principal way of working in the world is through the church, then God has no purpose for the rest of God’s creation.

3) To perceive that in the knowledge of certain key pieces of information, not universally available, one has a unique power. (Improvisation, pg. 39-40).

The church has given in to these temptations because our theology has been based on a three-act narrative drama instead of a five-act drama. For review, the three-act drama is as follows: act-one is the fall, act-two is salvation (Jesus’ death and resurrection), and act-three is the eschaton or rapture and return of Christ. Since our theology has been formed out of the three-act narrative, we’ve succumbed to the temptations listed above, but how have we not avoided these temptations? Perhaps because we do not fully understand what these temptations are. Over the next few paragraphs, we will explore each one a little more fully.

1) To see the principal location of theology as the world or society—the political whole

The first temptations is the most difficult to define or understand because it is the temptation we are engaged in the most. Wells writes, “If Christians do not have a distinctive community, they will seek prominent positions amongst the powerful in the world. They may well regard it as their responsibility, rather than God’s, to make the world come out right, to usher in the kingdom” (Improvisation, p. 39). In other words, the characteristics of the church become confused with the characteristics of the world. To put another way, we confuse the church and the world and try to make the world the church. On the grander scale of the world, we fall prey to this temptation every four years when it is time to elect a new president. Christians from the right and the left come out in full force and argue with one another which person is the one God is calling to the presidency. We judge the policies of the candidates based on morals that we assume are clearly stated in the scriptures; thus we attempt to elect the best candidate who can bring about the kingdom of God, according to our viewpoint. It’s the system we all have grown up in. Christians who grew up in the American life confuse Christianity and worldly politics, especially lately in the Baptist church; which is actually ironic since Baptists were at the forefront of the idea for separation of church and state. We have assumed that it is our role to control the narrative by electing government officials who are Christian because it is what God wants from us.

On the surface, the above is not a bad idea. It is ideal to have politicians who believe in the Christian message to be in power because they could use their power to influence change in a corrupt political system. That is ideal but the reality is that won’t happen. Here’s why, the kingdom of men and the kingdom of God cannot coexist. The kingdom of men will always be about the well being of those who support what is called universal ethics, a belief that there are a set of rules, power structures, and ideals that are accepted as the social norm. The problem is that universal ethics is dictated by those in power, politicians for example, therefore, universal ethics is really ideals accepted by a loud minority. When humans try to usher in the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God encounters the kingdom of men and a battle of opposing ideas take place because the kingdom of God is wholly other than the kingdom of men. In other words, the kingdom of God is too radical, too heavy to be ushered in by sinful mortals.

2) To assume that because the sacred community is the key location of theology, because God’s principal way of working in the world is through the church, then God has no purpose for the rest of God’s creation.

This temptation refers to our dogma as a church. Our beliefs, our sectarianism, isolate the church from the world when we put our holiness above the holiness of God. In other words, we see the church as the only way God is working in the world. This temptation is difficult to avoid because the line between being “not of this world” and separation is very thin. We mistake that being different, being sacred, or being “not of this world” means isolating ourselves from the world around us. Wells writes, “a church that is cutting itself off largely or entirely from its surrounding society is thereby depriving itself of many of the ways in which God’s grace is made plain in the world through the Holy Spirit” (p.39).

Our isolation from the world around us, our local communities, is a result of living in the third-act of the three-act drama or choosing to focus on the wrong act in the five-act narrative drama. We isolate ourselves because we see ourselves, the church, as the only tool in which God uses to tell the narrative or end the narrative. The truth is God has given the church many resources outside our traditions to follow God and participate in the narrative; however, we’ve chosen isolation, waiting for the final act to come. When we isolate ourselves or cut off from society, we are more likely to fall into the first temptation. As the society that exists outside our doors expands and changes while the church remains closed off, we panic and seek to bring about the kingdom through our own means. By panicking, we start to control the narrative instead of living into the narrative.

3) To perceive that in the knowledge of certain key pieces of information, not universally available, one has a unique power.

This temptation may fall under the guise of any of the previous two temptations; however, this temptation is the greatest temptation we fall prey too, especially in America because it gives power to the individual. An example would be that we have been given power through the scriptures to be intimate with God. This temptation resides fully in the three-act narrative drama that focuses solely on the fall, salvation, and the eschaton. This secret knowledge is a form of Gnosticism (p.40), but with the Enlightenment, this turned to the individual and the individual’s security and fulfillment within the narrative. The focus on the individual’s role in the narrative has created a theology that is born out of the individual instead of the community. The church community becomes secondary and the individual’s role in the narrative becomes primary. The church’s theology in a three-act narrative highlights this temptation with the emphasis on personal salvation or a “personal relationship with Jesus.” The church then is only viable to highlight, encourage, or stimulate the individual’s experience.

The individual experience within the second temptation can underwrite a sense of superiority over the faithless. The church, since the focus in on the individual, becomes a group of people who each have a special knowledge, or an access to a special experience, that the world cannot have (p.40). The first temptation, according to Wells, is the more common place to find Christians trying to control their narrative by refusing to share their secret experience with the world, or society, because they may seek to control it or not respect it. Thus, we engage in the most damaging public practices still assuming that thinking the right things or having a personal relationship with Jesus ensures that righteousness remains with them (p.40). We can become engaged in activities that perform appalling injustices without realizing we are doing so because the activity does not violate our personal experience. The individual is defenseless against those who corrupt the narrative because the corruptors have disguised their message to coincide with the personal experience. The individual is simply not strong enough to carry the full weight of the narrative on their shoulders to become the church (p.41). The individual experience does not move the narrative forward; it holds the narrative captive and the church is not able to live in the fourth-act.

The paragraphs above are brief explanations of what the three temptations look like in our narrative. The church will be able to avoid these three temptations better if we seek to understand the temptations and work to recognize them as they appear in God’s story. The five-act narrative drama does seek to avoid these temptations however, within our American context, they are more difficult to avoid. The church can use the five-act narrative drama to pull these temptations to the forefront by better understanding how our ministries are fed by the three temptations.

We will explore how the church can use the five-act narrative drama and avoid the temptations within our ministries in the next few upcoming blog posts. Stay tuned.