Who are we? A summation of the discussion of 7 May

by John-Peter Gernaat
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In April, over two Sundays, Rev. Michaël Merle presented ‘sketches’ of many of the Christian denominations that abound in the world today. We learned a little about each, from the original church that split into the Orthodox Church centred in Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church centred in Rome, to the churches that split from the eastern church, to the Protestant Reformation and the denominations that arose from the Reformed thinking, to the proliferation of denominations that split from the Protestant founding leaders, to the more modern individuals who felt called to form a church of their own. The purpose was to learn that each denomination has identifying characteristics, that often lives in their theology, by which one can recognise the denomination, how it expresses in the world and what the members say about themselves and their relationship to the Divine.

The question then arises as to how we understand ourselves and would describe ourselves. Very few people know anything about The Christian Community when they first encounter it, unlike many other denominations where most people hold some picture. How would we answer when asked who we are? Would the answer from different people provide the same picture? In this discussion the aim was to establish a set of characteristics that we all identify with and can speak about to establish for others who we are. These views express what was shared by the congregants in the discussion:

• We encounter a new relationship to the Trinity. We hold a trinitarian theology that is clearly expressed in our Trinity Epistle. The trinitarian theology is also clearly expressed in the invocation heard seven times in the Act of Consecration of Man in which we hear that the Father God may be in us, the Son God may create in us, and the Spirit God may enlighten us. The relationship that we express to the Divine Trinity differs from how it is expressed elsewhere.
• There is a three-foldness in the one-ness of the Divinity and we reflect this in ourselves and see it reflected in the world. We can discover it everywhere when we have once perceived it.
• We have rituals and these have a specific form. Although there is similarity to the ritualistic form expressed in other churches, our form opens up a question rather than closing to a set answer.
• Questioning leads to a deepening of understanding, as we have no dogma that explains away everything that people hold as questions.
• There is a foundation upon which the deepening of understanding can be built. This foundation is available for people to work with. It is not dogmatic. We have a theology – an understanding of the Divine – that underpins our understanding.
• We offer a freedom to people to develop in their understanding of their relationship to the Divine. We do not impose our theology but rather offer it as a gift that is available to be worked with.
• Anthroposophy offers a lens through which we understand the foundation that we are built on more clearly. It must be clearly understood that the founding of The Christian Community was completely separate to the founding of the Anthroposophical Society, which has within it many sections that are the daughter movements, but no religious section. It is also possible to work with the foundation without the knowledge of Anthroposophy.
• We have traditions but we also renew traditions.
• What is the renewal that we speak of when we call ourselves the Movement for Religious Renewal? Our sacraments and our ritual and our tradition and our foundational structure has been renewed to make them relevant to the development of the Consciousness Soul. It is a conscious recognition of where the developing, becoming human being is and what religious life is appropriate for such a human being.
• We experience the living Christ which is fundamentally more than believing in the existence of Christ.
• We ask for the space to exist without in any way encroaching on the existence of other Christian churches.
• Scripture is the record of the faith experience of people in relation to God and we see ourselves in the evolving relationship to God. Therefore, the scriptures require an evolving understanding and interpretation which comes from the experience and understanding of the community. Because it was written out of an experience of deep faith, inspired by God, it has the potential to still speak to us today, even if the way in which we read it today is different from the way in which we read it before. This is because it is a living experience, not a book of dogma. Scripture is a book of how to be and become and we work with it in the spirit of this understanding.
• Priests are leaders who should impose their views or themselves on the congregation. They speak from the pulpit through their own thinking and contemplation of scripture and life, and are free to speak anything, so long as it does not contradict scripture as the circle of the priesthood understands it and the sacraments as the circle of the priests understand them.