dissertation

64
koinonia. 215 There are several dangers ahead if this task in neglected. Two scenarios may
be mentioned here.
First, the group may become an end in itself, particularly if being a community is
(perhaps by default) primarily understood only in the social sense of the word – e.g., as
“the experience of belonging.” 216 To reproduce this experience, like-minded people may
be tempted to huddle together. 217 However, as practical theologian Ulrich Kuhnke reminds
us, koinonia in the New Testament is not to be equated with a community of the
likeminded [Sympathiegemeinschaft von Gleichgesinnten], because its collective identity is
constituted by another reality. 218
Secondly, emerging churches may become semi-detached and sacred meaning-making
enclaves within consumerist culture; niche groups, that is, in which all members have
much in common. 219 Alan Hirsch, for one, notes the danger that middle-class culture
poses for “authentic gospel values,” with its preoccupation with safety, security, consumerism,
comfort and convenience. 220 This threat is the reason he names his chapter on
the topic of community “communitas, not community.” 221 We will now elaborate upon
this.
2.5.3.1 Communitas
Hirsch borrows the word communitas from the anthropologist Victor Turner. 222 It connotes
a so-called ‘anti-structure’, that is, a lack of formal roles and relationships. In com-
215
Note that at least one attempt has been made: Peter R. Holmes, Trinity in Human Community: Exploring
Congregational Life in the Image of the Social Trinity (Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2006).
216
Peter Block, Community: The Structure of Belonging (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2008), xii.
217
Mark Scandrette who lives in an ‘intentional community’ in San Francisco (www.reimagine.org) is aware
of this. He suggests that community is less about ‘best-friendship’ and more about intentional engagement
with the people in our lives. How we behave, determines our experience of community. Mark Scandrette,
Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2007), 50.
218
Ulrich Kuhnke, Koinonia: Zur theologischen Rekonstruktion der Identität christlicher Gemeinde (Düsseldorf:
Patmos, 1990), 103. Cf. Jan Hendriks, “Community in the sociological sense does not lead to Koinonia; it
is the other way around.” [“Gemeenschap in de sociologische zin leidt niet tot Koinonia, andersom wel.”]
Jan Hendriks, Verlangen en vertrouwen. Het hart van gemeenteopbouw [Longing and trusting: The heart of congregational
renewal] (Kampen: Kok, 2008), 57.
219
Cf. Martyn Percy, “Old Tricks for New Dogs? A Critique of Fresh Expressions,” 35. “Demand-led
groups,” Percy warns, “may just service people’s desires for more meaning and fulfillment, while vesting
this in the language of purpose, connection and even sacrifice.” Ibid., 31.
220
See Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 219. Pertinent is also the comment of Tony Jones, drawing on the work
of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Jones suggests that the internalized habitus of members of the
Emerging Church Movement (abbreviated as ECM) might compel them to a lifestyle of consumerism built
on predetermined tastes. He warns for the possibility that “while the participants in the movement often
pride themselves on their countercultural challenge to the conventional church, they are already predisposed
to the consumeristic tendencies [emphasis added] that are well-known attributes of upper-middle class America.
These characteristics of the social class from which the ECM sprang may indeed preclude them making
some of the ecclesial reforms that they are attempting.” Jones, The Church is Flat, 162.
221
See also Michael Frost on this theme, e.g. the paragraph “Not Community, Communitas.” Frost, Exiles,
108 ff.
222
Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Antistructure (Chicago: Aldine, 1969).