A Child Communicant Member is a baptized child of an Adult Communicant Member of Basileia. Such children may become Catechumens after their 13th birthday to prepare to assume the adult responsibilities of our Basileian way of life.
Also see Child Communicant Believer.
Christ is the ultimate chivalric Hero we seek to follow and become like. Although being in very nature God, He emptied Himself in what theologically is called an act of kenosis whereby He did not cease being God, but took on humanity, setting aside the direct use of His power as the Son of God in fighting against evil, choosing to fight evil as a Man filled with the Holy Spirit. In this way He remained obedient to death, even death on the cross. This had the twofold effect of both destroying evil (by outlasting it and exhausting it) and restoring all things ruined by evil. Only a divine chivalric solution to the problem of evil can do both. Thus the chivalric solution to evil is kingdomcultural. The subcultural “solution” to evil is to run from it in a non-chivalric, cowardly way. The countercultural “solution” is as equally cowardly and non-chivalric in that it attempts to rule over evil with coercive power that ultimately solves nothing and only creates an infinite variety of “prisons” (the ultimate prison being Hades itself) to warehouse evil temporally or eternally. Only the chivalric approach to exhausting evil through the heroic, sacrifice and suffering of those whose vision is to replace evil with good is worthy of story, song and celebration.
Also see Christus Victor, Epic Story, Kenosis, and Theosis.
Chrismation is the act of anointing a newly baptized person with oil. Baptism and Chrismation therefore are two aspects of a larger whole. In Baptism our human nature is brought into a new mode of existence, into a new way of being human. It is not the change of our human nature into some other kind of nature, but the restoration of our human nature to the mode God has always intended for us. In Baptism the image of God in us is healed and restored to be like Christ. This makes it possible for us to then mature in the likeness of God in the power of the Holy Spirit, which is what Chrismation signifies. Thus we anoint the newly baptized immediately with the oil of Chrismation to signify that just as the Spirit hovered over the waters in the creation of the heavens and the earth, so He hovers over all who are recreated and made new creations in Christ through Baptism. The anointing oil signifies that now the power of the Holy Spirit is at work in and through the new human nature of the person just baptized in order to actually make him or her into the likeness of God. Furthermore, in baptismal services we also prepare the Table for the newly baptized to come to, with Chrismation coming after baptism and before the Table. As we see in Psalm 23, when our Good Shepherd prepares His Eucharistic Table for us, He anoints our head with oil (Ps. 23:5). Thus all who are newly baptized in a Basileia baptismal service are immediately anointed with oil before proceeding to their first Eucharistic experience at the Table. For what good does it do to come to this Table if we don’t do it in the power of the Holy Spirit? What good is it to receive a new human nature in Christ through Baptism if we don’t turn on the power and see what this new human nature can do? We’re no more the source of this power than we are the source of the power that lights up a light bulb when we flip a power switch. God supplies the power and in Chrismation we “flip the switch” on in order to shine like the sun in the Kingdom of our Father.
Also see Baptism, Shine Like the Sun, and Theosis.
Christendom is Christian civilization. But not all forms of Christian civilization are kingdomcultural. Some strands or forms of Christendom are subcultural and others are countercultural. These worldly forms of Christendom must be continually guarded against and repented of in order for kingdomcultural expressions of Christendom to triumph. A primary dynamic or mark of kingdomcultural Christendom is chivalry.
Also see Chivalry, and Kingdomculture.
Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ Victorious”) designates a view of the Faith held by the ancient Church and largely still held today by the Orthodox Church. It is the view of the Faith held by Basileia.
The Christus Victor view sees the Incarnation as the broader context of the story of salvation in general and of Christ’s death and resurrection in particular. The Cross is, in this broader Incarnational context, seen at the center of the Epic Story of the restoration of all things, a restorative process that definitively began in Christ’s Incarnation. For in the Incarnation, the image of God in man, corrupted in Adam, was restored in Christ. Since man’s corruption led to the corruption of all creation, man’s restoration in Christ is in fact also the restoration of all things ruined by evil.
Thus the emphasis in the Christus Victor view on what Christ did at Calvary is on the exhausting of evil through the disempowering of sin through obedience. Christ’s atonement not only therefore secured our forgiveness from the guilt of sin, but also released a new power though humanity over sin, Satan and death. Christ crushed these enemies, not in His power as the Son of God, but in His humanity as the Son of Man. Yet because He did this as Word made flesh in the Incarnation, now we who are but flesh may be made like Him in the process of Theosis in which we become partakers of the divine nature.
The Christus Victor view is a broader, more encompassing view of the Faith than certain views that lose the context of the Incarnation by focusing more exclusively on the dimensions of legal forgiveness that Christ’s death has affected for us. To the forgiveness of the guilt of sin we say, “Thanks be to God.” But we give thanks for even more than this alone. While a legally, narrowly focused version of the Faith is true as far as it goes, it doesn’t go far enough to advance the Kingdom on earth as in heaven now. Abstracting legal justification from the context of the Incarnation hobbles the “gospel,” promising a “salvation” in a future heaven instead of the strapping, transformational salvation that separates evil now from what it has ruined in order to destroy the evil and restore all things ruined by that evil now, both in heaven and on earth.
We rejoice that the Christus Victor view of the Faith is in resurgence in the West in the twenty-first century. Basileia aims to participate in and accelerate this resurgence in ways that are faithful to our charism even as we seek to unite with other expressions of the Body of Christ that aim to do the same.
Also see Christus Victor (the story) Chivalry, Epic Story, and Theosis.
The English word church, like the Scottish word kirk and the German word kirche, is derived from the Greek word kyriakos, which means “belonging to the Lord.” The Greek word kyriakos is found in the Bible only in 1 Corinthians 11:20, where it refers to the Lord’s Supper, and in Revelation 1:10, where it refers to the Lord’s Day. In neither case are God’s people described. Yet the English word church is found over 100 times in most English Bibles as a (mis)translation of the Greek word ekklesia, which would be better translated as “congregation” or “assembly.” It is unfortunate that English Bibles translate the word ekklesia as church because it obscures the essential continuity that exists between the people of God in all times and cultures, especially in regards to the Old Covenant and New Covenant eras. In turn, this lost sense of continuity erodes the understanding of the Church as a holy nation of nations. Centuries ago in England, the Archbishop of Canterbury instructed the interpreters of the Bishops’ Bible to use the ecclesiastical term church instead of the word congregation when translating ekklesia. Thus years later when translation work began on the King James Version the word church had already become fused in the English mind with the Greek word ekklesia. Due to the KJV's broad use in the English-speaking world since 1611, it is now an accepted and usually unquestioned convention to use the word church in referring to the people of God. Thus while we may use the word church, we must restore it to mean all that ekklesia actually means. Basileia recognizes the Convergence movement as a move of the Holy Spirit that began in the late 20th century that is affecting a recovery of the Church as ecclesia. The practical convergence of liturgical and sacramental, Evangelical and Reformed and Orthodox and charismatic expressions of the Church produces such an elevated feel for the Church that this inevitably leads to rediscovering why the early Christians choose to call their assemblies by the name ecclesia – a much more radical choice of a name than the pedestrian use of the English word “church” indicates.
Also see Citizen, Congregation, Convergence, Ecclesial City and Jurisdiction.
Also called the Christian Year, the Church Year is the original catechism of the people of God first given by God to Moses for Israel. Its purpose is not merely to mark past dates and remember them in some kind of sentimental way, but to provide a rhythm for living by which we reenact those events in the Liturgy of the sanctuary and in the liturgy of life in order to actually participate in these events, entering into them as a present, living and transforming experience. In the Church Year, we do not merely remember the Exodus; we experience it. We do not merely remember that Jesus broke bread and drank wine with his disciples on some night long ago; we actually sit at His Table and eat and drink with Him. This type of participation in the reality of the events marked by the Church Year is the biblical idea of “remembrance.” When Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” He is talking about the covenantal kind of remembrance that enters into an experiential, actual, metaphysical relationship and union with what is being remembered. Such remembrance is not that of mere scribes who only describe events in chronological time. Rather, it is the kind of remembrance that participates in the events remembered and that relates to the people remembered in karios time, which is that form of time and space by which we access any time and place in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church Year is therefore the framework of our remembrance.
Also see Catechism, Liturgy, “Our Journey Through the Church Year,” and Seasons.
In that the Church is the ecclesia of God, the assembly of ruling citizens of the City of God, believers are on solid ground to regard their nation-state citizenships as secondary to their primary citizenship in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not an idea; it is a meta-culture with its own calendar, music, holydays (which most people spell as “holidays”), heroes, history, flag, language, rituals, ceremonies, and so forth. The Kingdom of God doesn’t just have a president or a prime minister, but an Emperor, the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (which is what an Emperor is). The Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen who leveraged that citizenship on behalf of his primary citizenship in the Kingdom of God. The charism of Basileia is one that instills this sense of kingdom citizenship.
Also see Ecclesial City.
Basileia regards Basileia Communities as colonies of heaven on earth that we build in the Promised Land of Christ’s victory over sin, Satan and death, not as exiles in Babylon where we only hope to die and go to heaven. In that Eden may be regarded as the first “colony” of heaven on earth, so the Promised Land was a variation on that theme, a restoration of Eden in part, as a colony from which to advance the Kingdom to the four corners of the earth.
We recognize that when the kingdoms of this world colonize they do so in a way that dominates and imposes their particular culture on others. This is what happened at Babel. But the Kingdom of God does not function that way; it celebrates the diversity of cultures, nations, peoples and languages by establishing colonies of heaven on earth that connect earthly cultures first with heaven, not putting them “under” another earthly culture. When earthly cultures are connected with their true source in heaven, then they are set free to prosper and form alliances with other cultures without fear of domination. This is what kingdomculture does. In contrast, it is subcultures and countercultures that form colonies that dominate and destroy the God-given uniqueness and gifts of individuals and other cultures. Thus, Basileia advances the kingdomcultural alternative to establishing colonies and repents when we act in subcultural and countercultural ways.
Another function of colonies is their basic role in advancing civilization into zones where it has never been before. There are many uncivilized zones in all areas of thought and life yet to be discovered and colonized.
Also see Alliance, Kingdomculture, and Thin Place.
A collective is a term used to describe what the Scripture speaks of when it says that mankind is created in God’s image as a “him,” in contrast to the individual dimension of human nature which is spoken of as “them,” that is, individuals who are created as male and female (Gen. 1:27). God, Himself a “Him” who is One and a “Them” who is Three, created mankind in His image with both an individual and collective nature. God has ordained individuals to be constituted as collectives by means of the covenant. Subculture exalts individuals over collectives and countercultural exalts collectives over individuals. Western cultures emphasize individual freedom while Eastern cultures emphasize the collective order. The covenant does not emphasize one over the other, but invites mankind to grow into maturity in the likeness of God who is as equally One as He is Three. The mystery of the Trinity is the basis of the Creedal confession of the Church, giving rise to social order that constitutes individuals into collectives, maximizing individual freedom without diminishing collective order and maximizing collective order without compromising individual freedom. Only within the Church can individuals and nations experience what it means to be a collective in a holistic way. Basileia’s Constitution seeks to express this holistic approach in ways that speak to the fears of Westerners suspicious of being dominated by collectives and of Easterners suspicious of individuals creating collective disorder in their pursuit of individual freedom.
Also see Covenant, “Governing Roles of Men and Women in Basileia,” and Jurisdiction.
Collective governance is governing authority exercised by elders in relation to a corporate person, as with an ecclesial jurisdiction, in marriage or in eldership roles of state. This form of governance is different than the individual self-governance exercised by both men and women in their nature as individuals.
Also see Council, “Governing Roles of Men and Women in Basileia,” and Individual Governance.
Men and women Adult Communicant Members may become Commissioned Governing Members upon completion of the Novitiate. They are authorized to lead and administrate Basileia’s Missional Councils and serve in diaconal ways with Basileia’s Presbyter Councils and Deacon Councils. They have equal authority but a different function alongside other Governing Members, namely, Deacons, Presbyters and Consecrated Abbots.
Also see Governing Members, and Missional Councils.
Communicant Believers include both Adult Communicant Believers and Child Communicant Believers who have not completed the Catechumenate.
Also see Adult Communicant Believers, Child Communicant Believers, and Communicant Members.
Communicant Members include both Adult Communicant Members and Child Communicant Members who have completed the Catechumenate.
Also see Adult Communicant Members, Child Communicant Members, and Communicant Believers.
Communio Christiana is the global communion to which Basileia is membered.
Also see Apostolic Succession, Communion of Saints, Convergence.
The meaning of the word communion itself is that of a “common” “union” shared between two or more members. Thus this word is used in a diversity of ways, one of them in relation to the Eucharist celebration of taking “communion.” In this sense, taking communion is a liturgical enactment of the covenant where a common union is formed between two or more members making them one. Another use of the word communion is ecclesiastical, to distinguish the Church as a communion from the Church as a denomination. Denominations define themselves by what they hold in distinction from others while a communion emphasizes what it has in common with all expressions of the Church. It this sense, Basileia is a communion, not a denomination.
Also see Convergence, and Eucharistic Worship.
The Communion of Saints is the sum total of all believers who comprise the Church in heaven and on earth, across space and time. All Saints Day is the annual celebration of the reality of the Communion of Saints and was one of the most important holydays of the Celtic Church, which is not unrelated to the fact that Celtic Christianity formed the first Christian culture outside of the Roman Empire. Every culture needs their pantheon of heroes who embody its culture for all time. Kingdomculture is no different. The Communion of Saints is to the Church what pantheons of gods and goddesses are in the mythologies of the world’s cultures, including the “secular” pantheons of political, sports and entertainment heroes. One way that Basileia celebrates its own pantheon of heroes is in relation to the Apostolic Succession it participates in through its membership in Communio Christiana.
Also see Apostolic Succession.
A Community in Basileia is an Ecclesial City expression of the Church that is a member of the Alliance, is founded by an Abbey, and is comprised of member Fellowships and Chapters. A Community is a family of Fellowships and Chapters united around an Abbey, which serves as a Hub for the Community. A Community’s Fellowships may or may not be concentrated in one geographic region, but could be anywhere in the world. Nevertheless, in a diversity of geographic and relational ways, Communities function as a City on a Hill, as colonies of heaven on earth. The complementary governing functions of a Community’s Presbyter Council, Deacon Council and Missional Council form a city set on a hill, a kingdomcultural community that is a colony of heaven on earth. Thus a Basileia Community enables Basileians to “go from Church” to the world; it is not merely a religious institution in Babylon where people “go to Church” while remaining in the world. Each Community, according to its unique charism, gives expression to life in the Kingdom of God as a kingdomcultural alternative to the Fallen World System beginning on Sundays and continuing in between the Sundays, seven days a week. A close parallel to what Basileia calls a Community is what classical expressions of Church call a diocese.
Also see Abbey, Alliance, Colonies of Heaven on Earth, Ecclesial City, and Fellowship, and Jurisdiction.
The Community Assemblies of the Church are a kingly form of the assembling of the Church in public-square Eucharistic celebration. The Old Covenant form of such assemblies were the Community Tithe Feasts. In the context of the Church as an Ecclesial City, Community Assemblies are one of the three main types of assemblies that make the Church a City on hill, the other two being Festival Assemblies and Vocational Assemblies.
Also see Community Tithe, Community Tithe Feasts, Ecclesial City, Festival Assemblies, Missional Councils, and Vocational Assemblies.
The Missional Councils of Fellowships oversee the distribution of the Community Tithe at Community Tithe Feasts sponsored in the name of the Fellowship. The Community Tithe is the biblical and historic practice of the people of God whereby tithers identify members of their local community who, for no fault of their own, have experienced an incapacitating crisis (e.g., a natural disaster, death of a breadwinner, social injustice, etc.) threatening them with imminent financial ruin unless they receive an infusion of bridge capital to literally buy them time to be restored to productivity once again. In the Old Covenant era the Community Tithe was paid every third year to those Levites, strangers, fatherless, or widows who had become unable to supply for their own needs (Deut. 14:27-29; Amos 4:4). While loans to the poor were the primary means of taking care of the poor (Lev. 25:35-38; Deut. 15:1-11) the purpose of the Community Tithe was different; its purpose being to provide a kind of social safety net preventing those in a tither's own local community who had lost their primary means of financial support from descending into chronic poverty. Since the Community Tithe during its administration in the time of Old Covenant Israel was distributed to recipients only once every third year instead of every year or even every month, it did not promote debilitating welfare dependency, but rather encouraged and enabled those who received this tithe to exercise personal responsibility to get back up on their feet.
Also see Community Tithe Feasts, Festival Tithe, Missional Councils, Tithe, and Vocational Tithe.
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