Stringfellow

A friend introduced me to the work of William Stringfellow during my time at seminary.  I’ve been challenged by his thinking, and I appreciate his understanding of the church’s task and calling. 

Here are some passages for reflection:

“The religious suppose that only the religious know about God or care about God, and that God cares only for the religious.  Characteristically, religion is precious and possessive toward God, and institutes and conducts itself as if God really needs religion, as if His existence depends upon the recognition of religion.  Religion considers that God is a secret disclosed only in the discipline and practice of religion.  But all this is most offensive to the Word of God.  The best news of God is that He is not secret.  The news of God embodied in Jesus Christ is that God is openly and notoriously active in the world.  In this news the Christian Church is constituted; it is this news which the Christian Church exists to spread.  Where the Church, however, asserts that God is hidden in or behind creed or ceremony—even those which are decent and which God gladly receives and blesses—or where God is thought to be confined to the sanctuary, then in such events the Christian Church, forsaking the good news of God’s presence in history, becomes vulgar imitation of mere religion.  The Church, where faithful to the news, is not the place where [women and] men come to seek God; on the contrary, the Church is just the place where [women and] men gather to declare that God takes the initiative in seeking [women and] men.  The Church, unlike any religion, exists to present to the world and to celebrate in the world, and on behalf of the world, God’s presence and power and utterance and action in the on-going life of the world” (17).

  “It is to be noted that God is not especially or exclusively present in the Church.  His presence is in the world.  The Church exists only as that community in the world which cares about, observes, and testifies about God’s presence in the world in all things, at every time and place.  The church is only the company of those who know of and rejoice in the presence of God in the world.  But it is not first of all the Church which has introduced God to the world.  God knows the world, and, indeed, the world is His own, without the church.  The Church has only the task of introducing the world to God, that is, exposing through her discernment of and reliance on and celebration of the presence of the Word of God in the world, the world to God.  It is, after all, a plain and simple tasks which is given to the Church” (57).

--William Stringfellow, A Private and Public Faith.