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RADICAL PROCESS ECCLESIOLOGY: AFFIRMING PLANETARY VALUE, PRACTICING DIFFERENTIATED SOLIDARITY, AND RESISTING EMPIRE A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of Claremont School of Theology In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Timothy Charles Murphy May 2014 ©2014 Timothy Charles Murphy ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This dissertation completed by TIMOTHY CHARLES MURPHY has been presented to and accepted by the faculty of Claremont School of Theology in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Doctor of Philosophy Faculty Committee Philip Clayton, Chairperson Monica A. Coleman Helene Slessarev-Jamir Dean of the Faculty Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook May 2014 ABSTRACT A RADICAL PROCESS ECCLESIOLOGY: AFFIRMING PLANETARY VALUE. PRACTICING DIFFERENTIATED SOLIDARITY. AND RESISTING EMPIRE Timothy Charles Murphy This dissertation calls into question the dominant way that American mainline Protestants have defined church institutionally, socially, and culturally. Neo-liberal globalization, with its idolatrous values, is the primary challenge to which this ecclesiology responds. This project also critiques church structures that are internally fixated as representing a cultural imperialism of internalized domination, the preservation of unjust privilege, and the inability to communicate constructively through conflict. It deconstructs self-enclosed church structures into the reconstruction of churching as a way of life using the Christian themes of kerygma. koinonia. and diukoniu. The original contribution of this project is in its conception of church that exists for addressing the most urgent planetary problems but subsists within a situated knowledge and faith tradition: its Christian particularity serves a universal function. This project mimics process thought methodologically by weaving together many diverse voices into a dynamically intense contrast instead of relating them oppositionally. By applying process thought, this dissertation's proclamation is the affirmation of a cosmology of interrelationship and value-production. It understands ecclesial fellowship through a social ontology of mutual interest and encountering the other as a form of relational difference. It interprets service through a network of counter-imperial, justice-seeking, and capability-producing political practices. By reviewing missional. processual. and indecent ecclesiologies, this project subverts the traditional orthodox marks of the church as normative and shows their mutual relationship with alternative counter-marks. Ultimately, churching becomes a decentralized yet organized, spiritual and activist, local and planetary, missional and solidarity-driven yet celebratory-of-diversity movement of social and interpersonal transformation: it is a radical process ecclesiology. TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgements Chapter 1: The Mainline Church in its Planetary Context Globalizing Empire Mainline Malaise Case Studies The Way Towards Churching Chapter-by-Chapter Outline Chapter 2: A Process Cosmology and Theory of Value The Process of Concrescence Mutual Immanence as Divine Matrix A Theory of Value Worth Proclaiming Planetary Love Chapter 3: Social Ontology. Mutual Interest, and Encounter Catherine Keller's (Trans)Feminist Self-Becoming Mutual Interest and Differentiated Solidarity Encountering the Other Chapter 4: Political Influences in the Struggle for (and Struggles of) a Radical Ecclesiology John Rawls's Liberalism Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Theory of Empire and the Multitude Amartya Sen's Capabilities Approach Iris Marion Young's Postmodern Feminism Implications of Political Theology Chapter 5: Prehending Missional. Processual, and Indecent Ecclesiologies Jurgen Moltmann's Missional Ecclesiology Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki's Institutional Process Ecclesiology Marcella Althaus-Reid's Indecent Church Ecclesial Marks as Contrasts Chapter 6: Living Out a Counter-imperial Ecclesiology Weaving the Strands Concrete Recommendations to Actualize Conclusions Bibliography PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work functions as a concrescence or “growing together" of many different influences, both practical and academic, in my life. One might question whether this is an ecclesiology at all. As it dismantles orthodox constructions of church, one may wonder whether perhaps it is an anti-ecclesiology? It certainly does not conform to traditional debates on the nature and work of the church, and it rejects traditional approaches to kerygmu, koinonia. and diakonia for a much more radical trajectory. From the outset, a tension is apparent: I love the church, though I hate the phrase “the church." As you will see as you read this dissertation. I believe that it is impossible to write a universal ecclesiology. This is not a project about the nature and work of the church universal. This is a particular project, in a particular location, with particular problems that it seeks to address. That said, it is not a work of sectarianism or isolationism, either. In another way, this project could very well be considered a radical missiology as it explores the mission and calling to which church-life responds. It thinks about the witness of Christians as a way of living, acting, and interacting with the world around us. A church that develops out of this paradigm could just as readily be called a mission center, and from a sociological perspective it might feel more like a social movement. But it would be a movement rooted in spirituality and a sense of the divine moving within and between us. Even as we each come into the world from a specific frame of reference, we are accountable to each other in what we do. say, and affirm. While this project comes out of a very specific context, weaving together many different thinkers, experiences, and insights, it does not remain as an isolated monad. Rather, like the very process of becoming that it seeks to ecclesially unfold, it is offered back into a world of infinitely diverse and singular perspectives. Because of this approach, it is entirely fitting and appropriate that the reader should know a bit more about the location from which 1 enter into this work. My personal background has been shaped by church communities, and I have many clear memories of those experiences, from “Time for Children" lessons at the Presbyterian Church of my grandparents to Easter 1993 when 1 was baptized for a second time (that I was baptized as an infant was unbeknownst to me as my mom thought it should be my decision). I have been an ordained minister for over six years, have served as an associate pastor for three years, and have been a student ministry intern in three different congregational settings (not including my time as a chaplain at an HIV/AlDs housing center, chaplain at a homeless shelter, and summer intern for the Disciples Peace Fellowship and Disciples Home Missions in Yakama. WA and San Antonio. TX). Surviving cancer in college clearly accentuated my radicalizing trajectory both politically and theologically. Questions of divine power and providence and an implicit process theology of divine persuasive power that works with the wreckage of life were born within me. as well as a commitment to using the one life 1 had to further respond to my calling to faith-based social justice ministries to the greatest extent possible. If my ecclesial project at times feels impatient about the state of church communities and their weak witness, it is doubly true for how I hold myself accountable. My home congregation of First Christian Church of Paducah. KY was an early context for thinking about how our faith is public as well as how it is discussed (or avoided) internally. The Rev. Dann Masden was an early mentor who encouraged my questions and never once told me to not raise them in church, even if larger church-wide discussions rarely materialized. Anecdotes, observations, and reflections come from this congregation, as well as from my time participating at Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Carlsbad. CA; All Peoples Christian Church in Los Angeles. CA; (a)Spire Ministry in Pasadena. CA; Webster Groves Christian Church in Webster Groves. MO; Compton Heights Christian Church in Saint Louis. MO; and visits to dozens of other Disciples. UCC, and mainline congregations over the past fifteen years. There are many apparent tensions inherent within this project. It is skeptical of current institutional configurations of church but respects the need for institutional organizations. There are strong undercurrents of liberationist and postcolonial theology, but is often directed at relatively privileged persons within the United States. It is incredibly, even at times mind-numbingly theoretical, but is written with the express intent of making practical changes to the way of Christian faithfulness. Some might see it as a classic calling back to the original Jesus Movement (and in this way repeat its thoroughly Protestant roots), but it also does not seek to imitate the past as it attempts to push church into a radically different context of planetary globalization and interdependence. It is post-Christian in its use of philosophical and political sources and the trajectory of some of its conclusions, but it is written out of an intense love and commitment to the way of Jesus. At its best, it attempts to transform such tensions from oppositions into mutually enriching contrasts, increasing the potential for a more dynamic and just flourishing of life in our world. This project is not a description of a church as it exists, but it hopefully functions as a “real potential" that can be actualized, particularly for those who like myself desire to hold together as inseparable both spirituality and social commitments. They are not merely two things that are held in tension or as a paradox. Rather, they are inextricably bound together. Yet they are not identical. This basic premise, that things are interwoven without becoming the same thing or subsumed within an overarching superstructure, undergirds the way that this dissertation is written. One finds many voices in close proximity together in each chapter, sometimes of people who would not be interested in each other's projects. Yet somehow, there is the sense that these thinkers need each other, that what they are saying is connected so thoroughly and yet they are offering different insights. This project seeks the maximization of different experiences and perspectives for potential incorporation into an intense and harmonious whole, which is then offered for others to feel and respond to. either positively or negatively—this is my method of engagement with authors in these chapters. The same could be said for the general contents of the chapters: one finds theology, political thought, and process philosophy as the threefold elements 1 attempt to hold together amidst my wrestling. Ever since the time that I was an undergraduate double major in Religion and Government, people have often commented how these are such a strange or contradictory set of fields to study together. Yet the relationship of religion and politics is deeply embedded within me. something that for years 1 have sought a way to weave together: this project is by far the most extensive weaving of the two. Likewise, it is very easy to think about process thought without so much as a nod to what it means to exist as church, or what (if any) ecclesial or political implications are within process thinking. All three are held together, but this is not done in the abstract.