No doubt some will say that God is not a God of disorder, incoherence, or arbitrariness, but a God of order. Of course he is. Unfortunately the whole of the Old Testament shows us that God's order is not organization and institution (cf. the difference between judges and kings). It is not the same in every time and place. It is not a matter of repetition and habit. On the contrary, it resides in the fact that it constantly posits something new, a new beginning.
Our God is a God of beginnings. There is in him no redundancy or circularity. Thus, if his church wants to be faithful to his revelation, it will be completely mobile, fluid, renascent, bubbling, creative, inventive, adventurous, and imaginative. It will never be perennial, and can never be organized or institutionalized. If the gates of death are not going to prevail against it, this is not because it is a good, solid, well-organized fortress, but because it is alive; it is Life - that is, as mobile, changing, and surprising as life. If it becomes a powerful fortified organization, it is because death has prevailed.
Thus even on the humble level of the church, revelation cannot be organized or experienced socially. How much less so when Christians suddenly find themselves in charge of "society"!-Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity, (Eerdmans, 1984), 157
Image "Changing Paradigms of Church" courtesy of mosaicnw.com
1 comment:
Great quote -- that's my favorite Ellul book! Thanks for reminding us that God's order is different from the world's order. How easy it is to forget that as we fight the forces of disorder and destruction in the world!
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