Theology as symbolic engagement
One of the most important modern Orthodox theologians, Paul Evdokimov maintains that the Greek words for ‘symbol’ and ‘devil’ (symbolon and diabolos, respectively) have the same Greek root (ballein, to throw), yet they express two contrary realities. He writes, ‘The devil is a divider, one who separates and cuts off all communication, reducing to the utmost solitude. On the other hand, a symbol binds together, builds a bridge, reestablishes communion.’Footnote 1 Religions have the capacity to be diabolical and divisive, especially when their leaders (mis)use religious language to protect their own power or establish their identity against other groups. However, the other side is also possible, that is, that religions can provide safe spaces for people to engage symbolically with the complex reality of the world and strive for unity in diversity with respect, openness and solidarity.
In this context, I understand theology as symbolic engagement. I borrow loosely the idea from Robert C. Neville, who understands theology as the way one engages with the infinite/finite dialectic through the mediation of symbols.Footnote 2 In this article, I employ the term symbolic engagement to demonstrate the way people relate to God and creation by using religious symbols that embrace all diversity into a unity without diminishing the particularity of each part. To be more specific, my concern here has to do with the search for symbolic imagination that makes it possible to bridge the gaps between two or more interpersonal, ecclesial or social entities in order to reach a unitive picture of reality.
The importance of such a method is evident in our daily life. We have to deal with so many tensions or paradoxes that are confusing to us, such as the divine and human natures of Christ, gospel and culture, female and male, church and society, faith and reason, or Christianity and other religions. In response to such tensions, theology becomes potentially diabolical whenever it attempts to escalate the tensions without any willingness to construct a more unitive paradigm that embraces them while respecting each element at the same time. In contrast, theology as symbolic engagement maintains the tensions creatively and attempts to construct fruitful connections across the tensions.
My approach to this challenge is to use the concept of the ‘in-between’ as a theological and liturgical category. My argument is that it is only by constructing a robust theology of the in-between that we are enabled to bridge the paradoxes in Christian faith. In this article, I first briefly discuss the idea of metaxy as the conceptual basis for the in-between in the Christian tradition. Secondly, I discuss how we can employ the idea of the in-between in liturgical studies, especially the relationship between ecclesial and social liturgies. Finally, I apply the idea by discussing three liturgical moments: the ministries of ushering, intercessory prayers and the sending. The article concludes with the story of the GKI Yasmin church in Indonesia, whose worship demonstrates the prophetic negotiation that results from the imagination of the in-between.
Metaxy: the in-between as a theological category
The Greek preposition metaxy means ‘in between’ or ‘between’. Alongside its everyday usage, the word has a special place in Plato's Symposium.Footnote 3 In a dialogue about eros between Socrates and the prophet Diotima, the prophet explains that eros (love) is a great spirit or daimon, that is, ‘neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two (metaxy)’.Footnote 4 As that which is metaxy, eros plays a very important role in mediating between the divine and humans:
Between gods and men, [he is] conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all, prophecy and incantation, find their way. For God mingles not with man; but through Love all the intercourse, and converse of god with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on.Footnote 5
From there we can find the word being used philosophically as well as theologically. The philosophical tradition wrestles with the notion of metaxy from the ancient Greeks through modern philosophers.Footnote 6 Eric Voegelin and Simone Weil, for instance, are two modern thinkers who employ the term philosophically.Footnote 7
In theological circles, many contemporary theologians use the category of metaxy, although not in the Platonic sense.Footnote 8 It is, however, the Eastern Orthodox tradition that employs explicitly the Platonic idea of metaxy in its theology. Andrew Louth, for example, elucidates that the Orthodox tradition has struggled with the naming of the in-between of God and creation; either it is uncreated (Wisdom, Word, energeia) or created (angels, icons, Mary, the saints, prayers, sacraments and others).Footnote 9 The discussion has been complicated by the doctrine of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), which allows nothing to exist between God and creation. Louth explains that it is the doctrine of creation out of nothing that precisely becomes the root of the dispute between Arius and Athanasius: ‘Arius preserves a hierarchy within the created order, with the Logos at its pinnacle, while Athanasius, quite radically, rejects any notion of hierarchy within the created order, seeing the Logos as uncreated, and thus consubstantial (homooúsios) with the Father.’Footnote 10 After discussing several theologians such as Pseduo-Dionysius, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Palamas, Georges Florovsky and Sergii Bulgakov, Louth concludes that anything qualified as the in-between ‘is not thought of as some sort of alternative to Christ, but rather established by Him’.Footnote 11 In other words, Christ is the ultimate ‘in-between’ who relates God and creation. The Chalcedonian definition of 451 confesses Christ as both truly God and truly human, so that by assuming human nature, Christ is present not only as the in-between of God and human, but also in-both God and human.
The Christian dogma of Christ as the In-Between has also become the primary symbol for Christians to engage with the world. Christ is present in the power of the Spirit as the In-Between of everything finite. In Paul's words, ‘All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation’ (2 Cor 5:18). In short, Christ, the One who is present as the In-Between of God and creation, now shapes the Christian grammar of faith in thinking about the spaces in-between multiple entities in the world. It is through the power of the Spirit inhabiting everything in creation that Christ is also present as the In-Between. Every time we human beings play our mediating role in creation, we present and represent Christ the In-Between. In this way, the presence of the in-between is liturgical.
Ecclesial and social liturgies
The use of the term ‘liturgy’ in the Christian tradition is much more complex than merely referring to the church activity called worship. Maximus the Confessor, for example, elucidates, ‘Precisely because Christ was the mediator between God and man, he had to preserve completely his natural kinship with the two poles he brings together, by being them both himself.’Footnote 12 Thus, the in-betweenness and in-bothness of Christ bring God and creation into unity. Hans Urs von Balthasar suggests the term ‘cosmic liturgy’ to summarise Maximus’ theology by maintaining, ‘The liturgy is ultimately always “cosmic liturgy”: a way of drawing the entire world into the hypostatic union, because both world and liturgy share a Christological foundation.’Footnote 13 Thus, for Maximus, both the world and worship are liturgical since their centre is on Christ, who mediates humanity and all creation with God. In this sense, Christ is present as metaxy: the in-between and the in-both of God and creation.
The using of ‘liturgy’ to describe the world beyond the church's worship has also been suggested by many other theologians, such as Karl Rahner in his distinction between liturgy of the world and liturgy of the church,Footnote 14 Peter Phan's liturgy of life,Footnote 15 and Ion Bria's idea of the liturgy after the liturgy.Footnote 16 In the Christian Bible, we find Paul's attempt to intertwine closely leitourgia and diakonia by saying, ‘For the rendering of this ministry (hē diakonia tēs leitourgias) not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God’ (2 Cor 9:12). By linking both together, Paul attempts to say that Christian worship and social action are two aspects of the same life motivated by thanksgiving to God.
We can find the best explanation of the relationship between ecclesial and social liturgies in the writing of John Chrysostom from the late fourth century. In his Homily on 2 Corinthians 9:15, Chrysostom says that there are two altars, the ritual and the social ones. Regarding the social altar, he maintains,
This altar may thou everywhere see lying, both in lanes and in market places, and may sacrifice upon it every hour; for on this too is sacrifice performed. And as the priest stands invoking the Spirit, so do you too invoke the Spirit, not by speech, but by deeds . . . When then you see a poor believer, think that you behold an altar: when you see such a one a beggar, not only insult him not, but even reverence him, and if you see another insulting him, prevent, repel it.Footnote 17
In what we might call Chrysostom's ‘liturgical theology’, both altars should be closely intertwined, since they both are centered on Christ and invoked by the Holy Spirit.
Using Chrysostom's theory of two altars, we can think of various ways of connecting up the ecclesial and social liturgies. We can even construct a typology similar to the one developed by H. Richard Niebuhr for the relationship between Christ and cultures.Footnote 18 However, in spite of Chrysostom's powerful image of two altars, his theory does not talk about the interstice between the two – the in-between. It is precisely my proposal in this article to discuss the theological and liturgical status of the in-between of the two altars. My claim is that unless we have a robust theology of the in-between, we can never have a clear understanding of the relation between the two liturgies. Such a liturgical theology of the in-between should be consistent with the Christic imagination that shapes the grammar of faith. It should therefore allow us to think of the presence of Christ both in-between and in-both the two liturgies. In that sense, liturgical theology of the in-between gives space to engage symbolically with the world as members of the church, and with the church as the citizens of the world. Any attempt to exaggerate the difference and take the primacy of one over the other will result easily in a diabolical way of living, because (following Evdokimov) anything that cuts off relationality in the name of superiority is always diabolic.
Experimenting the in-between
In this section, I propose several ways of experimenting with the idea of the in-between in examining the relationship between the two altars of ecclesial and social liturgy. There are at least four different ways of locating the in-between when we relate the ecclesial liturgy (EL) and social liturgy (SL). The first two are quite straightforward (see Figures 1 and 2).
Ecclesial liturgy as the in-between
Social liturgy as the in-between
Figures 1 and 2 both reflect the imagination of ‘the liturgy after the liturgy’ provided by Ion Bria.Footnote 19 He argues,
Out of this idea of the extension of the liturgical celebration into the daily life of the faithful in the world came the concept of the ‘liturgy after the liturgy’. The dynamics of the liturgy go beyond the boundaries of the Eucharistic assembly to serve the community at large. The Eucharistic liturgy is not an escape into an inner realm of prayer, a pious turning away from the social realities; rather, it calls and sends the faithful to celebrate ‘the sacrament of the brother’ outside the temple in the public marketplace, where the cries of the poor and marginalized are heard.Footnote 20
In this sense, the ecclesial liturgy can be seen the in-between of two social liturgies (Figure 1), or the social liturgy becomes the in-between of two ecclesial liturgies (Figure 2). If we focus more on the social sphere, the ecclesial liturgy as the in-between nurtures our identity as homo quotidianus. By contrast, if we posit the ecclesial liturgy as a vital and necessary interruption to our daily life, we come to the idea that our identity as homo religiosus. Insofar as both models conceive of our lives as an alternation between the two liturgies, however, each constructs the believing community as ecclesia in transit.Footnote 21
While I have considerable sympathy for Bria's proposals, we can also conceive the link between the ecclesial and social liturgies differently. What I propose in Figures 3 and 4 is to find the in-between either in the moment of passing over between the two liturgies (Figure 3) or in the embeddedness of the social liturgy within the ecclesial liturgy (Figure 4)
The in-between of social and ecclesial liturgies
The social in-between in ecclesial liturgy
In Figure 3, a subtler imagination exists, in which we try to find the in-between in the transitional space and time that marks the movement from social to ecclesial and ecclesial to social liturgies. In Figure 4, a social in-between is conceived not so much as a parallel liturgy alongside the ecclesial, but rather as a necessary interruption within an ecclesial liturgy. Its presence functions as a reminder that a worship should not be framed as a liturgical space that separates the church from society. To illustrate this point, I offer three examples of how the forms of in-between in Figures 3 and 4 can be understood in terms of three concrete forms of liturgical ministry.
The ministry of ushering (Figure 3)
In many denominations, ushering belongs to the ministry of hospitality. The ushers become the initial faces of the church in welcoming church attendees. The theological term of hospitality is of importance here. The literal meaning of its Greek equivalent, philoxenia, is to befriend strangers, and this is precisely what the ushers do at the door of the church. The term ‘usher’ itself is derived from the Latin word ostium meaning ‘door’. By locating the ministry of ushering at the door of the church, we give a theological meaning to what they perform. In most denominations, their role is rather pre-liturgical. However, if we understand the church's liturgy as including both social and ecclesial dimensions, we have to say that the role of ushers is as much spiritual and liturgical as it is social or interpersonal.
Hebrews 13:1–2 might shed light on the liturgical meaning of the usher, since the instructions given there ‘flow immediately from 12:28, which called for a giving of thanks that is a worship pleasing to God’.Footnote 22 The two verses say, ‘Let mutual love (philadelphia) continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers (philoxenia), for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’ While philadelphia refers to friendship towards brothers or sisters, philoxenia points to the friendship towards strangers. It seems reasonable to think that the first verse has to do with our church members who are no longer strangers, while the second verse instructs us to welcome strangers whom we have not known yet.Footnote 23
In light of the importance of ushering, however, I propose to interpret both philadephia and philoxenia as two dimensions of the same act of befriending. This means that ushers should treat all church attendees, however familiar they are, as strangers. In so doing, the ushers are aware of the fact that they never fully know the attendees, so that at one level the attendees will always be strangers. On the other hand, the usher should also welcome newcomers or strangers who approach the church as if they are sisters or brothers.
The reason behind this approach is christological, seeing others through the face of Christ the In-Between. The idea of seeing worship attendees as both strangers and brothers or sisters is based on a spirituality that centers on Christ the In-Between. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's idea of ‘seeing-through Christ’ is worth quoting at length here because it beautifully expresses the spiritual idea of Christ the In-Between:
A Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ. Among men there is strife. ‘He is our peace’, says Paul of Jesus Christ (Eph. 2.14). Without Christ there is discord between God and man and between man and man. Christ became the Mediator and made peace with God and among men. Without Christ we should not know God and could not call upon him, nor come to him. But without Christ we would also not know our brother, nor could we come to him. The way is blocked by our own ego. Christ opened up the way to God and to our brother. Now Christians can live with one another in peace; they can love and serve one another; they can become one. But they can continue to do so only by way of Jesus Christ. Only in Jesus Christ are we one, only through him are we bound together. To eternity he remains the one Mediator.Footnote 24
Bonhoeffer's statements inspire us to believe that there is no direct relationship between God and human as well as between humans without being mediated by Christ the In-Between.
Thus, on the one hand, the Gospels mention many surprising narratives in witnessing Christ as a stranger (Matt 25:35, 43; John 1:10, 26). As a stranger, Christ cannot be grasped or controlled. We are called to treat Christ the Stranger in the faces of our coming sisters and brothers with respect, care and esteem. On the other hand, Jesus Christ is also our Brother and Sister (see Mark 3:35; Eph 1:5). Thus, the ushers have to see the attendees, no matter how unfamiliar they may be, as their sisters and brothers, because they see Christ the Brother in the face of the stranger. In so doing, they ‘have entertained angels without knowing it’. In this way, by using the two faces of Christ, as the Stranger and the Brother or Sister, the ministry of ushering plays a significant liturgical role as the in-between that makes Christ the In-Between present.
Intercessory prayer (Figure 4)
In Figure 4, we find the presence of the social in-between conceived as embedded within formal worship as a necessary interruption. One of the elements in our worship order that perfectly illustrates this model of embedded interruption is intercessory prayer. The term intercession (from the Latin inter and cedere: to go between) itself denotes the function of the in-betweenness. Using John N. Collins’ definition of diakonia as a ministry of ‘going-between’, we could argue that the ministry of intercession has a diaconal character at its very heart, in which we mediate the cries of the world to God and in so doing participate in God's mission to the world.Footnote 25 In intercessory prayer, we bring the whole of the social problems with which we struggle, together with all people in our daily life, before God and ask God to intervene.
Andrew Bishop is of the opinion that the role of intercessory prayer in connecting ecclesial liturgy to social liturgy is pivotal. He writes, ‘They enable the connection between the needs and concerns of society which are then placed within the context of the missio Dei unfolding in the liturgical gathering’.Footnote 26 Thus, intercessory prayers have a special place in ecclesial liturgy, in which they make space for congregants to engage with the problems of the world inside their worship. Samuel Wells tells a fascinating story about a woman who tries to learn how to participate in the church worship. One of her favourite roles is to lead intercessory prayers. He says:
For her, leading intercessions was the summit of her years of attending church. She realized that this was the moment when she was like Jesus, standing before the Father bringing the people with her. It was also like the anticipated moment of her death, when she would stand face to face with God, and he would ask her, ‘Where are all the others?’ – and she could reply, ‘Here, in my prayers.’Footnote 27
Learning from Wells’ story, we might even say that a person leading an intercessory prayer becomes the in-between space of God and the entire community. In intercessory prayers, the deepest meaning of Christian personhood comes to the fore. We are persons because all members of our community and society are liturgically within us. A person intercedes for everyone else, since she or he is always a person-in-community. This, I believe, is the fundamental significance of what John D. Zizioulas calls an ‘ecclesial hypostasis’ or ‘ecclesial person’.Footnote 28 A person is ecclesial in nature, in that he or she always belongs to the community of faith by virtue of the personhood of Christ, who mediates the whole community to God.
Intercessory prayer is also an in-between in the sense that we bring all problems of the world to God through the Son in the Spirit within the ecclesial liturgy. As such, we participate in the life of Christ the In-Between, who defines our ecclesial identity as that which is in the world but not of the world (John 17:11–16). As a community who live ‘in the world’, the people pray to God with the suffering world. As a community whose identity is ‘not of the world’, the people pray to God in Christ. In other words, intercessory prayer maintains the tension between Christian relationality and uniqueness, that is, Christians’ simultaneous openness to the world and identity as God's people. In either perspective, intercessory prayers help the church avoid the sins of immunity and isolation from the world.
The sending (Figure 3)
The third example of the in-between in our ecclesial liturgy is the moment of sending, which locates the congregants at the border between the ecclesial and social liturgies. The term ‘sending’ here is preferable to ‘dismissal’, since the latter does not indicate that ‘God's presence goes with people beyond the church door. There is no apparent expectation that God's people will be the church beyond the congregational campus or that the mission work they might engage in is connected to the Sunday service of worship.’Footnote 29 While the term ‘dismissal’ implies disruption between the ecclesial and social liturgies, the term ‘sending’ connotes an interruption or attention to an in-between that distinguishes yet connects the two liturgies. On the one hand, as a disruption, ‘dismissal’ will unlink ecclesial liturgy from social liturgy so that there will be no continuity between the two. On the other hand, we can see ‘sending’ as an interruption, since although it seems to shift our attention from God by directing our attention to the world's needs, the new focus on the world's needs also makes a deeper connection between the church and society as well as between God and the world.
Whereas at the moment of gathering, after being ushered in to the worship space, the strangers become brothers and sisters, at the moment of sending, they are ushered out to be brothers and sisters for strangers in the world. Ninna Edgardh elucidates the importance of the sending:
The Sending in this way actualizes the relation between the church gathered to worship and the rest of the world, a world that does not only include human beings, but a range of living creatures dependent on each other, dependent on our care and on the preservation of the whole ecological system. The Sending thus relates us to all of creation. Through the Sending the church is made visible in the world, but this means the Sending also elucidates a creational perspective on worship as a whole. Without this reference worship would lose its meaning.Footnote 30
What Edgardh says is that the raison d’être for our worship is not to have a break from our daily life in the world, but to prove through the Sending that worship is the place where we are empowered to work for the life of all creation.
An interesting example of this idea from the worship order comes from my own denomination, the Indonesian Christian Church, where the formula of sending reads as follows:
What is interesting in this litany is that, as a Reformed Church, our denomination seems to adopt Calvin's formulation of the sursum corda (‘Lift up your hearts’). However, we move its place from the liturgy of Holy Communion to the sending. On the one hand, this modification can give a theological meaning that our participation as the sent people into God's mission has a sacramental meaning. However, it also potentially distracts from the missional focus of the people toward the world. My proposal is to change the formula of sending from sursum corda to extersum corda (‘Direct outward your hearts’). In so doing, the people, having lifted up their hearts to God in the eucharist, now direct their lifted up hearts outward to the world. The gate of the world is open for them while they are still inside the worship space. In that sense, the sending becomes the in-between of the ecclesial and social liturgies.
It is after the sending that the leader gives God's blessing or benediction before people leave the worship space. Thus, the sending and the benediction function as a ministry of ushering out for the people to cross over the in-between space, with Christ in the power of the Spirit, to the world as their social altar. By crossing over the in-between from the ecclesial liturgy to the social liturgy with Christ and in the Spirit, people become ‘little Christs’ who are present as the reconciliatory in-betweens in the fragmented world.Footnote 31 However, while the term ‘crossing over’ of the in-between might imply the necessity to leave the in-between space behind once we pass through it, I want to suggest is that we always inhabit the in-between while crossing over it. Theologically speaking, Christ the In-Between is always present everywhere we move, whether inside or outside the ecclesia liturgy.
Conclusion: a story of a marginalised in-between church
Throughout this article, I have attempted to demonstrate the importance of imagining the in-between as a liturgical and theological category. The liturgy of the in-between places the church and society in a relational tension. The in-between space becomes a site of invitation and engagement that the church directs to society and vice versa. However, there are many cases where the relationship between the church and society is problematic and conflictual. When conflicts happen, the in-between of ecclesial and social liturgies becomes a site of dispute as well. Some churches might use worship to avoid the dispute and disconnect themselves completely from society. In so doing, the danger of the worship being diabolical, in the sense that it cuts off its relationship with the world for the sake of immunity from the world, is real. On the contrary, worshipping in the midst of a conflict between the church and society should become the ‘third space’, where identity is negotiated and constructed, even if in a polemical and messy relationship. In this context, I believe, worship can still be a symbolic engagement to address the unfortunate situation both creatively and faithfully. In this conclusion, I present a particular church, GKI Yasmin, Indonesia, that has been emblematic in making their worship a third space in response to social marginalisation that the community has experienced for years. Here is how the story goes.
I do not remember the exact date, but it was a Sunday afternoon, on a very hot day of Jakarta in 2015. I attended an open-air worship of GKI Yasmin in front of the presidential palace. It was not even close to a fancy and joyful picnic worship that churches often have to kill the boredom of worship inside their beautiful cathedral-like buildings. It was indeed an act of worship, but it was also an act of protest and solidarity.
The story of GKI Yasmin, in Bogor, Indonesia (about 40 miles south of Jakarta), tells us about the neglect of the Indonesian government of the basic right of its citizens to worship freely. After their legal permit to build their church building was suspended by the mayor of Bogor in 2008, GKI Yasmin had to worship in front of the gate of their sealed church building. The mayor had suppressed the permit from the Supreme Court because he was afraid of the violent pressure of some radical Muslim groups. In 2012 the church decided to stop their worship in front of their own church building. Instead, they held their services alternatingly in the houses of the church members and in front of the presidential palace, located 40 miles from their original church building. The practice continues today.
What separates the worship and the palace – or, if you will, the spheres of religion and politics – is a not-too-wide street that signifies multiple meanings. The in-between space of the worship of GKI Yasmin and the presidential palace becomes the primary symbol through which the congregants engage with the oppression that they experience as well as their Christian faith and hope.
Here, I employ the term ‘third space’, which has been popularised in postcolonial discourse by Homi Bhabha, to demonstrate that the worship place of GKI Yasmin in front of the presidential palace is a space where the identity of the community, both as Christians and Indonesians, is negotiated in confrontation with the political power that is supposed to guarantee the freedom of worship for its citizens.Footnote 32 Bhabha seems to identify the third space with the in-between space where we negotiate our hybrid identity.
I did not use the idea of ‘third space’ when discussing the ministries of ushering, intercession and sending. I use it here to demonstrate that the conflictual situation faced by GKI Yasmin has changed their identity vis-à-vis political power. After years of protesting to the government, some of the members of GKI Yasmin have become social activists who promote justice and religious freedom, not only for the right of worship for their own church but also for other Christian or non-Christian minority groups in Indonesia. At the same time, the idea of ‘third space’ can also be employed for a non-conflictual situation where a fluid and hybrid identity will also occur. For example, every time the ushers meet the church attendees, either as strangers or brothers or sisters, their identity changes. Their encounters with others enrich their self-identity as Christians. It is also the case that the sending will nurture the missional identity of the church members to be more sensitive to the sufferings of the world.
GKI Yasmin's long experience of being oppressed constitutes this community as a ‘religiously homeless’ or ‘religiously migrant’ people experiencing a dislocation from their own worship space. By moving 40 miles from their original church building every two weeks just to have their worship in front of the presidential palace, the GKI Yasmin congregation symbolises their homelessness and migrant status, precisely by occupying such a space as a concrete place to worship God as well as to protest political power.
It is interesting that the worship order of GKI Yasmin remains the same as that of other congregations in the same denomination. However, the experience of being a homeless or migrant congregation – ‘a congregation in the wilderness’, to use the terms in Acts 7:28 – has enabled them to give fresh meanings to the regular worship order. For example, their ushers use the open-air setting to greet and welcome pedestrians who pass by the site. The congregation is also more politically outward-minded in bringing their intercessory prayers. As for the sending, more prophetic litanies and more pastorally encouraging benedictions have been used more frequently, so that the church members are encouraged be prophetically more missional and spiritually more perseverant. In other words, after the years of being a protesting community, the congregants can see more clearly the liturgical in-betweens that enable them to engage their worship with social actions.
Moreover, GKI Yasmin also creates another in-between or interstice space: the street that separates the worshipping community and the presidential palace. In this context, we remember what Cláudio Carvalhaes writes, ‘Our worship is always a concrete place, a place of resistance and change! As Jesus said, we do not belong to the world, but we are sent to the world with a mission. In this endless movement around the globe, we gather in “rest areas,” places that belong to none and to all, to worship God.’Footnote 33 It is indeed Christ the In-Between who defines our identity as a community that does not belong to the world yet is being sent to the world. Every time we worship in an in-between space, we liturgically present Christ the In-Between through our symbolic engagement with the world.
