Page 11 - THE CHURCH BEFORE THE MOCKING WORLD

In some ways Baptism was like the sinners prayer, putting a hand up, or walking the aisle to the altar in the ?evangelical decisional?model of today?s world.
The convert was not so much an individual fleeing judgement as a means of individual escape, but rather a ?person?joining a group of ?persons?in their corporate quest to know and walk with God and change the world.
This model, ?Symbol-Experience-Action?produces a very deep fabric of faith.
It involves disciplines and responsibilities. It involves participation in sacred symbols, and spiritual connectors. It involves a relationship of ?Submission and Authority?in an organic environment of joy and security. It is always a merging of the personal and the corporate.
Frankly, this faith is not knocked over by a new scientific discovery, or a re-calibration due to the moral failure of one of the celebrity saints of the modern world. In the past, it also produced a generation of martyrs upon whom the Church was built.
Eucharistic Socialism as a New Discipleship Model
Back to today. I would suggest that we are on the brink of seeing something much deeper rather than shallow emerge as the old world unravels. This will only happen if we realise that the old wine skins of Institutional Religion will not hold the new wine of the rediscovery of the ancient Church schema of faith: the ?Symbol- Experience-Action? discipleship model.
It is also important to reflect upon the fact that the new Martyrs of the Church are largely in the Middle East. Also, that these Martyrs are from Roman Catholic, Oriental and Eastern Orthodox backgrounds; all of whom are committed to ?Symbol-Experience- Action?models of faith and practice.
It is sad, yet glorious, that those Christians who would have been previously ?targets?for evangelism by Evangelicals, have now become the targets of the bullets and swords of those who hate the Name of Christ. In Martyrdom, denominational distinctions pass away.
If you could read the minds of those Martyrs they would probably be praying that we would draw from each other?s traditions and focus upon our common parentage rather than our historical squabbles.
The days ahead are not going to be easy as the re-alignment going on will create all kinds of struggles, but they are going to continue to produce new Martyrs who will take the Church into what is probably the final epoch of faith.
It is time to think about Eucharistic Socialism as a new way of seeing truth, ?Symbol-Experience-Action?, and also a new way of pursuing Discipleship.