Discipleship

The disciples on the day of Pentecost

Over recent years there has been quite a debate about the use of the term 'discipleship' in the Church of England. At one level it has become such common parlance that it is used in central reports without worry, but at another level there is an allegation that it is a foreign import from the United States, and therefore has no place in the English church.

In many ways those who note the use of the word 'discipleship' is novel are correct. It is hard to imagine the use of the term a hundred or more years ago. However, I disagree with them that what we try to describe in the life of Christian believers by the use of this word is new in any way at all. Instead it is about a changed context. A hundred years ago, even perhaps 50 years ago, we were at the sunset of Christendom, but now we face a post-Christin culture. This change of context is why a change of emphasis is both justified and necessary.

If we were to go back a hundred years, the church's language would be around education and discipline. The issue for the church, and its ministers, was how to turn the nominal Christian, or faithless Christian, into a more faithful believer. This meant convincing those with some knowledge and background in the faith that they should take it more seriously by practicing their faith publicly and privately, and demonstrate it through Christian behaviour. In a Christian society this made sense. There was little need to talk of Christian discipleship being a distinctive way of life: everybody agreed that a Christian way of life was a good thing, it was just that the careless needed to be won around.

For those who oppose the use of the term 'discipleship' there is an implicit assumption that we still live in that society: most people are still nominally Christian. However, the statistics tell another story. Most people under 50 did not go to Sunday School and are familiar neither with the Christian story nor the life of the church. Their path to faith will be rather more complicated than simply becoming better Christians. Instead the task that we face is of evangelisation from little or no familiarity with the faith. Further, we do this in a context in which society has been secularised, and in which materialism and utility are considered to trump religious concerns.

'Discipleship' therefore reflects the context in which we find ourselves. Like Christ, we are called to walk alongside people, and call them to leave one way of life behind and follow another. This is about a radical discontinuity in which, like Christ's first disciples, we are called to be remade by having our world reordered. This is now about more than education and discipline, although it certainly includes them, but it is also about seeing the world in another way from the culture around us. It is about renouncing consumerism, materialism and utilitarianism, in favour of an ethic that is directed to towards the good of individuals as beings who have been made and redeemed by God, in which the lives of others are of infinitely more value than the cheap production of material goods.

Discipleship is a valid term for the church of today to adopt. The problem for the church is that the task of the formation of disciples is a very difficult one, as Christ himself knew.