{"id":23273,"date":"2019-06-06T22:43:15","date_gmt":"2019-06-07T05:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=23273"},"modified":"2019-06-06T22:43:15","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T05:43:15","slug":"grounded-ecclesiology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/grounded-ecclesiology\/","title":{"rendered":"Grounded ecclesiology"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Learning from ethnography, where an anthropological lens assists in clarifying spiritual questions, seems to be a key approach of Martyn Percy, Anglican theologian and ecclesiologist, and Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. \u201cShow us what you do, and I will tell you what you believe,\u201d he seems to be saying. In a collection of essays and responses on Percy\u2019s theological writings, Ian Markham and Joshua Daniel compose a rich and diverse assortment of provocative essays which grapple with postmodernism, feminism, sexuality, the role of church in society, and revivalism. They seem to position Percy as a \u201creasonable radical\u201d gifted at interpreting culture to the church, and church to culture, aligned with a progressive yet thoughtful and faithful approach to change in the church in Western society.<\/p>\n

In the study of the church, Percy says, \u201cThe data is overwhelming: human interaction, aesthetics, performance, ritual, symbol, culture, ascription \u2013 to say nothing of power, authority, and charisma. And we have not even mentioned doctrine in this list. To study the church is to encounter the \u201cethnographic dazzle\u201d: sights, sounds, taste, touch \u2013 a veritable sensory overload of the social-sacred.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Rather than starting with doctrinal statements which define faith in objective, antiseptic terms, Percy asserts we can deduce belief from the situated actions of the body of believers. He layers an understanding of culture over phenomenological data within a congregation. I\u2019d like to focus in particular on Percy\u2019s research on a church I am well-acquainted with, the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. (We lived ten minutes away.) This church is the location for what was termed the \u201cToronto Blessing\u201d; it continues to this day under the name \u201cCatch the Fire\u201d, though with much less intensity than in the initial years of the outpouring beginning in 1994. Originally a Vineyard congregation, it was ejected from the denomination in 1996. Percy states, \u201c[T]he \u201cToronto Blessing\u201d needs to be understood in its own (postmodern) cultural context of revivalism \u2026 The discreet branding of manifestations created a consumer-led market hungry for larger and more powerful spiritual epiphenomena, which might just achieve what the previous manifestation only hinted at.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Understanding the cultural and geographic milieu is a necessary part of interpreting meaning of the symbols, discourse, and actions at play at this church. Consider these qualities that enabled the Toronto Blessing to thrive for a time:<\/p>\n