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New Nets: More on Bounded Sets
I’d like to say more about bounded sets before moving on to other approaches to church. Picture a bounded set approach to church as a circle in the form of a ring. Members of the group fulfill certain criteria and become members of the group thereby. It’s pretty clear who is a member of the group and who isn’t. People are either “all in” or “all out.” The boundary is comprised of whatever beliefs and behaviors are viewed by the church in question as essential for membership in the group. Keep in mind that boundaries like this include both formal statements (like creeds and defined positions on various moral-behavioral issues), cultural factors (as is the case with ethnic churches of many kinds) and other informally enforced boundaries (things which are accepted or rejected by group members through various forms of social sanction or pressure).
In bounded set church groups, the criteria for membership in the group may be applied more or less consistently. Human nature being what it is, the criteria is often applied inconsistently. For example certain behaviors may be sanctioned by the group as incompatible with group membership, but the sanctions are not enforced. Behavior being a very complex phenomena, this is understandable. Groups often resort to focusing on a limited number of behaviors or beliefs, ignoring others. The behaviors and beliefs that are targeted as “critical criteria” may shift over time. Often the groups involved aren’t aware of these shifts, especially in cultures like ours that don’t value an historical perspective.
For example, as late as the 1950’s most churches–Catholic and Protestant (I’m less informed about Orthodox churches)–had very strict approaches to divorce and remarriage. These approaches were enforced through different mechanisms (annulment in the case of Roman Catholicism, allowable reasons for remarriage in the case of Protestantism) but the effects trended in the same direction. A second marriage, unless a previous spouse had died, was often a cause for exclusion from the group.
Fifty years later, the situation is much different. Many more annulments are granted for divorced Catholics, leaving them free to marry again, and there are many more “sanctioned remarriages” for Protestants. In both cases, Catholic and Protestant, it’s much easier to marry a second or third person than it was fifty years ago. The pastoral practice, if not the teaching, has shifted substantially. These shifts have occurred across the board in the church–in “strict” churches and “loose” churches alike.
In other words, bounded set approaches to church membership are not fixed over time. They typically shift over time. But many people in the American context are not aware of these shifts because we don’t value history.
I was shocked to learn that the marriage of C.S. Lewis to a divorced woman, Joy Davidman, was not sanctioned by his own church, the Church of England. I assumed that the Church of England wasn’t strict on such things, because the Episcopal Church in the United States in the 1970’s, when I read about Lewis’ marriage to Davidman, didn’t have a “strict moral code” reputation. C.S. Lewis was a celebrated defender of Christian orthodoxy in the 1970’s, at least in my circles, and to think that he was outside the bounds of his own church on this important issue, was a real eye opener to me.
There are shifts in the essentials of Christian doctrine as well. Some things are added over time that weren’t required before. Many denominations banned speaking in tongues as a response to the Pentecostal movement of the early 20th Century, for example. “Inerrancy” began to appear as the required view of Scripture around the same time in some denominations in response to the modernist controversy.
Other things are subtracted over time in essential doctrinal matters. Often the subtractions aren’t offically recognized. The church body simply doesn’t enforce certain doctrines. This happens in “strict” churches and “loose” churches.
The Bounded Set Approach Has Advantages and Disadvantages
My purpose in discussing bounded set approaches to membership in various churches isn’t to insist that bounded set approaches are necessarily or intrinsically inferior to other approaches (fuzzy set and centered set). In fact, there are certain advantages to the bounded set approach. Bounded set churches often do a better job at “holding the line” on important matters of faith, doctrine and morals. Of course, sometimes they are slow to reform when reform is called for, but that doesn’t mean they don’t also serve an important role in resisting change that may not lead to greater faithfulness.
But I think it behooves us to be discerning about the advantages and disadvantages of a bounded set approach to church because we live in a culture that leans toward bounded set thinking. The bounded set approach to groups is part of our western cultural heritage. This means that it’s especially easy for us to simply assume that the bounded set way is the biblical way, or the faithful to God way. In fact, this assumption is rampant today.
When we don’t examine our own cultural assumptions, we become enslaved to them. We lose spiritiual discernment. We label something “the Lord’s” which may or may not be the Lord’s. It sets us up for following the way of the world rather than the Lord’s way.
The Mission Task: Examine Assumptions
And this is part of the mission task: to examine cultural assumptions. When a missionary goes to a foreign land to share the gospel, they spend a great deal of time learning the cultural assumptions of the land to which they go. They take years to learn the language, which is where cultural assumptions are powerfully enshrined. They look for cultural assumptions that offer landing pads for the gospel, so that they can share the gospel more effectively.
But we have an even greater challenge than those sent to share the gospel in our own culture. We have to examine our OWN cultural assumptions. We have to step back and consider how we have been influenced by assumptions that we’ve never examined. Some of our cultural assumptions are sacred cows. We feel insecure, threatened, nervous when our sacred cows are being examined. Our sacred cows bellow when poked. Things that we ASSUMED to reflect faithfulness to God, may simply be faithfulness to our particular culture. Or they may, more likely, be a confusing mixture of faithfulness to God and faithfulness to our own culture. And so we have to go through the laborious sifting process.
So let’s not rush this thing, this examination of one of the most fundamental cultural assumptions of all: how we form categories–all sorts of categories, including who belongs in what group and why.
There’s a reason we haven’t taken hold of the new nets that Jesus is offering us, if in fact there are new nets that he is offering us. It’s not easy. We like our old nets. They feel comfortable. They feel safe. Even more, they feel RIGHT. We know that discernment is a perilous task. The serpent is crafty. He whispers in our ears and appeals to our moral sense, our sense of good and right. So we are understandably cautious in these matters.
But a blog is a great tool for a conversation like this. I throw something out, and you respond. Your response affects my thinking, perhaps, or at least my way of communicating. Blogs are not just monologues. Nor are they true dialogues. They are something in between. But they are closer to conversations than many forms of one way communication. So they are a little more relational. And God likes relationships–they are at the heart of the Godhead, after all, and they are the landing pad for love.
Tags: boundaries, bounded set, c.s. lewis, categories, centered set, divorce, doctrine, enforcement, evangelism, fuzzy set, groups, Joy Davidman, nets, Pentecostals, remarriage, set theogy, tongues
September 14th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I wonder what the 1st century church would be classified as. Bounded set or centered set?
I would think bounded set from Paul’s discussions of church discipline. I mean is there a place for church discipline in a centered set church?
September 14th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
I have often attempted to reconcile parties in tension through advocating a balance of approaches, some kind of middle way. But I have recently been brought up short by the thought that it’s not balance that’s wanted, it’s discernment.
It appears that there is no rule-of-thumb that can be trusted (including a rule of moderation or a middle way). I think if a church tries too hard to avoid the edges where the mistakes happen, it ends up creating a culture characterized by negatives (“we don’t do that…”) and becomes incapable of following any radical direction from the Holy Spirit–direction like “Hold that boundary” or “Fling wide that door” –both of which are radical acts.
So in a certain sense, it doesn’t make sense to me to choose any set theory at all as a church culture. It makes more sense to radically seek God himself and be willing to be surprised and committed to being obedient.
September 15th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
~
“Boiled down to one sentence, my message is the unbounded prodigality of life. As a working hypothesis to explain the riddle of our existence, I propose that our universe is the most interesting of all possible universes, and our fate as human beings is to make it so” – Freeman Dyson, “Infinite in All Directions,” (preface).
First generation Quaker forebears of John Wimber understood the “all in” definition of church membership as going “all out” in traveling ministry, that is, out-boundedly worldwide to “speak to that of God in everyone.”
And for this reason were considered heterodox-unorthodox. And killed and persecuted.
It took the rigidity and crustiness of subsequent generations of hardened and self-preoccupied navel-gazing-bounded Quakers to harden enough to out-bound (kick out) John Wimber from the modern-day evangelical Quaker church. Just just like John got booted from Calvary Chapels. Only for John Wimber to turn around and out-bound (kick out) Toronto Airport – the Vineyard conceit of non-participation in the infinite regress of unbinding bounded-thinking.
Our bounds are easy for God to foil. Because God can just leave us in our beloved bounds. The Sprit of God abandoned Saul. And Saul knew it not. That this happens to us in lesser degrees on an abandonment-spectrum should make us question our conceit in thinking we’ve reinvented unbounded thinking. Or church. When we’ve only set a wider parameter for our bounds. The Indian motorists in India who drive more prodigally than we, still do not drive so unboundedly that they cross the Pakistani border or end up in traffic jams on Everest.
That the early Quakers got the “all in” definition of church membership correct (my bias) only shows the worthlessness of our definitions of bounds.
By the time churches in the second, third, and fourth generations of a previously prodigal movement (including Vineyards) get preoccupied and navel-gazing about bounds, God has already started moving in some other topology. Infinite in All Directions.
September 16th, 2009 at 4:45 am
After I examined my assumptions about my own christian faith, I was compelled by the evidence that I found to no longer believe in the christian gospel. That’s why I like what you said, Ken, about assumptions:
“We have to examine our OWN cultural assumptions. We have to step back and consider how we have been influenced by assumptions that we’ve never examined. Some of our cultural assumptions are sacred cows. We feel insecure, threatened, nervous when our sacred cows are being examined. Our sacred cows bellow when poked. Things that we ASSUMED to reflect faithfulness to God, may simply be faithfulness to our particular culture. Or they may, more likely, be a confusing mixture of faithfulness to God and faithfulness to our own culture. And so we have to go through the laborious sifting process.”
You put it so well that I, as an ex-christian, could not agree with you more! Thanks!
September 16th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
“But broad is the path that leads to the status quo in the American church these days and many are happy to travel it; and narrow is the path that leads to life for those on the outside looking in and hard to travel for those who take it.” Ken
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” Jesus
I am still digesting the net (set) theory posts. But I am a little uncomfortable with the paraphrase of Jesus’ words in Matt 7:13,14. This passage is nestled in with some of the strongest words Jesus spoke in the gospels. Ken, can you clarify why you are using this passage with respect to the church? How does the net (set) theory fit into the narrow gate?
You mention the issue of acceptance of divorce and remarriage in the church as an example of bounded sets changing. Jesus was presented with the argument about the right to divorce and remarry by the religious leaders and he seems to have narrowed the set by saying the freedom that Moses allowed to divorce was because of the hardness of their hearts. Marriage, divorce, remarriage, living together, two mommies, two daddies, and the list continues to grow. Is the issue a new net, or the hardness of our hearts?
September 17th, 2009 at 10:36 am
I wonder if one of the reasons we like the bounded set is this: we’re actually a lot more interested in everyone *else* having to follow the “rules.” Because, after all, Christianity is about NOT doing a lot of fun sinful things. So if I have to live a miserable and boring Christian life, then I certainly don’t want the people I associate with to be enjoying theirs!
Obviously I’m being a bit facetious, but I think there’s something to this.
September 17th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
It seems that the tension I’ve often seen in debating these issues comes from the idea that if you don’t have clear boundaries you can’t have clear ideas or statements of right and wrong or clear direction. I don’t think that is necessarily true. It’s just that humans 1) have the tendency to be defensive and have a hard time with I-know-this-is-wrong/not-where-God-wants me to be, but I’m heading toward God’s way and God’s working on it 2)have an innate tendency to have an in-group that they belong to and to want to know who is in it!
September 17th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Wow Ken I thought there would be a plethora of comments.
I am curious how does the supernatural fit into all this set stuff?
I mean, the stuff seems to happen regardless of who’s camp we dwell in. Centered, bounded, even fuzzy. Whilst we are setting ourselves about the business of Jesus. It seems the Holy Spirit is doing what He does so well. Sort of messing with our neatness. Sure we have seen how the charismatic renewal tried to package it all neat and tidy. Even in the bounded set churches the whole Holy Spirit adventure seems to change things.
In math terms sort of a Christian chaos theory.
God does what He does and brings the great mixmaster into our midst. I have seen people totally effected by the Holy Spirit who were in the midst of questioning His purpose and existence. It is not always neat and tidy.
I like this quote to much,
“Christianity is not a religion. Christianity is the proclamation of the end of religion, not of a new religion, or even of the best of all religions. …If the cross is the sign of anything, it’s the sign that God has gone out of the religion business and solved all of the world’s problems without requiring a single human being to do a single religious thing. What the cross is actually a sign of is the fact that religion can’t do a thing about the world’s problems – that it never did work and it never will…” – The Mystery of Christ … and Why We Don’t Get It, p. 62
Centered on Jesus absolutely! But not limited to churches or groups.
The dream below even effected someone not currently in any Christian camp, it is just another example to me that we need to widen out tent pegs even more.
(I know you have read this already Ken, just using it for example.)
The conversation reported below took place during June, 2009, in Istanbul.
A pastor here was visited by a Muslim asking prayer for sleeplessness. He reported being awakened every day for ten months by voices saying, “Wake up, wake up!”
When asked what had happened, he related a dream he had ten months ago. Two angels picked him up from his bed and took him to the foot of the cross. There he saw the women who were watching Jesus’ crucifixion, the Roman soldiers in their armor, a spear that was used to pierce Jesus’ side, and the crucifixion itself. He saw nails driven into His hands and that His blood was used to write the sign over His head. When asked if he had ever read the Gospels, the reply was “No, I am a Muslim.” He affirmed repeatedly that Jesus was indeed crucified.
The angels picked him up and took him to a beautiful place in Heaven, so beautiful that all the architects on earth could not have designed even a small part of it. There he was visited by a man dressed in white with light shining all around him whose face he could not see. The man offered him a bowl of beautiful fruit and told him that he should go and share the fruit with everyone.
He was then picked up again and taken below the bottom of a very deep hole at a Muslim holy site in Iran where he could hear the voice of the ruler of Hell shouting that he would still rule the earth. And he was finally taken back to his bed.
Two pastors heard the telling of the dream, then told him that God was telling him he had to make a choice. His reply was, “I’m a Muslim. I’m a Muslim.” Each day since, he has been awakened to reconsider the dream. He has been given a Bible and told to read for himself.
If God is beginning to shake those whom He wants to have as Muslim evangelists, we are truly in a new day. Pray for more such dreams and visions. Pray for more evangelists from within the church and from outside, in numbers like we’ve never seen. And pray for the church to be made ready to receive men and women like Jengiz (not his real name) when he and they come to Christ.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Gosh, these are great comments!
September 18th, 2009 at 10:20 am
gem, I, for one, would only be interested in a centered set approach if it were compatible-supportive of an all out discipleship to Jesus–all the way to the cross through the grave to a new creation. I think it is, but that’s for later….
September 18th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Martha,
(@ September 14th, 2009 at 11:25 pm)
Martha, I agree all the way around. Christ is an anarchist to all my rules and a Rule to all my anarchy.
And that in daily obedience. To which He makes me an addict (addict to obedience). Christ commands to go into all the world, but Paul not to Bythinia. Peter gives the Holy Spirit a bible study on the roof top of Simon the tanner. The Spirit writes back. Cornelius is waiting. And Peter almost apologizes to his near-legalistic brothers for what the Spirit did. How now, oh Peter, shall we keep Cornelius (already liberated) bound in the center of our law-set?
One of my first bounds was my personal false idea while having a beer with Peter on my rooftop – my false idea that His commandments must be burdensome instead of easy and light. My false idea about radical obedience making me twice the child of hell than when I was actively disobedient. I had no clue how fun and free radical obedience could be. In concrete practice. No longer a slave to finding the “center” of all my rules. A slavery broken by addiction to random obedience. In love with the Anarchist to all my rules.
Martha, just don’t tell anyone else all this. They’ll think you’re as drunk as the first people at Pentecost.
Burp,
Jim
September 18th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Paul, I quite agree that the Holy Spirit may and does go wherever he pleases irrespective of how groups are organized or not organized. Praise the Lord!
September 18th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
joao, excellent questions! Paul Hiebert, quoted in the previous post, an evangelical seminary prof from Trinity Evangelical Seminary, who writes about set theory and its implications for missions makes the case in his book that centered set is more characteristic of Hebrew culture, hence the culture of the bible, including the New Testament church. Keep in mind that set theory doesn’t address the question of what the demands of the gospel are. These demands are found in the Bible. So bounded set isn’t the “there are gospel demands” theory while “centered set is the “there aren’t gospel demands” theory. I think you’re making the point, and I would agree with it, that the God makes demands on us.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I’ll have to read that book by Hiebert. Regarding joao’s question, I do struggle with what seems to be a bounded-set approach in the Old Testament.
The original covenant with Noah was: you’re inside the circle if you don’t eat meat with blood in it, and don’t kill people (Genesis 9). Then the covenant with Abraham: all your descendants are inside the circle, and all the males have to be circumcised (Genesis 17). Very bounded-set, although the reason for the covenant was related to Abraham’s relationship with and obedience to God. And then the covenant with Israel, reaffirmed many times: you’re in the circle if you’re descended from Abraham and if you obey my commands (I’m over-simplifying of course). Boundaries were super, super important.
Although there are hints at something deeper, beyond the boundaries…
Jesus seems to reaffirm the boundaries (law), but articulates it all in a very centered-set kind of way: basically all the rules can be boiled down to loving God and loving others (Matt 22). And then he essentially says the boundaries aren’t so important, it’s ME who’s important. And all the religious leaders who were inside (and defined) the boundaries were outside the kingdom, and vice versa. This got him killed.
And of course Paul is the ultimate boundary demolisher. Jew, Gentile, male, female, kosher, non-kosher, gifted, non-gifted, rule follower, rule breaker… that was all very secondary to faith in Jesus. (Although Paul of course assumes that people who are centered on Jesus will want to live Jesus-pleasing lives; as do James and John)
Why did God do it that way? Is there something about human beings that overwhelmingly tends toward a bounded set approach? Was God condescending to this need, while at the same time dropping hints of something else?
September 20th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
In response to Ken’s post #13.
Ken said: ‘So bounded set isn’t the “there are gospel demands” theory while “centered set is the “there aren’t gospel demands” theory.’
Actually, this statement cleared up a lot from me in this bounded set/centered set discussion, thanks!
I have misunderstood you for a while as I was primarily concerned that the centered set model precisely did away with the demands of the Gospel.
A light just came on…
September 21st, 2009 at 9:49 am
Joao, keep reading and commenting….your wrestling with this is helping me. I’m working on the next post re centered set, in which discipleship is the distinguishing mark of centered set approach as compared with the bounded set approach. Please wrestle along on the sermon blog thing too!
October 11th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Ken, I just ’stumbled’ onto your site, from another site. It is Sunday, October 11, 2009. And I am not coming out of ‘church’. As a matter of fact, I have stopped going to ‘church’ at all. I was raised in the 1960’s Church of Christ. The HELL, FIRE, and BRIMSTONE, days. Where no matter if you sneezed wrong, you were bound for hell. Talk about a childhood full of nightmares! In adulthood, with 3 sons, I managed to ‘take’ them to a ‘church’ as I thought that was my duty as a Mom, to at least allow them to know religion. Once they were out of my nest and my care. I stopped going at all. I think it was mainly, due to in my mind, I could never be good enough to reach Jesus. To reach the level I would need to, be able to communicate on His level with Him to get through, to the LORD God Almighty.
In 2007, I had an enlightening experience. I came to accept Jesus, as my Lord and Savior. And in doing so hoped one day to reach that ‘level’ where the LORD God, would accept me flaws and all, for who I am. And that I could begin to work all those human flaws out, with others of like mind. I started attending a little Pentecostal church. Found that I really didn’t ‘fit’ and went running, to find where I did. I went from there to the Assembly of God, not there I found, running back to the Church of Christ, NO NOT there again, and found myself tripping over the thresh hold, into a Seventh Day Adventist church. The Sabbath, worship I could grasp, but not being a total vegetarian, well… left me out in the cold. The gist of this small story, is what I found you to have spoken, to us about. Boundaries, and IF a person could manage to squeeze themselves into any and all of the boundaries, in any of these, religious organizations, set up for themselves and for their members, then one would Fit in and be welcomed. And if not, well I don’t have to go there with you, as I know you know…
I ended up at home, in frustration and breaking down in tears, asking Jesus where do I go from here? You, Ken, have hit the nail on the head. I screamed in out right anger one day, ‘why can’t someone just get it ALL together? Some have this, others set their sights on that, BUT no one pulls ‘IT’ all together into one place.’ Boundaries, everywhere. These boundaries shut out many, seeking the LOVE, and acceptance that Jesus, taught so much about. First someone has to reach out in love, accept people for their flaws, be willing to put up with those flaws, and in love and acceptance teach the people the LOVE of Jesus, consistently, until the people finally get it, and then they see their flaws as a human and can have love and acceptance while working the flaws out. NOT by making demands on a person, that they HAVE to do this or do that to be a ‘member’, especially to a new person, freshly coming into the Light and arms of Jesus.
With all my heart, I get what you are saying. And I appreciate you for having the ‘guts’, to stand up and say it. I am going to ask you to pray, that my husband and I, are guided by the Spirit, to a place of worship.
In the LOVE of Christ Jesus from OUR Father,
Devorah