I was talking with my dear dear atheist friend Monty the other day and we began talking about something that my other dear dear priest/poet/scholar friend Nathaniel Kidd came up with. I have the best friends ever!
Nathaniel posits that there are basically two kinds of communities: communities of affirmation and communities of absolution.
Communities of Affirmation
A community of affirmation sounds so very beautiful: we see all that is good and wonderful about you and affirm it. But it hides a certain elitism, a certain exclusivity. It says, in an underhanded way, that as long as you meet our standards of awesomeoness, you will be celebrated and seen and accepted by the group. But if you fall a bit short of these standards, your status becomes a bit more questionable. It says in an underhanded way, “we love you as long as…” Affirmation judges. There are things of which it approves, which is wonderful, but this presumes that not all is approved. However kindly or harshly the failure to meet the standards of affirmation may be, the community of affirmation is a community under some form of law. The penalty of the law is that you may be able to remain as a marginal member of that community, but you will never really feel at home there. There are standards for the accolades of affirmation.
It does not need to be a community under Biblical law – no! All communities of affirmation operate under some kind of standard of affirmability. A church obviously would operate under some interpretation of Biblical standards of behavior. Churches can be much more harsh than other communities in terms of the consequences of non-conformance. From gossip to denial of communion to church discipline to outright excommunication, churches hold to very obviously legalistic standards of inclusion. This includes “nice” “grace-centered” churches and “inclusive” churches. With religious communities the stakes are particularly high, because inclusion involves our metaphysical well-being for eternity with the ultimate Judge as arbiter. But other types of communities are communities of affirmation as well. Sex-positive kink communities expect a certain level of conformance to identity strangeness and acceptably perverse sexual practices. Drug communities expect a willingness to “party” and partake of drugs and alcohol. Workplaces expect certain ways of fitting into the culture to operate, and those ways can be just as difficult to understand as fitting into junior high school.
Most human communities are communities of affirmation. They present as beautiful places of acceptance where our best attributes are seen and celebrated. But actually we must hide our worst or even our marginally questionable attributes in order to belong. And we are generally not sure which attributes those things might be, so we end up having to hide almost everything and become only the things which are publicly known to be affirmed by the community. Those things are not usually published or immediately made known, so in order to fit in someone on the inside generally must have some level of “grace” and guide us in the ways of success. Authenticity and originality may be nodded toward, but they are only celebrated within the strict limits of affirmation. You will be loved if you are affirmed.
Communities of Absolution
In 1 John 3 we find this rather obscure passage which opened up this whole idea for me. I think you’ll find it is worth the trouble if you follow along:
11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we are to love one another; 12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And for what reason did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil, but his brother’s were righteous. – 1Jo 3:11-12 NASB20
Let me ask you, why did Cain murder Abel? What deeds exactly are John the Apostle talking about? Let’s remember that the actual Greek word translated as “deeds” is the word “ergon,” which means a thing accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind. Let’s take a look at Genesis:
2 Now Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a cultivator of the ground. 3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD from the fruit of the ground. 4 Abel, on his part also brought an offering, from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering; 5 but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his face was gloomy. 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why is your face gloomy? 7 “If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” 8 Cain talked to his brother Abel; and it happened that when they were in the field Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. – Gen 4:2-8 NASB20
So their “deeds” were their sacrifices. And their sacrifices seemed equally sufficient. They both worked diligently and gave to God generously from their first fruits. God should have had equal regard for their offerings but God did not! Why didn’t God? It really wasn’t fair was it? I will posit that the one offering reflected the blood sacrifice of Christ and the other did not. I’m not sure about that but it seems true, but it begs the question: how is that fair if Cain didn’t even know about it?. I would like to point out that God was willing to let things go, but that Cain pushed forward and murdered Abel. Nevertheless, the nut of the issue is that Cain did not approve of God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering. He wanted God to accept both offerings. To be straight, he wanted God to accept his offering.
Here’s the point: when we refuse to accept God’s regard for another’s offering, when we instead expect there to be justice and punishment for their wrongs, we in some way or other advocate for their death. We feel right about it. We want there to be consequences for their actions, not just some stupid offering or vaporous “faith” or wimpy apology. And when there aren’t consequences, when instead God shows “regard” for their offering, we are tempted to take matters of justice into our own hands. We want to reject them. We don’t want to affirm them. We want to be the agent of justice that God refuses to be. They don’t measure up. We don’t believe in the power of their offering, nor in the power of the sacrifice they make. Sure, Jesus “died for them,” but there are still consequences for their actions. People can’t just get away with stuff.
The community of believers is the gathering of people who believe in the truth of Christ’s sacrifice for all of us. It is the community of those who believe that Jesus died for our sins and it worked. It is the gathering of people who truly know and believe that we are all loved (1 John 4:16) despite our lack of deservedness. Notice all the plural pronouns in this seminal verse:
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. – 1Jo 4:10 NASB20
So we are the gathering of the profoundly forgiven, the community of the absolved. All of us together. We believe that forgiveness worked for me and that forgiveness worked for you, because we believe that forgiveness worked. We are the group of people who are absolved. The people who are allowed to confess, to have real authenticity, because we believe the consequences of our unaffirmable behaviors are satisfied at the cross of Christ and not in the private minds and judgements of each other. We can regard each other with open hearts and open hands, because God is not withholding His regard from us.
Now, within the community of absolution, there can certainly be affirmation. But inclusion in the community of the absolved does not depend upon adherence to the judgements of affirmation. Inclusion depends upon the finished work of Christ. If affirmation were excluded it would no longer be the community of absolution, because it would depend upon the condition of never affirming! This would be crazy. We are not the source of absolution — Christ is. So we do not have to police ourselves to be affirming or non-affirming, grace-giving or judging, because we are not the savior. We hold a common belief that Christ Himself is our savior. And therefore we enjoy a tremendous communal freedom to love and edify and confess and uphold each other, as well as to fail and to judge and to hate our brother and sister, in the midst of a common love. We all share in the common table where we feast upon His flesh and drink His blood and receive an overwhelming eternal absolution that can never ever be questioned.