Fall

The Fall of Lucifer (in heaven) and of Adam and Eve (on earth) constitute the two dimensions of the ruin of the First Heavens and the First Earth by the rebellion of angels and of mankind against the revealed will of God in seeking to “become like God” autonomously. The Fall of Lucifer resulted in the subsequent Fall of one-third of the angelic host. The Fall of Adam and Eve subsequently caused the Fall of the created order in heaven and on earth, manifested ultimately as death. Thus the Fall is the ruin of created things by the trifold evil of sin, Satan and death.

Also see Exhausting Evil, and Fallen World System.

Fallen World System

The Fallen World System is the administration or un-kingdom alliance of fallen mankind and fallen angels over the First Heavens and the First Earth. The physical creation is an object of redemption, not of destruction. Therefore, the replacing of the Fallen World System with the Kingdom of God is a change of administrations – i.e., the replacing of the administration of fallen mankind and fallen angels with the administration of redeemed mankind and the righteous angels. It takes two realms – heaven and earth – to form a world. The Fallen World System is a “system” precisely because it is the alliance of fallen angels in the heavens above and fallen mankind on the earth below. This system gets replaced, not by doing away with the creation and creating a new physical heavens and earth, but by replacing via transformation the fallen administration with a better system, namely, a redeemed administration of righteous mankind on earth below with righteous angels in the heavens above. Just as Jesus’ body was a resurrected and transformed version of His original physical body, so the New Heavens and the New Earth are a resurrected and transformed version of the new world that replaces the old, originally good, but subsequent ruined version of the world – the First Heavens and the First Earth, which now has become the Fallen World System.

Also see Alliance, Fall, Kingdom, Transformation, and Replace.

Fallible and Finite

Mankind is by nature fallible (i.e., not immune from making mistakes) and finite (not infinite, particularly in knowledge like God has). In subcultural and countercultural views of reality this inherent condition of mankind is regarded as the reason why mankind can never have certain knowledge, which in turn leads to the equally mistaken idea that all individual and collective authority must therefore automatically be mediatorial in order to maintain some semblance of order in society, even if this means oppressing and dominating others. The entire Fallen World System is nothing but one huge civil war between subculturalists who fear oppression by fallible and finite collectives and counterculturalists who fear the social chaos of fallible and finite individuals. The kingdomcultural alternative does not fear the fallible and finite realities of humanity but embraces them as exactly the condition that makes possible certain knowledge if in boldness and humility, following the example of Christ in his kenosis, we operate as faithful delegated authorities who make God’s revelation of the Word in creation, Scripture and by the Spirit the starting point and foundation of our own knowledge. In this approach, while we are fallible (and thus not immune from making mistakes) we can operate inerrantly (without making mistakes). And while we are finite (and thus do not inherently have comprehensive knowledge which is the necessary condition for certainty) we can be certain about what we know because we base our finite knowledge on the sure foundation of God’s revealed knowledge, which is certain because He knows all things exhaustively.

Also see Apostolic Rule of Faith, Certain Knowledge, Kenosis, and Qualified Infallibility.

Familial

Familial is a quality of Fellowships in the sense that they are the inclusive and holistic ecclesial home to which individuals and Chapters are membered. If a Basileia Community is likened to an Ecclesial City, then a Fellowship may be likened to a neighborhood of the city. If we used only classical ecclesiastical terms, then we would call a Basileia Community a diocese and a Fellowship a parish. An expression of family life, (if not the most basic expression) is eating together at home. Therefore, the center of familial life in a Fellowship is Sunday Eucharistic worship.

Also see Fellowship, and Monastic.

Fellowship

A Fellowship is the familial expression of Basileia, a collective member of a Basileia Community, comprised of Basileians in general, Adult Communicant Members and Governing Members in particular as well as Chapters, and founded by a Presbyter. The complementary governing functions of its Presbyter Councils, Deacon Councils and Missional Councils enable each Fellowship to create an outpost of the Ecclesial City with its own unique charism and distinctives. The Greek word koinonia is often rendered as “fellowship” in English Bible translations, whose meaning is then weakened by modern usage that sentimentalizes koinonia to the warmth and intimacy shared by a troupe of girl scouts around a campfire, which it can certainly have. But in the context of the teaching of Christ’s apostles, the highest type of koinonia this word has historically been used for is in regards to the association or community of people who form a city (polis). While people can hold many things in common (koinos), including the warmth and intimacy around a campfire, the city is the highest expression of what a fellowship of people hold in common. The Church is a fellowship, a community of people who publically share all things in common in the context of the Kingdom of God, the empire led by the Emperor, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. The acts of Baptism and the Eucharist in a Fellowship should not be mistaken for private religious acts of devotion performed in someone else’s society. When rightly understood these covenantal acts of initiation and renewal encompass the whole of the private and public life of a Fellowship in its mission of embodying another empire in resistance to all the empires of man who as yet have not bowed the knee and proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord. Thus in a Fellowship individuals are discipled as citizens of the Ecclesial City where all three expressions of the Church – Festival Assembly, Vocational Assembly and Community Assembly – converge.

(Also see Community Assembly, Ecclesial City, Familial, Festival Assembly, and Vocational Assembly.

Festival Assembly

The “Festival Assembly of the Church” (Hebrews 12:23) is a priestly form of the assembling of the Church in Eucharistic celebration. The Old Covenant forms of such assemblies were the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks. While these three main assemblies formed and still form the backbone of the Church Year, all three are integrated into every Festival Assembly of the Church in the New Covenant era.  The Festival Tithes finance the Festival Assemblies. In the context of the Church as an Ecclesial City, Festival Assemblies are one of the three main types of assemblies that make the Church a City on hill, the other two being Vocational Assemblies and Community Assemblies. In Basileia, while Deacon Councils and Missional Councils play a role in Festival Assemblies, the Presbyter Councils play a leading priestly role in the formation and administration of Festival Assemblies, which are always Eucharistic worship services.

Also see Community Assemblies, Ecclesial City, Festival Tithe, Presbyter Councils, and Vocational Assemblies.

Festival Tithe

The Festival Tithe finances the “Festival Assembly” (Heb. 12:23) of God's people. Basileians submit their Festival Tithes to the Fellowship they relate to. In the Old Covenant era the Festival Tithe financed the tithers themselves to cover the costs of their family's participation in the three annual congregational feasts or “Festival Assemblies:” the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Weeks (Deut. 12:6-7, 17-18; 14:22-27; 16:3, 13, 16). Rejoicing before the Lord at the feasts caused Israel to remember their deliverance from Egypt (Lev. 23:41-43). The express purpose of participating in the feasts was “that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always” (Deut. 14:23). And the fear of the Lord, as the Scripture says, is the beginning of wisdom (Prov. 1:7). Thus the Festival Tithe served to strengthen the covenant confession of Israel to live under God and His Law, setting Israel apart from other nations. And so today, Basileia likewise uses Festival Tithes to facilitate the times and places of Festival Assembly worship.

Also see Community Tithe, Eucharistic worship, Festival Assembly, Tithe, and Vocational Tithe.

Follow the Lectionary

Following the Lectionary in rhythm with the Church Year is the practice of being molded by the Epic Story into people who can participate as heroes alongside all other heroes of the faith in transforming the world. Basileians are Storytellers who, in our primary discipline of listening to the Word, integrate the practice of following the Lectionary with interpreting the Word according to the Apostolic Rule of Faith and observing the Constitution of Basileia.

Also see Communion of Saints, Listen, Lectionary, and Storytellers.

Forerunners

Basileians are Forerunners who in the practice of fulfilling our respective governing roles in the task of creating thin places between heaven and earth experience Jesus building His Church and the gates of Hades not prevailing. This kingly lifestyle practice is related to our primary discipline of assembling as the Church.

Also see Assemble, Celtic Community-Builders, and Soul Friends.

Forgiveness

In general, in addition to private acts of forgiveness, public expressions of forgiveness include forgiveness as an element in the second and forth movements of the Liturgy. Additionally a formal, public expression of forgiveness may also be performed as a Rite of Purification in the Catechumenate and Novitiate.

Also see Anointing, Confession, Exorcism, Restitution, Rite of Incorporation, and Rite of Purification.

Formative Discipleship

Formative discipleship, in contrast to corrective discipline, is not the correcting of wrong actions, but empowerment for right action. From a covenantal perspective, formative discipleship is the release of more authority and blessing upon a covenant-keeper, not at the expense of covenant-breakers, but for the purpose of empowering covenant-keepers to be even more effective agents of transformation in relation to those undergoing corrective discipline.

Also see Corrective Discipline, and Theosis.

Founded

A jurisdiction is regarded as officially founded only after the appropriate Presbyter Council charters it. Before that time its status is that of a missional initiative. Thus, while a missional initiative is “started,” a jurisdiction is founded.

Also see Charter, Jurisdiction, and Missional Initiative.

Friends of God

Basileians are Friends of God who, in the practice of making consensus decisions that bind and loose, affect the release of the Kingdom of God in visible, cultural ways that exhausts evil on behalf of the fatherless, widowed, poor, oppressed, prisoners and sick. This prophetic lifestyle practice is related to our primary discipline of governing from the Table. The ancient idea of friendship is something not limited to the private sphere, but carried the force of the public glue that bound people together in communities of friends who were able to function as their own alternative society. To be friends of God is to be the alternative City of God.

Also see Ecclesial City, Govern, Sentinels, and Stewards.

Future-Ancient

The term “future-ancient” adapts a phrase popularized by Robert Webber in a series of “Ancient-Future” books on faith, time, evangelism and worship. Our Basileian adaptation of Webber’s phrase expresses our charism of seeing the future (of Him who is to come) as the dynamic that unlocks in the present (of Him who is) the original potential of what is ancient (of Him who was). Jesus describes Himself as the one “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev. 1:8), not “who is and who was and will be.” The Kingdom does not “become” something absolutely new and novel (i.e., something “original” in the modern sense of “original”) through an evolutionary process. Rather, the Kingdom is fully formed in the beginning, at the origin of all things, like a mustard seed, being manifested initially in microcosm. Thus all dimensions of originally created reality are the mustard seeds of the future. The coming of the Kingdom is the coming to maturity of these seeds. What the Kingdom shall and should look like, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,nor have entered into the heart of manthe things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9). The original potential yet unpacked in the ancient has been and will continue to unfold in the ages to come. That which is original (i.e., “ancient”) still operates in our present in a kairos manner, being rooted in the created origin of all things (i.e., thus “original” in the pre-eighteenth century meaning of original). While “ancient” expressions of the Kingdom give us a sense of the trajectory of the growth of the Kingdom, to do the faith in a way relevant for today requires that we look to the future to unpack what “God has prepared” in the ancient past, at the original creation of all things. Furthermore, since that which is original has been damaged by evil, the ancient also needs to be healed in order to release the future. While the sun rises in the east, illuminating for us things “ancient” which we remember and bring forward with us on our journey, we follow the sun west on the quest to discover kingdom things future. A practical application of this is our Basileian “ancient” orientation toward the East in Eucharistic worship and our “future” orientation toward the west in our practice of being Voluntary Exiles. This does not mean that our Eucharistic Worship is “ancient” only, but rather that ancient elements are expressed in a future oriented way. Likewise, being Voluntary Exiles with a future orientation does not mean that we ignore things ancient, but that we heal them, unpack them and reformat them even as God reformatted the pattern of the Tabernacle into the pattern of the Temple.

See Eucharistic Worship, Expansion of Authority, Heavenizing Earth and Voluntary Exiles.

Gateway

A gate in relation to the imagery of a walled city is the barrier or door of the gateway as a whole. Walled cities have gateways that can be imagined as passages like a tunnel through the thick walls that therefore had at least an outer gate and sometime an inner gate too on either side of the passage or gateway. Basileia incorporates the imagery of four gates into its logo. This is rooted in Scripture passages like Genesis 28:17, where Jacob says, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” This place, Bethel (which means, “House of God), served as a gate between heaven and earth where Jacob saw that “a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it” (Gen. 28:12). This vertical movement between heaven and earth made Bethel a beachhead or colony outpost of heaven on earth from which Jacob’s descendants would expand outward. As the Lord said to Jacob, “Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 28:14). The Church, as the House of God in the form of a City, is the gate of heaven in both of these vertical and horizontal senses. The Church is the true gateway that Hades only parodies. It is therefore against the Church and the Church only that the gates of Hades will not prevail (Matt. 16:18). Just as the Church is symbolically portrayed as a City, the New Jerusalem, with gates, the great counterfeit is Babylon, whose tower named Babel in the Babylonian language means “gate of God.” The Fallen World System copies the Church by establishing temples (e.g., the Tower of Babel) in the midst of a city (e.g., Babylon). Such fallen cities become colonies of Hades on earth. Jesus declares that His kingdomcultural mission is not merely to destroy the gates of Hades, but also to build His Church. These two actions go hand in hand and result in the replacing of the Fallen World System with the Kingdom of God. The destruction of Hades as pictured in the Icon of the Resurrection, for example, is happening at the same time that Adam and all mankind are being raised from the dead to reenter Paradise through the very gate that was closed to Adam as a result of His sin (Gen. 3:24).

Also see Colony of Heaven on Earth, Ecclesial City, Gateway, Icon of the Resurrection, and Logo.

Genius

In Basileia, the concept of genius is used, not so much in the populist sense of speaking about someone as having a high IQ, but in the sense of the unique gifting or charism given by God to individuals and collectives. Each individual has a unique kind of genius destined to be cultivated and expressed. Our belonging in order to believe approach to community life aims at identifying and calling forth this unique genius in each person. Historically, “genius” comes from the ancient Roman idea that genius is the manifestation of a transcendent power (which comes from God above as believers acknowledge) that works in and through a person which in turn causes them to transcend their mortal human capabilities. The ancient Egyptians had a similar concept that they called the Ka and which was conceived of as a power that descended on a person from above and which the person acknowledged and responded to by raising ones hands to heaven with arms bent ninety degrees at the elbow. It is our Basileian practice in the Liturgy, during both the Epiclesis and at the commissioning, to assume the Ka posture in acknowledging and responding to the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. John D. Pilkey, in his book The Origin of the Nations (page 232) says, “The power to transcend human personality is as basic to human experience as the image of the rising sun. Our popular English use of the word ‘genius’ shows the result. A ‘genius’ is anyone who has the good fortune to get involved in a task which draws him beyond the limitations of private consciousness. We all experience such activity from time to time but reserve the term ‘genius’ for anyone who sustains such activity long enough to alter the course of history, usually in a beneficent way. The works of ‘genius’ or high spirit invariably result in ‘legend’ or mythology, memories of high achievement which stand out above the ordinary context of mechanical cause and effect.” Our Basileian charism is one that seeks nothing less than the cultivation of each person’s unique genius in the context of the Church as the community of Theosis.

Also see Belong in Order to Believe, Charism, Epic Story, Shine Like the Sun, Theosis.

Global Pilgrims

Basileians are Global Pilgrims who in the practice of the Daily Office pray the Scriptures for the life of the world in unity with the Church in heaven and earth. This prophetic lifestyle practice is related to our primary discipline of journeying to the Mountain with Christ.

Also see Contemplatives, Journey, and Worshippers.

Godly Play

As defined by the Godly Play foundation, “Godly Play is based upon the recognition that children have an innate sense of the presence of God. All they lack is the appropriate language to help them identify and express it so it can be explored and strengthened. The Godly Play approach teaches classical Christian language in a way that enhances the child’s authentic experience of God so it can contribute to the creative life of the child and the world.” Basileia’s Deacon Councils are charged with leading each Basileia jurisdiction to incorporate Godly Play holistically into our Basileian way of life.

Also see Catechism, Child Communicant Believer, Child Communicant Member, and Deacon Council.

Govern

Govern is an element of the fourth of the five primary disciplines of our Basileian way of life – journey, assemble, listen, govern and serve. Also, in parallel fashion, it is an element in the fourth movement of the Liturgy by which worshipers govern from the Table, applying binding and loosing authority in the covenantal way of transferring authority from covenant-breakers to covenant-keepers, especially on behalf of the fatherless, widowed, poor, oppressed, prisoners and sick.

Also see Primary Disciplines, and Transfer of Authority.

Governed

The repeating pattern of governance – i.e., in which any jurisdiction is described as having Councils who, when their numbers exceed 12, elect Executive Teams who in turn elect their own Presiding Member – is a pattern that anticipates growth, if and when it happens in a jurisdiction. It is understood that in the initial stages of founding a jurisdiction that a single Presbyter may be the first and only member. Thus by default this also makes him initially responsible for any of the functions that will later be handled by a fully developed Presbyter Council, Deacon Council and Missional Council.

Also see Deacon Councils, Missional Councils, and Presbyter Councils.