public and private

Jürgen Moltmann:

It is from community life that we draw the strength for discipleship and courage to face the inevitable opposition. In discipleship we find our brothers and sisters of the communal life. The Bruderhof community proves that. I ask myself what the state churches, still trying to lead a Christian life, can learn from such consistently Christian communities. First of all, we have to lay down our old prejudices and heretic-hunting. The closely related Mennonite and Hutterite groups have never – neither in the past nor today – been fanatic enthusiasts or narrow sectarians, but genuine Christian communities. True, their existence represents a criticism of the life of Christians in the established churches. The answer will be to begin learning from them. So I have been asking myself, how can the established institutional church become a living, communal church? How can our church parishes become communities of faith and of life? I believe that this is the way into the future, and I see more and more people going in that direction. We are not looking for the self-righteous Christian sect that despises the world, but for the open church of the coming kingdom of God. This church is open and welcomes everyone, like the Bruderhof does. It is open to the poor, the handicapped, and the rejected, who find a refuge and new hope there because they find Jesus.

I believe this with my whole heart, and I wish I were better at living up to, or living into, this vision. I don’t have social anxiety as such, but being in any group larger than four people is enormously stressful for me, and that stress has become more pronounced during covidtide, for reasons I can speculate about but do not fully understand. I have often thought that I would rejoice in the opportunity to go to church — if I could make myself invisible. Many wise people have said that there is no vision in the New Testament or the early church of a private Christian faith, but, since I cannot make myself invisible, oh how I wish there were.