Once concept I might add to yesterday’s look at the theology of foreignness is the concept of the Diaspora. Originally, the term “diaspora” just meant scattering. Then it came to refer to the scattering of Jews away from the Promised Land.
Christians appropriated that term to refer to themselves. James uses the term in the first verse of his letter, though given the Jewishness of his writing, he may have been addressing Jewish Christians primarily. But there’s no doubt of the meaning when Peter uses it at the beginning of his first letter; a quick read of 1 Peter shows that Jews were not the primary audience Peter had in mind, yet he calls them the Diaspora, “God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1)
The term “strangers” in that verse was usually described to mean resident aliens; the ESV uses the term “exiles.” That’s who we are, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, scattered among the nations.
have you blogged about the Americanization of the Promised Land theology, that maybe started with Tyndale in England? if you haven’t, you should.
that’s part of this discussion. The assumption that America was God’s gift to the church
I don’t know much about the Tyndale connection. Can you point me to any resources?
To illustrate just how strange this language may be to many American Christians, I was sitting in a Starbucks in New Jersey reading for a sermon from 1 Peter. While there I asked another patron what their reaction would be if a church described themselves as “Strangers, aliens, and exiles.” The response, “I’d be scared. Is it a cult?” Then the person went on to say, “I was raised in the Catholic Church and attended a Catholic school and I never heard that about the church.”
My thought, “Neither did I in a Church of Christ.”
found it, took some googling, but found an excerpt of a book I own and enjoyed
Christian American and the Kingdom of God by Richard Hughes, p. 21
Tyndale as proponet of England being God’s chosen, which was brought over to colonies
http://books.google.com/books?id=M_WtIaIqWTgC&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=tyndale+believed+England+was+God%27s+chosen&source=bl&ots=y2dCWsEmyO&sig=7gd8aDvpnOmmKmV-BW4Mk4bupDc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YF-eUd7EKbWh4APk-oHgDg&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=tyndale%20believed%20England%20was%20God%27s%20chosen&f=false