{"id":10930,"date":"2017-01-11T17:25:37","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T01:25:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10930"},"modified":"2017-01-11T17:25:37","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T01:25:37","slug":"imagined-communities-and-the-community-of-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/imagined-communities-and-the-community-of-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Imagined Communities and the Community of Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Anderson\u2019s words, \u201cThe aim of this book is to offer some tentative suggestions for a more satisfactory interpretation of the \u2018anomaly\u2019 of nationalism.\u201d (Anderson, 4)\u00a0 I admit I find his characterization of nationalism as an \u201canomaly\u201d both intriguing and a bit counter-intuitive. I would suppose that nationalism is a natural outgrowth of being born into a particular culture, time and space. However, Anderson proposes that nationalism, nationality and the concept of “nation” are recent cultural artifacts that were created by the circumstance in which the world found itself at the end of the 18th<\/sup>\u00a0century.<\/p>\n

The foundation piece of Anderson\u2019s thesis is the idea of \u201cnation\u201d which he defines as \u201c\u2026an imagined political community\u201d that is both limited and sovereign. A nation is \u201cimagined\u201d because most of its people will never know each other. It is \u201climited\u201d because of the understanding of the nation\u2019s geopolitical, linguistic and cultural borders. It is \u201csovereign\u201d in that it is authoritative and self-determining with no need for the Divine in its past, present or future. A nation is imagined a \u201ccommunity\u201d because of the strong feeling of camaraderie and kinship among its people. (Anderson, 6,7)<\/p>\n

Time and language, story and newspaper play into the equation. The world was ripe for the development of imagined communities when “time” was considered as empty and linear without preordination. In this way, nations can make their own histories. (Anderson, 36) Furthermore, language no longer belonged to God or the divine alone, but belonged to the people who used it and who, because of a\u00a0common language, formed large communities that could expand outside of geopolitical borders. (Anderson, 73) The stories people tell and the things they report help to form a nation. It is this strong sense of nationalism that, \u201c\u2026makes it possible, over the past two centuries for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly die for such\u00a0limited imaginings<\/i>\u00a0[emphasis added].\u201d (Anderson, 7) Christians continue to die for their faith. My question then is, why would someone die for an anomaly or a\u00a0mere\u00a0limited imagining?<\/p>\n

Application<\/strong><\/p>\n

My thoughts go immediately to the community of Christian believers. First, we should not confuse Christendom with Christianity. One is spiritual and one it temporal. For assistance in this, I quote Kierkegaard, \u201c [Christendom] transform[s] Christianity into something entirely different from what it is in the New Testament, yea, into exactly the opposite.\u201d (Kierkegaard, 163) While Christianity is spiritual, Christendom is temporal. Christianity is a search for relationship and community\u2014even as God exists in\u00a0community; (Gentz, 243) Christendom models the quest for political power. Christianity is concerned with the here now and hereafter; Christendom focuses only on the here and now. Christendom has borders, Christianity has none. Christianity is a community of believers that supersedes borders, language, and political boundaries.<\/p>\n

I believe that I am safe to assume that Anderson would agree that the community of believers has characteristics of an imagined community. It is \u201cimagined\u201d in that millions do not know each other; \u201climited\u201d because only those who profess Christ as Lord are part of the community; \u201csovereign\u201d because the Kingdom of God is apolitical and without geographical borders; \u201ccommunity\u201d because its people have a strong kinship toward one another. As mentioned earlier, it is these components that, according to Anderson, \u201c\u2026make it possible\u2026for so many millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings\u201d (Anderson, 7)<\/p>\n

And now to my point. As a missionary who spent almost half of his life living in a culture(s) outside of his own, I sometimes meet people who are antagonistic toward the nation (imagined or not) in which I was born, and to the God (absolutely not imagined) I serve. These encounters unavoidably lead me to ask myself a serious question, \u201cJim, would you be willing to die for the cause of Christ?\u201d My answer has always been simply this: I stand with Paul when he writes, \u201c For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.\u201d (Philippians 1:21)<\/p>\n

With this answer I am not sidestepping the question; the fact is, I have never been in a situation where I\u2019ve had to respond\u00a0to that question in real time and under life-threatening circumstances. I can acknowledge that there would be little to no purpose in dying for Christendom. However, to die because you are a part of the community of believers is a whole other thing. The truth is,\u00a0<\/i>millions are living that question. Their answer must be given in real time with life and death consequences.<\/p>\n

And when the answer is in the affirmative, these believers do not die for their nation of birth. They do not die for some social construct, nor do they die for Christendom. They die because they are a part of a real\u00a0community of believers. A community that is not absent from the Divine, but in communion and relationship with the Divine\u2014outside of time, language and political borders. They have faced the question of imagined communities and have decided it is not merely the construct of imagining people, but something that transcends imaginings to a relationship with Jesus Christ\u2014these are the community of faith!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anderson, Benedict.\u00a0Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism<\/i>. Revised ed. Verso, 2016.<\/p>\n

Grenz, S. J.\u00a0Theology for the Community of God<\/i>. Books.google.com, 2000.<\/p>\n

Kierkegaard, Soren.\u00a0Kierkegaard\u2019s Attack Upon \u201cChristendom\u201d 1854-1855<\/i>. Translated by Walter Lowrie. Second Printing ed. Princeton University Press, 1968.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary In Anderson\u2019s words, \u201cThe aim of this book is to offer some tentative suggestions for a more satisfactory interpretation of the \u2018anomaly\u2019 of nationalism.\u201d (Anderson, 4)\u00a0 I admit I find his characterization of nationalism as an \u201canomaly\u201d both intriguing and a bit counter-intuitive. I would suppose that nationalism is a natural outgrowth of being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[583],"class_list":["post-10930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anderson","cohort-lgp7"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}