We are taking inspiration from the first biblical churches, which was non-hierarchical house churches. Traditional corporate churches have as you know hierarchical structures. But there has been an ideological stream through the whole church history about non-hierarchical ideas.

We have no traditional leadership, but have defined all functions as servants, like it is in the Bible. Servants in the true meaning of the word. Mutual submission has replaced the hierarchy.

Our church is no institution, is no juridical subject, has no defined structure and own no property. All gatherings is taking place in the homes of the participants. The churches may therefore just be that big, before they has to split up.

My values for the christian community is this:

Preach the gospel to the poor – do not entertain the rich
Mutual submission – not hierarchy
Servanthood – not leadership
Body – not institution
Serving gifts – not offices
Dialogue – not monologue
Carry the weak ones – not idolize the stars
Compassion – not moralism
Fellowship – not rhetorics
Mutual testing – not muting
Relations – not organisation
Transperancy – not secretiveness
Tolerance – not conformity
House church – not corporate church

Arle, feel free to tell us more about your type of non-hierarchical church, this is right in our alley here (see http://del.icio.us/P2P-Spirituality for some link on open anabaptism and the emergent church).

The closure of culture by the christians is well described by the book, The Closing of the Western Mind. Nevertheless, I’m reading a book La Societe Feodale, a very current historical overview, where it is written that the around the year 1,000 (I would have to check the reference and the date to make sure, it could also be after the first medieval renaissance, i.e. around 1300), life expectancy was already double that of roman times, so not a bad achievement for a seemingly obscurantist age.

But, in the end, it is not about having a romantic view of either rome or what came after, rather, I think what we’re after is a historical analogy of the change dynamics, that lead to one system being replaced by another. And like Tony Negri mentions repeatedly in Empire, the strategies of the Christians are interesting in that regard,

Michel