In the analysis of the contemporary Christian church, Migliore views it through the perspective of the tendencies dominant in the modern American society. The author notes that today the American culture identifies as mainly individualistic (Migliore, 1991). That means that every person is viewed as an individual and rarely associates with particular communities or groups of people on a deep level. In most cases, an individual is to accomplish all of their achievements on their own and work to stand out instead of functioning as a part of a group. This tendency is spread widely across the majority of Western countries and has affected the understanding of the church very much. Migliore (1991) points out that the concept of the church in the modern conscience is reduced to a privatized function of serving separate individuals and fulfilling their needs instead of being oriented to the whole community in general.
Migliore’s image of individualized modern church is similar to the description provided by Vanstone (1978) that emphasizes that “the Church occupies the enclave of recognition: and this enclave belongs within the area of freedom” (p. 103). This comparison of the church to an enclave individualizes it and positions it as a concept separate from all the other spheres of life which clashes with the environmental and pantheistic idea of ever-present God that used to dominate religion earlier. Vanstone goes on explaining the requirements for the “man in church” viewing this man as a separate individual and his faith as the source he would use to fulfill his needs by means of giving up some of his prior behaviors. That is quite a paradoxical idea of giving up some freedoms for the sake of other that lies in the foundation of the civilization from the point of view of the social contract theory. As a unifying entity the church has experienced a role crisis when the demands of an individualistic society around forced it to complicate its structure and turn into a bureaucracy to be able to manage so many separate individuals and small groups with versatile needs. As a result, the role of the church gradually moved away from that of God.
Cone’s (1986) point of view is focused on the environmental approach towards the analysis of the role of the church as the author suggests that the church should not be separated from the environments and situations around it in any way. At the same time, the individualism of the church is seen in Cone’s statement about the tendency of the church to isolate itself from the social rules and laws hiding behind its privileged status.
To sum up, the opinions of all the three authors match in the aspect of the individualistic moods of the modern church and its newly developed orientation at the individual instead of serving the population in general. It seems that the naturally developed individualism of the Western society has made an impact on the social perspective of a church. That way, this institution that initially was introduced to the European societies with the purposes of unification has started to evolve into a tool used by the individuals to fulfill their selfish needs. As a result, this tendency caused the capitalization and bureaucratization of the church that are currently seen as the main factors contributing to the problems of the modern church.
Reference
Cone, J. H. (1986). The Servant Church. In Shelp, E. E., & Sunderland, R. (Eds.), The Pastor as Servant (pp. 61-80). New York, NY: Pilgrim Press.
Migliore, D. L. (1991). Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.
Vanstone, W. H. (1978). The Risk of Love. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.