Druchesis VII: The Church

Introduction: The Church as an Object of Belief?

And now we come to the church. The creed has been speaking of the identity and activity of God the Father, his son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and then all of the sudden turns its attention to us. Of course, the church has been the elephant in the room all along, for it is the church who believes, promulgating creeds and developing doctrines in order to regulate its witness in the world and worship of the triune God. The church is the believing subject of the creed. That is why it is so odd to turn our attention to the church, because now we are treating the church an object of belief: I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. Is the church really an object belief alongside the triune God?

The answer to this question as stated is no. The church is not an object of belief in the same way as God is. Here is a good place to recall the three senses of faith outlined in the first week of this series. In terms of faith as trust, we do not put our trust in the church. We do not cling to the church in life and death. Such a posture is reserved for God and God alone. Trusting in the church alongside God is an act of idolatry.

In terms of faith as fidelity, however, we are called to be faithful to the church. The church is precisely the context in which we embody our fidelity to God. But even here there is a distinction, for our faithfulness to the church is a means, albeit a necessary one, toward the end of faithfulness to God. So the church is an object of faithfulness, not alongside but along the way to God.

In terms of faith as belief, assenting to propositions, we certainly do believe certain things about the church. The creed attaches adjectives to the church, which implies we believe these adjectives aptly describe the church. But such beliefs do not have the same status or significance as our beliefs about God. The church is not the central character in the story; God is. This does not mean the church is dispensable. It just means the church is not the same sort of thing as God is. The point is that beliefs about the church do not supply the center of gravity around which all other beliefs are organized. Quite the opposite is true. Beliefs about the triune God condition beliefs about the church.

This broader theological context is crucial not only to block ecclesial arrogance but also to properly uphold the crucial place of the church in the story of God. Too often the church is dismissed as an unnecessary appendage to the gospel. You have heard it said, "I'm spiritual, not religious." Perhaps you have said it yourself. Placing the church in its broader theological context, "putting the church in its place" so to speak, is the best response to this endemic problem. We've been doing this all along in this series, but let's make the connections explicit with three brief statements.

(1) The Father elects the church. The God of the Bible is a God who chooses a people. This doesn't mean God doesn't love all people. But God spreads his universal love through particular communities. God is the God of history and therefore works in and through particularity. This does not cease with Christ, but is intensified in him and then bursts out through the church whom he sends out into the world. Which brings us to the second point

(2) The Son institutes the church. Alfred Loisy once said, "Jesus preached the kingdom, but the church came instead." Now he meant that with several layers of irony, but at least one level the proper response is, "That's exactly what Jesus wanted!" Jesus preached the kingdom and he sent his disciples preach that same kingdom, of which he is the king. The church was not an accident but at the heart of Jesus's own mission. Nothing speaks more to his intention to establish a community than the institution of the Lord's Supper, giving his disciples a concrete practice to continue after his death and resurrection. The many promises giving to the community so gathered points to Jesus's ecclesial intentions. The mention of promise brings us to our last point.

(3) The Spirit constitutes the church. Jesus promised that the Father would send another comforter, who would be poured out on his disciples to equip them for mission. At Pentecost, the Spirit of the risen Lord Jesus who had ascended to the right hand of the Father descended upon his disciples. In so doing, the Spirit constituted the church. The church has its being in its act of mission. The church's mission is not a bonus activity appended to its self-enclosed communal being. The church exists as the sent community. So the outpouring of the Spirit is not reserved for a special functions or functionaries of the church, but constitutes the church as the community sent for the sake of the world.

Within this context and under these conditions, we can and should join our voice with the church in proclaiming our beliefs about the church. Theological reflection on these beliefs (called "ecclesiology") traditionally takes its cue from the adjectives attached to the church in the creed. Let's follow the tradition's lead and organize our discussion of the church around the so-called "Notes of the Church."

The Notes of the Church
The "notes" of the church are those attributes that the creed predicates of the church. The Apostles' Creed declares two such notes, "I believe in the Holy Catholic church." The Nicene-Constinopolitan Creed expands this to four: "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church." Now the problem we immediate run into is that these notes are often regarded as criteria for finding the true church. They function a checklist for church shopping. But so treating the notes of the church sets one up for disappointment. What church has all these notes? What local church is truly catholic? What denomination is truly one? What tradition is thoroughly apostolic? What community is genuinely holy?

Now there are lots of clever ways of construing these notes to avoid disappointment. For instance, one might say that these are attributes of the invisible church. Now the notion of the invisible church is a necessary one. The true church of Jesus Christ cannot be strictly equated with one or many visible institutions. On the one hand, the church is less than visible church, for ecclesial institutions are mixed bodies, full of those who are not genuine Christians. On the other hand, the church is more than the visible church, for there are genuine disciples of Christ who have been estranged from the institutional church. So there is a place for talk of the "invisible" church.

But we must be very careful here, because such invisibility can be an escape for the very concrete calling to which the church is called. The invisibility of the church can be used to justify schismatic departure from the church or apathetic maintenance of the church's failed institutions. After acknowledging the theological function of the invisible church, we should turn our attention solely to the visible church. In what sense to the notes of the church apply to the visible Christian community?

Since we have already proposed that the Spirit-constituted church has her being in her act of mission, the notes cannot be regarded as static attributes of the church. They cannot describe the being of the church abstracted from here forward-moving activity in the power of the Spirit. The notes do not point up to an invisible church, nor do they point in to self-enclosed well-ordered community, nor do they even point back to some pristine church of the apostles. The notes point forward and outward to the church's mission for the sake of the world in light of the coming kingdom of God. Such a missional account of the church requires that we turn the Nicene notes of the church on their head, beginning with the last one first.

The church is apostolic. Apostolicity should be understood according to its root meaning as “sent-ness" (the Greek word apostello means "to send"). The point is neither apostolic teaching (Protestant) or apostolic succession (Catholic), but the continuity of the apostolic mission to the nations. The true church is the one that is being sent into the world.

The church is catholic. The church is sent to the whole world (kata holos means "according to the whole"). So catholicity should be understood in terms of the global reach of the church. Catholicity should not be seen as some sort of achieved consensus, but rather a sought-after scope. The true church is the church that is spread throughout the world.

The church is holy. In a missional context, holiness must be in terms of hospitality. Just as the heavenly sends the gift of rain on both the righteous and the unrighteous, so the church is also to love both its friends and enemies (Mt 5:43-48). Holiness is not a statically perfect subject, but an outward-motion toward a complete object: the world. Holiness defined as hospitality is the natural result of missional apostolicity and global catholicity. The encounter with the global other in mission leads to hospitable perfect love.

The church is one. The oneness of the church must be located within God's reconciliation of the world to himself through the church’s ministry of reconciliation. Unity is therefore not a given but a gift. Yes, the visible unity of the church is to be desired, and its absence is tragic. But church unity is not an end in itself, but is intended to serve the church’s mission within the context of the ever-increasing unity of all creation. It is no coincidence that the modern ecumenical movement began on the mission field. The early ecumenists saw that unity could serve mission. But just like the previous notes, unity is only found as its flows from the mission of the church. Missional apostolicity leads to global catholicity, which in turn breads hospitable holiness, preparing the way for reconciling unity.

Now, does all this future-oriented talk get the visible churches off the hook? If the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church is out in front of us, then can local churches, denominations, and the global Christian community simply rest easy and say, "We're on a journey. God's still working on us." Such an attitude is opposed to the intention of a missional ecclesiology. But to block such an unintended consequence, some kind of standards must be set. Although the notes cannot function as a criterion for finding the true church, there must be some criterion by which communities can be judged to be genuinely ecclesial communities. What makes a church a church? This is where the reformation tradition of the "marks of the church" comes in.

The Marks of the Church
During the ecclesiological revolution that came to be known as the Reformation, the various protestant groups were compelled to defend themselves against the charge of schism. The general response was to develop a doctrine of the marks of the church whereby one can identify the true church from the false church. The marks of the church where not meant as a church-shopping list but a church-staying list, a means of justifying participation in communities estranged from the Roman Catholic Church. The practical function of the marks of the church is not to have impossibly high standards but to have a clear low-water mark: if a community falls below this line, one is free to break fellowship without being a schismatic church-divider or shallow church-hopper.

Now there is no revealed list of marks, but various lists have been proposed. Martin Bucer, the leader of the reformation in the city of Strausbourg, recommended three marks of the church: church is wherever the pure word of God is preached, the sacraments are rightly administered, and discipline is properly executed. Because of the perceived abuses of the radical reformers in their emphasis on and application of church discipline, many magisterial reformers (such as John Calvin) dropped discipline as a mark of the church in favor of the twofold pattern of word and sacrament. The debate concerning two or three marks re-emerged a century later during the Puritan controversy in England. The Puritans pushed for the return of discipline as the third mark of the church, and on its basis began to question the authority of the Anglican Church. Through the influence of his Puritan heritage, John Wesley affirmed the third mark and the churches that developed out of the Methodist revival include the third mark in their constitutional documents, many of which are not inconsequentially named “The Discipline.” Denominations with roots in the Evangelical revivals in which the Methodists took part tend to also affirm this third mark in one way or another.

Now this historical excursus not only helps you see some of the options for constructing the marks of the church, but also encourages you to see the importance of concrete practices for the church. The church is identified by her actions, not by her abstracts ideas or her amorphous feelings. The church has its being in its act of mission to the world, which takes concrete form in her proclamation, worship and discipleship. Just as the triune God is identified by his narrative, so also the church is identified by her narrative. This is so because the church is personal -- not a triune person, but a person created in the image of God. Scripture speaks of the church in personal terms: the church is the people of God, the body of Christ, the bride of Christ, etc. These personal categories speaks of the church not only as a community of like minded individuals, but a communion of persons and so a communal person, who communes with the triune God as she participates in God's mission in the world. The mention of communion brings us to the next line in the creed.

The Communion of Saints
The next two lines of the Apostles' Creed is not new topics but further specifications of the work of the Spirit in the church. We not only believe in the holy catholic church, but also in the communion of saints. What does this phrase mean? Well, it initially referred to faithful who have died and are no longer with us. The church believes that it communes with not only with fellow Christians of today but also with fellow Christians of yesterday. As the church proclaims the gospel, she carries forward the mission of the apostles. As the church gathers for worship, she joins the praises of the great cloud of witnesses who have gone before her. The communion of saints therefore speaks to the historical continuity of the Christian community throughout time. But this continuity is not conceived in solely institutional terms, but in personal categories. The church is the communion of the faithful with Christ and one another as we walk together as one person with one purpose. In other words, the church is the body of Christ.

The reference to communion rightfully brings with it the connotation of the Lord's Supper, also called communion, eucharist, mass, etc. We have already mentioned the Lord's Supper as a sign of Jesus's institution of the church. The language of "institution" in face comes from the Lord's Supper liturgy, which speaks of the "words of institution." The double meaning of all these words is purposeful, because it points to this meal as the means by which the church is gathered and equipped for her service in the world. It is the practice by which she hears and proclaims the gospel not only with audible words but with visible objects and actions. It is Jesus's own chosen object-lesson, symbolizing his broken body and shed blood. Such visible words in the church are referred to as sacraments. Whether one has or even needs a particular theory for what makes this meal special, the point is that the church is not alone in her mission, but is fed by her Lord and has fellowship at his table with him and with one another. Even as he sends us out into the world, he gives us the promise of his perpetual presence (Mt. 28:20-21). The sign of this presence, the visible pointer to the deep truth of the communion of saints, is the Lord's Supper.

The mention of saints of course brings up the question of sainthood. Is there a special category of Christians called "Saints." One can see how such a category emerged. If we believe that the church here on earth communes with those who have gone before, then it is easy to start thinking about specific dead Christians. The first that comes to mind are the martyrs, those who died for their faith. The martyrs were held in high regard from the very beginning, as can be seen already in the Book of Revelation. Such special regard was then easily transfered to other exemplary Christians. Then distinctions start to be made between "saints" who go directly to "heaven" and those "souls" who must by "purged" of their sinfulness before coming into the presence of God. It is important to see the sensibleness of this train of thought, even if one has good reasons not to go down this road. One need not disparage the many exemplary Christians who have gone before us in order to avoid the abuses that such a train of thought has produced.

At the end of the day, however, one must remember that in the New Testament all Christians are addressed as "saints," even those confused and conflicted Corinthians. Christians are by definition saints because the Holy Spirit sanctifies the church. Here we must make reference to the doctrine of sanctification. God desires a holy people. And so God sets apart a people for his own purposes, God cleanses his people from their sins, and God fills his people with the power to live a new life for him. Sanctification is the work of God. It is a gift -- the gift of the Holy Spirit. Christians together seek to live a holy life, set apart for God's use. They do so not in their own power but by the power of God. God is faithful, and he will do it.

The Forgiveness of Sins
After speaking of the heights of the church's missionary purpose and communal sanctification, the creed reminds of where we come from and where we return again and again: that we were and are sinners in need of forgiveness by a gracious God. We are not only communing saints but forgiven sinners. This is not meant to bring us down a notch, but to call forth our thanks and praise. We must be forever thankful that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us; that God did not hold our sins against us but reconcile us to him in his son; that God had mercy on me, a sinner. With this word of thanks we come to the doctrine of justification.

Now we have already spoke of the basis of God's justification of sinners when we spoke of the cross of Christ. So we need not linger long here. But it is important to not only speak of forgiveness there and then, but also here and now. There is a traditional distinction made between redemption accomplished for us in Christ and redemption applied to us by the Holy Spirit. Whether the distinction itself is helpful or not, I'll let you be the judge. The point is that the forgiveness given in Jesus's death really comes to us by the power of his Spirit. We can be assured of our forgiveness of sins, and walk in the freedom that this brings. This freedom is not to be abused, because it is a freedom with a purpose, freedom for new life in Christ. This is why it helps to speak of our being sanctified for the mission of the church first before turning back to the word of forgiveness. But nevertheless this word of freedom must be spoken and never left behind.

Just as the communion of saints has a visible sign, so too the forgiveness of sinners has a visible sign: baptism. The Nicene Creed makes this connection explicit: "We believe in one baptism for the forgiveness of sin." Baptism visually portrays the death of the old life and the beginning of the new, the cleansing of the flesh and outpouring of the Spirit. It the rite of initiation into the church and thus a sign of conversion to the gospel and its proclamation. In baptism one both hears the gospel spoken to oneself and is called to speak the gospel to others. As such it is the ordination of all Christians to the ministry of reconciliation. That is not to deny that there may be special functionaries within the church's life and that special rites may be instituted to set apart these people for service. But all such rites are subordinated to the common baptismal calling of all Christians to preach the gospel of forgiveness out of thankfulness that they too are sinners saved by grace.

Any thoughts?

• To what extent is it apporpriate to develop a doctrine of the church?
• Does the larger theological context sketched above help address the problem of dismissing the church, at least on an intellectual level? What else can be done to respond to this problem? Is it even a problem?
• Do you agree that the church has its being in its act of mission? Does such a priveledging of mission in ecclesiology have some drawbacks? What other concepts might function better at the center of ecclesiology?
• Does my idiosyncratic presentation of the notes of the church connect with you? Why or why not?
• What kinds of "marks" do people implicit use to evaluate particular Christian communities? How should the marks of the church function? What do you believe are the marks of the church?
• What does a belief in the communion of saints entail? What does it not entail?
  
• What does sanctification in the context of the church look like?
• Do the Lord's Supper and Baptism succeed as signs of the communion of saints and forgiveness of sins? Should their "success" even be evaluated, and if so, how? If they fail, what other signs are available to point to these truths?
  

The Paradox of the Evangelical Ecumenist: Panel Remarks on Oberlin II, Regional AAR 2008

Here are my remarks for an upcoming panel assessing Oberlin II at the regional AAR meeting:

An American evangelical at a meeting of the National Council of Churches of Christ is like a fish out of water. Or, for some participants, the more apt metaphor would be a bull in a china shop. Either way, the evangelical experience at Oberlin II was ripe with paradox. This apparent contradiction flows not only from the polarized history between American evangelical communities and American ecumenical organizations, but also from the complex shifts within recent American evangelicalism. The younger evangelical emerges both out of and away from her received evangelical identity. Situated within this web of conflicting identities, a number of tensions significantly condition the role of the younger evangelical participant at Oberlin II. In this essay, I will identify six such tensions and then consider some means for constructively navigating these tensions. My hope is that by careful and creative reflection, the paradox of an “evangelical ecumenist” will be shown to be a genuine paradox: that is, an apparent rather than real contradiction.

(1)

The six tensions I want to identify can be categorized into three groups: the historical, the representational, and the methodological. The historical category concerns how an evangelical ecumenist narrates his or her identity vis-à-vis the ecumenical movement. Two such tensions were evident at Oberlin II. The first is the tension between “left out” and “opt out” narratives. Do we understand ourselves as those who were left out of the ecumenical conversation? Or do we understand ourselves as those who opted out of it? For some evangelicals, an analysis of the documents of the first Oberlin meeting betrays an ignorance concerning the dynamic variety of American evangelicalism. It is reasonable to suggest that, at least in this early stage, the ecumenical movement was less than hospitable to certain forms of evangelicalism. An evangelical ecumenist can appeal to this “left out” narrative in order to explain the shift from non-involvement to involvement.

However, evangelicals must also acknowledge the extent to which they opted out of ecumenical dialogue. Both the separatist streams of fundamentalism and the sectarian forms of revivalism have a long history of principled non-participation. Coming to terms with this “opt out” past is part of the process of understanding one’s move towards involvement. Although one must necessarily move beyond this stance in order to participate, the logic of opting out must be understood in order to properly represent these kinds of communities.
And so the evangelical ecumenist operates within this tension between a “left out” narrative and an “opt out” narrative. It was not uncommon to hear at Oberlin both of these narratives from the mouths of younger evangelicals – sometimes both from the same mouth. Clearly the two narratives are not mutually exclusive. But strategically negotiating this tension is a challenge for the evangelical ecumenist.

The second historical tension is between conservative and liberal readings of evangelicalism. Do we understand ourselves as those who conserve a traditional faith? Or do we understand ourselves as those who freely break from tradition? The conservative reading is of course the more public and popular reading, especially as it dominates political coverage in the media. And there is genuine evidence in its favor. Obviously, the early 20th century fundamentalist movement fashioned itself as the bearers of orthodoxy. But 19th century revivalism in its own way perceived its mission as the spread of “old time religion,” albeit in a radically restorationist and therefore anti-traditionalist way.

But there is also much to be said for a more liberal reading of evangelicalism. Evangelicals in the 19th century consistently came down on the “left” side of the doctrinal, liturgical and political debates of their time. Some younger evangelicals are quick to appeal to this historical data when constructing a narrative that makes sense of their shifting identity. This is particularly true of evangelical ecumenists, who find it increasingly difficult to style themselves as conservative when sitting across the table from Orthodox and Catholic magisterial representatives. Yet the conservative role of evangelicalism in American cannot be ignored. And so evangelical ecumenists operate within this tension of conservative and liberal readings of their history.

(2)

The second category consists of tensions surrounding representation. Who or what does the evangelical ecumenist represent? The first within this category is the tension between mainstream and marginal voices within evangelicalism. Do we represent the mainstream of contemporary American evangelicalism? Or do we represent the more marginal voices within evangelicalism that we perhaps align ourselves with? Of course, this tension is not the exclusive property of evangelical ecumenists. A Lutheran participant is also aware of the delicate balance between official Lutheran positions and their own idiosyncratic interpretation the Lutheran theology.

But this tension is multiplied for evangelical ecumenists for two reasons. First, because of the aforementioned history of non-participation, evangelical ecumenists are almost always marginal figures within their own communities. Just showing up is often a sign of estrangement. And so the tension between the mainstream and their own marginal voice is heightened. Second, it is not clear what constitutes the mainstream of evangelicalism. There is no central office, no book of documents, no recognized magisterium – none of the traditional elements that might function as an authority on evangelical identity. So the tension between mainstream and marginal voices is a multi-layered phenomenon.

The reference to the lack of a centralized organization brings us to the second representational tension, that between the interchurch evangelical movement and one’s own denomination. This tension is perhaps less difficult to navigate for those who hail from explicitly evangelical denominations. Yet even in this case, one must come to terms with the reality that evangelical themes are often, if not always, refracted through particular theological categories. The differences between a Wesleyan evangelical and a Reformed evangelical are still significant. Even non-denominational evangelicals have been shaped by particular theological traditions. This tension was particularly heightened for younger evangelical participants at Oberlin II, many of who were sponsored by NCCC scholarships rather than officially sent by their denomination or evangelical organization. So there is not a paper trail to follow that might determine one’s loyalties. But even a paper trail does not solve the matter conclusively. Thus the evangelical ecumenist operates within these unique representational tensions.

(3)

The third and last category of tensions is methodological. The first of these is the tension between evangelical models of unity and the models of unity operative within the ecumenical movement. The flowering of American evangelicalism in the 19th and 20th century both occasioned church-division and exhibited an unprecedented capacity for interchurch cooperation. This cooperation was often facilitated by freedom from forms. Different forms of church government, worship, and even creedal expression of belief are not necessarily viewed as precluding common work in ministry. This free-form approach to unity comes into conflict with models of unity operative in the ecumenical movement that ask after the institutional conditions for the possibility of visible unity. The questions surrounding formal agreement and institutional compatibility are foreign to evangelical styles of cooperation. The irony of this conflict is that the very free-form approach that has served unity within American evangelicalism is often the very thing that perpetuates division with other communions. Some evangelical ecumenists are aware of the shortcomings of the free-form approach to unity, hence their involvement in the ecumenical dialogues. But tension remains between adapting to the ecumenical movement’s dialogical methods and offering an alternative evangelical approach.

The second methodological tension is between gift-exchange and cherry-picking. It has become a commonplace to describe ecumenical dialogue as a gift-exchange. We come to the table and share what unique gift each tradition has to offer the church universal. Cardinal Dulles made much of this metaphor in his lecture at Oberlin II. Some people find that they learn more about the unique gift of their own tradition through the very process of exchange.

Many younger evangelicals experience ecumenism differently. For them, ecumenical dialogue is already going on in their own heads. When asked about their tradition, many younger evangelical ecumenists answer along these lines: “Well, I grew up Methodist, became a fundamentalist Baptist, then went to a liberal Presbyterian seminary, and now I am a catechumen in the Russian Orthodox Church.” It will not do to identify such a person with their most recent instantiation, for many such persons intentionally cherry-pick from these many traditions into a conglomerate identity. Even those who have a more consistent ecclesial identity often draw from a wide range of theological resources, signaled by strange monikers like “high-church Mennonite” or “Holiness Barthian.” Diversity is no longer just about living with others, but living with ourselves.

On the one hand, this internal diversity makes the younger evangelical specially equipped for ecumenical engagement. On the other hand, it also creates a tension with the gift-exchange model. This tendency to cherry-pick the ideas and practices one likes from other traditions often blinds one to the complex logic under-girding them. To cite just one example, some low-church Protestants make use of Roman Catholic liturgical practices while rejecting or even ignoring the account of authority that underlies them. Now such cherry-picking may be entirely legitimate, but it renders difficult ecumenical dialogue because what the Roman Catholic wants to offer as a gift (let’s say, Roman primacy) is overlooked while the dialogue-partner simply takes what they want. The resulting tension is that the younger evangelical ecumenist is able to cross boundaries and learn a great deal from others, yet at the same time may not get around to dealing with the knotty issues that divide us. And so dialogue is both enhanced and entrenched by the tension between gift-exchange and cherry-picking.

(4)

Although identifying these tensions is in itself fruitful as a description of the paradox of the evangelical ecumenism, some prescriptive suggestions are in order. I have neither the intention nor the desire to resolve any of the above tensions. They must remain. But in order to move forward we must think creatively about how to constructively navigate these tensions in the context of ecumenical dialogue. There are three constructive suggestions that I would like to make. These three correspond roughly but not exclusively to the three categories of tension already discussed.

My first suggestion is that we should discover alternative narratives of evangelicalism and ecumenism in America. We need to find ways of telling the story of both that does not set them in conflict from the outset. In particular, we need to avoid reading back into earlier history the polarities of the present and recent past. In order to do so, we may need to place a moratorium on the language of “conservative” and “liberal.” It may be that such language is ultimately unhelpful for making sense of the complexities of American religious life. Now it must be acknowledged that platitudinous speech of overcoming polarities will not suffice in seeking unity. But this is not what I am suggesting. Rather, we need to engage in a thick description of historical movements that may in fact complexify our understanding and increase the tensions. The unique history of Oberlin College itself stands as an excellent case study for this kind of alternative historiography and the new narratives that can emerge from it. This re-narration of our identities will not resolve the tensions of the evangelical ecumenist, but it is a project that we can engage in alongside others as we seek unity together.

My second suggestion for navigating the tensions operative for evangelical ecumenists is to work toward new notions of representation. In particular, I recommend thinking of representation to ecumenical meetings in prophetic terms. The evangelical ecumenist speaks not as a mediator between one church body and another, but as one with a divine calling to speak prophetically both to the ecumenical conversation from their tradition and to their tradition from the ecumenical conversation. Those of us who come from previously or presently non-participating communities must embrace the prophetic potential of the liminal space between our churches and the churches represented at ecumenical gatherings. Such a notion of prophetic representation is implicit within the work Assemblies of God ecumenist Mel Robeck, whose paper and testimony at Oberlin II was greeted by a standing ovation. Such prophetic categories may be more inviting to the holiness and pentecostal wing of evangelicalism. If other evangelicals would like to offer a different notion, I invite them to do so. The general point is to think together toward new notions of representation that draw from the insights of our evangelical heritage and enables open yet critical engagement with the ecumenical movement.

Finally, I would suggest that evangelical ecumenists begin to develop new visions of unity. These visions need to be innovative in a way that brings on board the best insights of past evangelical and ecumenical models. These visions also need to take into account the younger evangelical inclination toward ecumenical cherry-picking in a way that does not undermine the logic of the ecumenical gift-exchange. I think a fruitful trajectory for developing such a new vision of unity can be found in the current missional conversation. There is a tendency in many models of unity either to instrumentalize unity or to make unity an end in itself. The alternative that may be emerging from the missional conversation is to conceive of unity as logically internal to mission. In this vision, the process of unification is a form of the church’s missionary existence. The church is missionary by her very nature, which means concretely that she participates in God’s reconciliation of the world to himself, announcing the message of reconciliation in Christ and practicing the ministry of reconciliation (cf. II Cor. 5:18-19). This missionary existence includes the reconciliation of humans to each other, both within the church and outside of it. Acts of Christian unity are parables of God’s reconciling work and as such participate in God’s mission. Therefore, movements toward Christian unity do not just instrumentally serve mission but inherently participate in mission. Now, although I think it to be on the right track, this missional understanding is just one way of re-visioning unity. The point is to work together toward the development of new visions of unity that help to navigate the tensions of evangelical ecumenism.

Any thoughts?
_

Easter Reflections

On the morning of Easter, the church was given a message to proclaim. According to the gospel accounts, an angel told the women who came to Jesus' tomb to go and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead. It is crucial to note that this message is given to them. This means that the the message of Easter is not an idea created by the church, but a gift given to church. The church bears the responsibility to proclaim this message to all who have ears to hear. But this message does not rise from within her, but is given to the church from without.

The significance of the gift-character of the Easter message is that the church does not control the content of the message. The church must constantly return to its source and hear afresh the message that has been given to us to proclaim. And what better time to do this than the Easter season!

So, what message does the angel give to the women? Here's one version:

The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you." (Matthew 28:5-7).

The angel tells the women a lot of things. But the angel not only tells the women these things, but also instructs the women to say something. The angel gives them a message to proclaim. "He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him." Let us reflect on each of the three phrases within the Easter message.

He has risen from the dead.

The first element of the Easter message is that Jesus has risen from the dead. This past tense fact comes first. The Easter message is first and foremost a message about Jesus. It is good news for Jesus. Only as such is it also good news for us. Only the one who has been raised from the dead has power over death. Only the one who has been remade anew has the power to make us new. Only the one who has been given life has life to give us. So good news for Jesus is good news for us. If we want to hear good news for us in the message of Easter, we must first hear the good news about Jesus, who has risen from the dead. All the present and future power we will experience has its root in the resurrection of Jesus on third day after his death.

He is going ahead of you.

The next element of the Easter message is that Jesus is going ahead of us. The present tense reality is that Jesus is on the move. He not only went ahead of the disciples to Galilee, but continues to go ahead of his disciples wherever they are heading in his name. Jesus goes ahead of those whom he sends to the ends of the earth to proclaim the message of Easter. As I have heard some missionaries put it, "We went there to take Jesus, but when we arrived we found that Jesus was already there." This doesn't mean that there is no reason to go and tell the message of Easter. The name of Jesus must be proclaimed to the ends of the earth. But the going ahead of Jesus does mean that we do not go in our strength, for we go where Jesus goes.

He will show himself to you.

The final element of the Easter message is that Jesus will show himself to us. This future tense promise is the end toward which the message aims: the universal revelation of Jesus. The angel promises that the disciples will see him in Galilee. But this manifestation of Jesus is not the end, but just the beginning. It is a foretaste of his manifestation to all as the Lord over all. He will show himself. This promise is both an element within the content of the Easter message given to the church and a sign that stands over our proclamation of the message. We proclaim him now, but in the end he will show himself. Any manifestation of Jesus we encounter along the way is but a fleeting moment of adoration and exhortation, not an end in itself to which we cling or upon which we build. The women encounter Jesus on the way to Galilee, but this does not abrogate the command to go to Galilee. The final revelation is still before us. In the meantime, we proclaim the Easter message, which includes the promise of his final self-revelation.

What is the message that is given to the church on Easter morning? That Jesus has been risen from the dead, that he is going on ahead of us, and that he will show himself to us and to all. This is the content of our message. May we remember to proclaim it this Easter season.

Any thoughts?
Is it correct to speak of the Easter message as a gift given to the church?
Are these temporally-structured reflections helpful?
Any other insights from this passage?
_

Functional vs. Ontological Ecclesiology: Is that really the Question?

At a recent gathering of Wesleyan and Free Methodist theological educators, ecclesiological questions provided the common theme of the papers and discussion. During the course of the conversation, a conceptual distinction was introduced between functional and ontological ecclesiologies. The basic contrast is between understandings of the church which focus on her doing (function) and understandings of the church which focus on her being (ontology). Now, of course, no one would advocate reducing the church to either her doing or her being. But one can certainly detect tendencies in either direction among the many ecclesiological options available.

As you might have guessed, given the reductive connotation of the word "functional," this distinction often carries with it an agenda: namely, that we should moved from a "mere" functional ecclesiology to a "more robust" ontological ecclesiology. In Wesleyan circles, this prescription often trades on a descriptive narrative of Methodism, which supposedly lost its ontological grounding upon its break from the Anglican Communion. "Beware of treating the church as a mere means to some other end," is the watchword of a ontological ecclesiology.

But, this distinction could in fact be just as easily used to argue in the opposite direction. One could argue that the nature church should be defined by its purpose rather than the other way around. In Wesleyan circles, this prescription trades on the same narrative of Methodism told in a different light: the church was most alive when it was free to focus wholly on its mission without concern for ecclesial preservation. "Beware of an inward focus on the church," is the watchword of a functional ecclesiology.

Now this conversation could go on forever. There is no obvious resolution. The best arguments are usually based on reactions to the abuses of the other extreme. These kinds of arguments are ultimately unpersuasive, and perhaps even pernicious because they just keep the pendulum swinging without moving us forward.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the distinction in the end does not illumine very much. For instance, advocates of both functional and ontological ecclesiologies speak regularly of the mission of the church. In fact, the most extreme forms of each see themselves as representing a missional ecclesiology: the one in terms of mission as a divinely willed activity to which the church contributes in some way, the other in terms of mission as participation in the being of God and God's people. And yet despite these differences, both approaches can be and are used to validate the same old divisive ecclesial options (sacerdotal, evangelical, secularist). If such a basic concept as mission can be so easily shared by the two in such a way that the same old patterns are perpetuated, it is questionable whether the distinction really achieves all that much. You get a lot of idle talk about the church and its mission that in the end serves to justify one's agenda, whether it be liturgical renewal, evangelism programs, community service, etc.

In the face of these problems, I would like to suggest that the functional-ontological distinction itself is fundamentally flawed. The flaw is the presumed disjunction between being and act. Rather, the church's being is in her act. The church has no being prior to its active life as sent into the world as witnesses to the risen Lord Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Thus it has no "being" which can be cultivated without reference to her "function." And yet she is not "merely functional" in the sense of a dispensable instrument used toward the accomplishment of an end. The active life of missionary witness is a life lived in fellowship with God, which is the end God has in mind for his people and the world. So in her act the church lives and moves and has her being. I think the disjunction between being and act should be dropped, and with it the notion that one must choose between functional and ontological ecclesiology.

So the next time someone asks me whether I have a functional or ontological ecclesiology, I am going to say that I reject the premise of the question (if I'm feeling feisty) or just answer yes to both and explain why (if I'm sensing the need to be more gracious).

Any thoughts?

• Have you encountered this distinction before?
• Do you find it helpful? How so?
• Have you tended to lean one way or the other? Why?
• Can we speak generically of an "ontological" view of anything without specifying what kind of "ontology" we are presupposing?
• Is the disjunction of being and act a problem?
• How does the uniting of being and act bear on the question of mission?

Ecclesiology and Soteriology

When thinking about the church in a genuinely theological fashion (a.k.a., doing ecclesiology), one must think of the connections between our understanding of the church and our understanding of other important doctrinal topics (or loci).

One particular connection that has been historically significant is that between soteriology and ecclesiology. This connection is brought into sharp relief by a favorite quote of mine. Some of my friends will have to forgive me this indulgence, for this is a quote to which I often refer but has not yet made its way onto drulogion. I offer it to all readers, whether it is new to you or not, as a point of discussion:

"The Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the Church" (B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, pp. 321-22).

There is much that could be said to unpack this quote as a historical thesis. For instance, one would need to address the tensions within Augustine developmentally, i.e., his sacerdotal ecclesiology was an early commitment which was only intensified during the Donatist controversy, whereas his predestinarian soteriology was a later development emerging out of his anti-Pelagian polemics. Or it could also be noted the sense in which the sacramental soteriology of the medieval period could be considered as the triumph of Augustine's doctrine of church over the his doctrine of grace, and not merely the two existing side-by-side. It would also need to be acknowledged that the Reformers were not merely applying Augustine's soteriology critically to other doctrines, but were in fact radicalizing his soteriology along a trajectory which made its critical function possible and necessary. Finally, the reason why such a radical Augustinianism requires a rejection of a sacerdotal ecclesiology must be explained (e.g., if salvation rests in God alone, then the church cannot be the dispenser of grace).

But all these historical points of exposition and discussion, interesting though they are in their own right, lead to the much more important systematic insight: the intimate connection between soteriology and ecclesiology. One's understanding of grace and one's understanding of the church necessarily impinge on one another. This connection took a certain form in the reformation period. But whatever one's commitments, the connection is unavoidable. Perhaps today's ecclesiological discussions (polity, missiology, worship, ordination, membership, etc.) need to attend to our soteriological assumptions. Who knows, this may illumine our differences and in the end light the path forward.

Any thoughts?
What do you think of this quote historically?
What do you think of it theologically?
How do your soteriological and ecclesiological commitments connect?
How should the logic of the connection run: from soteriology to ecclesiology, or vice versa?
What other ecclesiological connections ought to be made?
_

Bearing With One Another (Col 3:13)

Someone recently asked me about the meaning of the injunction in Col 3:13 to "bear with one another." As this instruction is so seldom followed and yet is so easily abused, it requires some careful reflection. Here's the beginnings of my thoughts on the matter.

(1) Col 3:13 (bearing-with-each-other) can be differentiated from Gal 6 (bearing-one-anothers-burdens).

The former concerns bearing persons; the latter concerns bearing things. To bear another's burden is to help them carry it. This plays out it prayer, service, etc. To bear another person is to have forbearance with regard to them and their way of being in the world, to have compassion on the person even when their actions and attitudes are wrong. I bear a person who is annoying, troublesome, needy, even disobedient, just as God bears me. We are called to bear both persons and things, but the two can be differentiated and we should understand the difference in order to make sure we do the word rightly.

(2) Forbearence should be understood within the context of forgiveness.

Notice that all the other instructions in this verse deal with forgiveness: "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." So forbearence does not mean ignoring or blowing off people's wrongdoing, but forgiving them. Forgiveness implies wrongdoing. Therefore, forbearence never means making excuses for people. The Lord did not make excuses for us; he judged us as sinners while taking that judgement upon himself. To forgive as the Lord forgave, then, is not just a word or a feeling, but is a practice, a way of treating people, dealing wisely with the consequences of sin, giving others space and time to be convicted, to repent, to grow, etc.

(3) We are called to bear one another together.

The verb in this verse is a plural imperative: "ya'll should bear one another." Paul is addressing the community as a group and instructing them as a group to bear one another as a group activity. Therefore, this instruction should not be performed by one alone. This is not just saints bearing sinners, or wives bearing husbands, or me bearing everyone else. Such a one-way forbearance can become blasphemous as the individual takes on a messianic role of bearing others. The church, not the Christian alone, is the Body of Christ. So, as the community of Christ, we bear with each other. Unidirectional bearing should be disciplined by the community. One who is forebearing another without any mutual forbearance has just cause to call that other person to account (along the lines of Matt 18). The goal is to bear one another together.

Conclusion:

All this implies that biblical forbearance is not just being a dormat. We needn't hide our own grievences in order to forgive others; in fact, doing so just hides them from the light of truth and lets them fester, turning into grudges. Bearing with one another is an active practice of the Christian life, even as it includes a passive aspect.

Any thoughts?
Do these points clarify or obscure the meaning of this text?
What additional thoughts would you add toward understanding and living out this injunction?
Can you think of additional misunderstandings and abuses surrounding the application of this text?
_

Adventures in Ecumenism (IV): from unity-for-mission to unity-as-mission

During a break-out session at a recent ecumenical gathering, the group leader asked each of us to share how we became interested and involved in ecumenical dialogue. One rather astute participant shared that the purpose of church unity is to advance the church's mission. The disunity of the churches is for many a stumbling block to Christian faith. The move to greater visible unity among Christians can be seen as the removal of this barrier. So unity is for the sake of mission.

There is a long historical precedent behind this perspective. The contemporary ecumenical movement has its roots in the missionary experience. Although it is on the right track in its effort to unite ecumenism and evangelism, this unity-for-mission perspective does not go far enough. Note that I am not criticizing the adequacy of this perspective as an initial personal motivation for engaging in ecumenical dialogue. Rather, I am asking whether the relationship between intra-Christian unity and extra-Christian mission this perspective proffers is adequate.

So, what's wrong with the unity-for-mission formula? The unity-for-mission formula places an interval between ecclesial existence and missionary enterprise. The formula instructs us to "get our own house in order" first, then we can turn to our public mission in the world. This attitude assumes that mission is something the churches do after or beyond being the church. Such an interval is inappropriate because the church is missionary by her very nature. The church's being is in her act of mission. The interval does not recognize this and so leads to negative implications for both unity and mission. On the one hand, unity becomes instrumental to some other action, rather than a part of that action. Such an instrumental approach to ecumenical dialogue easily leads to abandoning the task when it does not bear immediate fruit. On the other hand, mission becomes propaganda, since the convert is being colonized into an already existing church culture, rather than being called to share in the church's missionary existence.

So, if the unity-for-mission formula is inadequate, what is the alternative? How can we properly relate unity and mission? The alternative formula I would suggest is unity-as-mission. This is not meant as a reduction of the church's missionary act to her internal unification. Rather, the process of unity itself is seen as a form of the church's missionary existence. The church is missionary by her very nature, which means concretely that she participates in God's reconciliation of the world to himself, announcing the message of reconciliation in Christ and practicing the ministry of reconciliation (cf. II Cor. 5:18-19). This missionary existence includes the reconciliation of humans to each other, both within the church and outside of it. Acts of Christian unity are parables of God's reconciling work and as such participate in God's mission. Therefore, movements toward Christian unity not only instrumentally serve mission but also inherently participate in mission.

Any thoughts?
How do you understand the relationship between unity and mission?
Whatever its relation to unity, is mission a good motivation for ecumenical dialogue?
Are my criticisms of the unity-for-mission formula warranted?
Is the unity-as-mission formula an adequate alternative?
What other alternatives might better express the relationship between unity and mission?
_

Belief and Submission

I once heard a story about a 16th century Jesuit mission in Brazil. After a long interaction with the people and some individual conversions, the chief decided to become a Christian (presumably bringing with him the rest of the tribe). As part of the process, the chief met with the leader of the mission to be examined. The priest began asking doctrinal questions. He asked the chief, "How many natures does our Lord have?" The chief responded, "As many natures as you say he has, Father."

Setting aside the more obvious missiological issues surrounding such a tale, this story raises for me the question of the role of submission in belief. To what extent was the chief's answer the right one? To what extent is submission to authority an aspect of conversion and faith? To what extent does such submission include submission to authority of the church? Or, is such submission indicate a lack of genuineness? Does one who publicly submits to the beliefs of his or her church while at the same time questioning them lack integrity?

I don't have any full blown answers to these questions, though I have come to some existential peace about these matters in my own life. I am more interested in raising them for further reflection and discussion. So ...

Any thoughts?
What role should submission play in belief?
Specifically, what role should submission to one's church play in belief?
Does submission spoil belief?
Is belief possible without submission?
_

Wesleyan Doctrinal Symposium: "The Church as Sanctified Community of the Triune God"

A little over a week ago, my denomination (the Wesleyan Church) held a doctrinal symposium at its headquarters in Indianapolis. The topic was ecclesiology. Just the existence of such an event is heartening. And it turned out to be a rich and enjoyable experience with presentations, conversations and fellowship.

I happened to be one of the presenters. Below you will find my full paper (sans footnotes), which is also posted in pdf on my writing site. You can also follow this link to the symposium website for all the papers. Enjoy and feel free to make comments or raise questions about my or any of the papers by posting in the discussion board.

"The Church as Sanctified Community of the Triune God"

What is the church? What does it mean to identify a particular community as church? Is “church” merely a moniker for any religious community? Or does “church” have a distinctly Christian meaning? And can the word “church” in its distinctly Christian sense bear theological weight? In this paper I aim to tease out the theological meaning of “church.” If successful, these elucidations may serve as a framework for discussing the concrete ecclesiological issues of our day.

Unfortunately, the road to a properly theological understanding of the church is paved with difficulties. I do not refer merely to the disappointment, boredom, and suspicion concerning the church, both from within and from without. No, the greatest obstacles to theologizing about the church are themselves theological. How do we connect our talk of God with our talk of the church? Systematic theology is the activity whereby Christians make connections between our various beliefs in order to better perceive and present the fullness of the gospel. We are not looking for just any connections, however; we are looking for connections to our beliefs about God. “What’s God got to do with it?” is the theologian’s refrain. Only statements that attempt to answer the question of God are properly theo-logical.

So, why is it so difficult to connect our church-talk to our God-talk? Three particular obstacles come to mind. The first is the problem of theological presumption: we habitually take for granted our most basic beliefs. What we believe about God—who he is and what he does—is assumed to have been settled long ago. But is this really so? Can we really count on all of us to think spontaneously thoughts worthy of our God? A staff pastor I know once asked her senior pastor after an interview with a potential minister of congregational care, “Where is she at theologically?” The senior pastor responded, “I don’t know. Why would I ask theological questions of someone who will be visiting sick people?” Such presumption leads to neglect, confusion and ignorance. We ought not to take our most cherished beliefs for granted; rather, we should ask pointed questions about the identity and activity of the Christian God. Only then will be able to ground our ecclesiology in our theology.

The second problem is that of soteriological abstraction: we consistently separate our talk of salvation from our talk of God. This problem is a consequence of the first: we presume that we all agree about God, so let’s move on to the interesting, debatable stuff about conversion, predestination, sanctification, end times, etc. I recently taught a FLAME class in advanced theology. The focus was the doctrine of the trinity. One of the students objected, saying “This doesn’t sound like theology; theology is about the order of salvation: prevenient grace, justification, initial sanctification, etc.” In due time, she and (some of) the other students came to appreciate inquiry into the doctrine of God which lies behind our doctrine of grace. But her initial objection unmasked the soteriological abstraction of so much Wesleyan theology. For Wesleyan theology to be theology, we must begin again at the beginning and talk not only about sanctification, but about the Sanctifier. Only then will be about to inquire into a “Wesleyan view of the church.”

The third and final problem is that of ecclesiological reduction: our talk of the church has been reduced to sociological pragmatism. Now don’t hear me wrong: the church is an empirical reality and thus has benefited greatly from statistical research and demographic analysis. These tools have helped us stop groping in the dark for practical solutions. Anyone who rejects sociology wholesale denies the humanity of the church. But the church is more than a social system! It cannot be adequately explained or guided by empirical research alone. To reduce the church to observable phenomena is to deny the divine agency that creates, sustains and consummates her. As I’ve heard Harry Wood at a recent Penn-Jersey District event say, “Theology should be in the driver’s seat; sociology should be in the back seat.” We don’t need to kick sociology out of the car; we just need to prevent it from becoming a back seat driver. And the best way to do prevent sociological reductionism is to locate our talk of the church within our talk of God.

Now that I’ve painted myself into a corner, let me indicate how I plan to overcome the obstacles of theological presumption, soteriological abstraction, and ecclesiological reduction. In the remainder of this paper, I will perform trinitarian renditions of three prominent descriptions of the church: the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. Each of these descriptions will be developed from the perspective of the triune God who sanctifies the church. The intended result is to join together the theological connections that have been torn asunder by our presumption, abstraction and reduction. I am not delusional enough to think that I can single-handedly surmount these obstacles by simply talking my way through these connections. However, inasmuch as these problems are perpetuated by bad habits of speech, the least a theologian can do is display what a good habit of speech looks like.

What follows is thus an exercise in grammatical analysis: identifying the subject, verb and object of each of the three ecclesial descriptions under investigation. The triune God is the subject of these sentences. Sanctification in its many aspects is the verb. The church is the object of God’s sanctifying action. Unfolded in trinitarian terms: the Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit; the Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit; the Spirit fills the temple for the Father and the Son. These are three distinct yet unified ways of saying “God sanctifies the church.” All this talk of grammar might make one wonder whether I am just “making this up.” I assure you that I am genuinely trying to perceive and present the inner logic of our beliefs. But, in case what follows is not self-authenticating, I will add to its appeal by indicating how this language can help reframe a concrete ecclesiological issue: membership commitments. Such practical benefits cannot alone make theological statements true. But the usefulness of theological language in the service of the church’s mission is certainly a point in its favor.

I. The Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit

In God’s history with us, God has revealed that he is in eternity God for us. God in eternity self-differentiates his being as three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father begets the Son. The Son is not another God, but another in God. Even as God is centered on himself, God is also others-centered. These eternal persons in relationship are kept both united and distinct by the power of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son as their bond of love. These eternal relations are the basis for God’s self-differentiated action in time. God purposes from all eternity to enter into time to bring glory to himself and to share his glory with his creation. God sends himself. The Father sends the Son to become incarnate by the power of the Spirit. The Father and the Son send the Spirit as the outpouring of God’s power onto his creatures.

However, God does not simply “show up.” God sets in motion a history that will be fulfilled by his coming. This history centers on a particular people. God establishes a covenant with a particular people among whom he will dwell. In so choosing a people, God is sanctifying a people: setting them apart for divine service. Not just any service, but service for God’s Son. The Father in his mercy chooses this people from among all others so that his Son may be born among them. Toward this end, God keeps his people by the power of his Spirit. The Spirit leads them through the wilderness. The Spirit is present to them in temple, land, and book as they wait for the coming of the Son. The Spirit empowers prophets to orient the people toward their future. In short, the Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit.

Who is this people? Whom does the Father set apart for the sake of his Son by the power of his Spirit? Well, it should be clear that we are talking about Israel. It is Israel whom God chooses. It is Israel in whom Jesus Christ is born. It is Israel whom God keeps by his Spirit. Israel is the people of God. If we want to understand what it means to be set apart by God for God, we must look to Israel, the people of God. Although this fits well within a broader view of the triune God’s sanctifying work, such a turn to Israel raises an ecclesiological problem: is the church also the people of God? By what right do we call this community of Jews and Gentiles who bear direct witness to Jesus Christ the people of God? Can the language of people be adapted or extended to include the church?

Needless to say, the relationship between Israel and the church raises complex questions that deserve complex answers. Some have called this the ecumenical problem — making intra-Christian divisions appear petty by comparison. I do not seek to answer it completely or conclusively here, but I would like to identify a potential Wesleyan contribution to this question.

Some of the greatest strides in re-conceiving the relationship between Israel and the church in more positive terms have been made by recent trends in Pauline scholarship. According to the “The New Perspective on Paul,” it is becoming increasingly clear that Paul had a much more positive attitude toward the Jewish law than some traditional interpretations have allowed. Judaism at the time of Jesus and Paul can be characterized by its covenantal nomism: by following the law, a Jew does not “get in,” but “stays in.” Even the law is a gift of grace. Paul’s theology was not so much a result of a search for grace after having being pressed under the weight of the law. Rather, Paul’s attitude to the law is shaped by the apocalyptic coming of God announced in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, which relativizes the law but does not abolish it. So the fulfillment of the law in Christ brings with it the triumph of God’s covenant with Israel.

The point of bringing all this up is simply to observe that Wesleyans are considerably less threatened by these developments than some of our fellow inheritors of the protestant reformation. We Wesleyans instinctually grasp that Paul has a complex attitude toward the law. We can stomach the notion of greater continuity between Israel and the church. A Pauline ecclesiology of Gentile inclusion in God’s covenantal community characterized by law-keeping fits well with the distinctive spirit of the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition. I do not think that this parity alone justifies the claims of either Wesleyan theology or the New Perspective. I only wish to indicate that Wesleyans should feel comfortable assimilating the insights of recent Paul scholarship inasmuch as they are helpful for developing a theology of continuity between Israel and the church.

So what ecclesiological lesson can the church learn from Israel? The triune God bears witness to himself through particularity. In other words, Israel fulfills its task simply by being different. This is also true of the church. God sets apart us so that the world will take notice of him. A holy church is a different church, a people that stands out among the many peoples of the world. We must, of course, beware of setting up arbitrary and inhospitable differences between the church and the world. But the church is not the world! Anyone who seeks to erase all difference between church and world is endangering the mission of the church to the world.

The implications for membership commitments should be evident: concrete identity markers are an aspect of God’s sanctification of the church. We need not apologize for our oddities. Actually, apologizing for them spoils them. We should celebrate our difference, although with an inviting rather than repelling attitude. Only if we are identifiable as a Christian community will the world see our works and praise our Father in heaven. You may recall a tragedy that took place in Pennsylvania a few months ago. A man killed three Amish school children in a fit of rage. You may also remember the amazing acts of reconciliation that followed. The News coverage did not treat these acts as a mere human interest story, but saw them as great acts of faith. Why? Because even the News could see the concrete identity markers that set apart the Amish as a community of faith. They bore witness to the world by their difference from the world. And thus they lived according to the truth that the Father sets apart of a people for the Son by the Spirit. In our own way, may it also be so with us.
II. The Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit

Having set apart a people for himself, God becomes incarnate and dwells among us. God becomes human. As in the establishing of the covenant, so also in the fulfilling of the covenant God’s action is self-differentiated. In fact, it is here that God’s triune identity is definitively revealed, for the Son, in distinction from the Father and the Spirit, becomes incarnate. The Son alone becomes incarnate. Yet the triune God is indivisibly involved in the incarnation. As the Father generates the Son in eternity, so the Father sends the Son in time. And as the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son in eternity, so the Spirit binds the Son to the Father as he sojourns in time.

God sanctifies human flesh for the sake of his mission. God brings Jesus of Nazareth into strict identity with himself. The Son of God is Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God. In the context of this personal identity, the human flesh is utterly obedient to God. As such, the incarnate Son obeys the Father by the Spirit. The Spirit drives; the flesh obeys. The obedience of Jesus Christ runs from his conception through his whole active life and culminates in his passion and death. His entire life of obedience is affirmed when on the third day the Father raised the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. By this history of obedience, sinful humanity is cleansed. In short, the Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit.

It is by this history of obedience that our redemption is won. God has fulfilled the covenant by this history of obedience. God can look upon his creature and call it good, for Christ can look at his cleansed body and celebrate its obedience. But what about us? What does this have to do with the church? Certainly Christ’s body is cleansed, but are we not still dirtied by disobedience? Here is where the biblical language of body is so helpful. For although first and foremost the body of Christ refers to the human flesh named Jesus of Nazareth, in a secondary and dependent yet very real sense, the body of Christ refers to the church. We are united to him as body to head. This is not the hypostatic union of the incarnation, whereby God is identified as Jesus; but it is a union nonetheless. And so the Son’s cleansing of his body includes his cleansing of us! Now this cleansing might sound like some automatic mystical process, but that is not how body language operates in the New Testament. No, body language appears in the context of exhortation: because we are the body of Christ, we ought to do this or that. The cleansing of the body of Christ takes place as the church by the power of the Holy Spirit obeys the will of the Father revealed in Jesus Christ. Thus we are not only witnesses; we are obedient witnesses to the triune God.

What does this mean for the life of the church? An affirmation of Christ’s cleansing of his body inclines one toward a specific way of thinking about the marks of the church. During the ecclesiological revolution that came to be known as the reformation, the various protestant groups were compelled to defend themselves against the charge of schism. The general response was to develop a doctrine of the marks of the church whereby one can identify the true church from the false church. The list of marks varied from group to group. Martin Bucer, the leader of the reformation in the city of Strausbourg, recommended three marks of the church: wherever the pure word of God is preached, the sacraments are rightly administered, and discipline is properly executed. Because of the perceived abuses of the radical reformers in their emphasis and application of church discipline, the magisterial reformers dropped discipline as a mark of the church in favor of the twofold pattern of word and sacrament. The debate concerning two or three marks reemerged a century later during the Puritan controversy in England. The Puritans pushed for the return of discipline as the third mark of the church, and on its basis began to question the authority of the Anglican Church. Through the influence of his Puritan heritage, John Wesley affirmed the third mark and the churches that developed out of the Methodist revival include the third mark in their constitutional documents, many of which are not inconsequentially named “The Discipline.”

The point of this historical excursus is that the process of concrete discipleship is a critical aspect of what it means to be the church. To be the body of Christ is to be obedient to the triune God. Church discipline is not just institutional maintenance. More importantly, it is the process whereby the body of Christ is brought into submission to God. Church discipline is a spiritual exercise. The implication for membership commitments is that whatever “list” we come up with cannot simply be a matter of who’s in and who’s out. All too often membership commitments are too narrowly associated with the act of becoming a member. But these guidelines are not only boundaries, but also goals. We ought to seek after a life of obedience as a community. “Because you said you would” is an unsustainable basis for fulfilling membership commitments. Because they are an expression of our obedience to God is a much better reason. This raises the question of whether our commitments are really pleasing to God. But responsibly and constitutionally developing our commitments is itself part of our communal pursuit of obedience. Even as they undergo development, the process of accountability to our membership commitments is a direct expression of the Son’s cleansing of his body for the Father by the Spirit.

III. The Spirit fills the temple for the Father and the Son

Having enacted a life of obedience as the fulfillment of his covenant with Israel, the triune God reigns in glory as he ushers in his kingdom. The Spirit of God blows toward this final unity of all things. The same Spirit who unites Father and Son in eternal love and empowers the incarnate Son to obey the Father has now been poured out on God’s community of obedient witnesses. He has been given as a promissory down payment of things to come. It is by the Spirit that God raised Jesus from the dead as the first fruits of the resurrection of all flesh. The Spirit is thus fundamentally oriented toward the future. It is only at the end of history when the Spirit will complete his work of binding, recapitulating the eternal bond of love between the Father and the Son in the marriage of Christ and his church that places God and humanity in perfect harmony.

The Spirit of God is drawing all of humanity toward this end. He does this by filling specific human agents with his power that they might live in accordance with their future destiny. Although the church cannot be equated with the kingdom, it is the beachhead of the kingdom by the power of the Spirit dwelling within her. The church is thus rightly called the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit fills this temple for the Father and the Son.

Having empowered the incarnate Son to obey the Father, the Spirit now empowers the church to obey the will of God. We are not given an impossible standard and then left to our own devices. The law of love enacted in Jesus Christ is written on our hearts by his Holy Spirit. We are empowered by the Spirit to live lives pleasing to God. As such we are an example of the future God desires for all people. We are not only obedient witnesses, but also exemplary obedient witnesses. If the world wants to know what the future holds, it should be able to look no further than the church.

What does this entail for our understanding of the church? It should at minimum give us pause before rejecting the language of “end times community.” The holiness movement from its inception has had a utopian impulse that must be acknowledged. Some early Wesleyan Methodists thought they were bringing in the kingdom with their social reforms. Some holiness camp meetings were perceived as a special outpouring of the Spirit in preparation for the return of Christ. Some holiness churches understood themselves as sojourners and pilgrims in a strange land. The very logic of a holiness movement presupposes a view of the church as a foretaste of heaven in some sense. It is this sort of eschatological consciousness that propelled holiness churches toward the future in their opposition not only to slavery, but also to the subordination of women and the sex trade. In these things the holiness movement was ahead of its time. While some Christians sat idly by, tolerating sin as a necessity in a fallen world, holiness movements pushed the church forward toward the future. This need not be an act of hubris, provided the church really is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Now this utopian impulse is not without its problems. No one community can be identified with the fullness of the kingdom. God will finish his work by a sovereign upheaval beyond the forces immanent in this natural world. This radical limit must be set against any society, culture, or church that claims to be working toward the coming kingdom. But within these limits, an awareness of the Spirit’s filling should continue to propel us toward God’s future. We should ask what new thing God is doing and seek to participate in it. We should be ahead of the times. We should seek to become the community for which the world is groaning. In other words, we should be living in the end times.

An implication of this way of thinking is that membership commitments should reflect not only where we have been but also where we are going. Membership commitments should describe the kind of community that God wants the world to be. Membership commitments should thus describe the kind of community the world needs to be. The church ought to be attractive to the world, as an example of the world’s future. This does not mean merely revising our membership commitments in order to avoid offending the world. We can and should be different from the world, but not arbitrarily so. We should be different from the world in precisely the way the world desires to be different from itself. Everybody wants to make the world a better place. The church happens to know what that looks like, for it sees the future of the world in the face of the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This Spirit-filled orientation toward the future means we should ask tough questions about what the future holds. What attitudes will characterize the new heavens and the new earth? What kind of society will take shape at the marriage feast of the Lamb? What are the politics of the New Jerusalem? How can our ecclesial standards reflect this future reality? What must be added? What must be adapted? What must be removed? These sorts of questions will guide us in the development of membership commitments that exemplify the Spirit’s filling of the temple for the Father and the Son.

Conclusion

The church is the sanctified community of the triune God. The Father sets apart a people for the Son by the Spirit. The Son cleanses his body for the Father by the Spirit. The Spirit fills the temple for the Father and the Son. Thus we can say with boldness that the church is the people of God, the body of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Spirit. As such we are exemplary, obedient witnesses to the triune God. This pattern of thought does not solve every concrete ecclesial problem, but it does offer a language with which to discuss pressing issues of the day. My hope is that equipped with such good habits of speech we can stop talking past each other and start working together to live as the sanctified community of the triune God.

Any thoughts?
_

Traveling Light

I have been a backpacker since I could walk. One of the most important principles of backpacking is weight. It is not just how fit the hiker is (though that helps), but how light the hiker is. Certainly this applies to the weight of one’s body. But the more relevant variable is the weight of one’s pack. If your pack is heavy, so are you, and every pound – every ounce – slows you down. So when I prep for backpacking, I cut my toothbrush in half, count calories per ounce in my food, and (most importantly) leave behind supposed “necessities.”

Of course, I am not the only one who does this. Traveling light has become a bit of a fad. Not only in backpacking, but life in general – including matters of faith. Christians around the globe are searching for a “churchless Christianity” or “Jesus without the church.” [Note: The fact that this fad is not actually new does not concern me here; I am less interested with the genetics of this pattern and more with its current form].

I think traveling light in matters of faith is a good idea. I have no vested interest in preserving the institutional church as-is. Cutting away excess is the heart of reform in every age, and I willingly and joyfully participate in such a move.

But, traveling light is not an end in itself. What would you say if I packed a 9-pound dry pack, then sat at home and watched a James Bond marathon? You would rightfully jeer, because reaching a light pack is no achievement in and of itself. It is a means to an end. The goal is to hike more miles. I pack light only in order to travel light.

The same applies in matters of faith. Freeing oneself from the shackles of ungenerous orthodoxy or institutional preservation are no accomplishments themselves. It’s actually quite easy and rather unimpressive. I will save my applause for those who develop doctrine and transform institutions in service of the church’s mission. The church is sent to proclaim Christ and do his work to the ends of the earth. As Matthew 10, Acts 15, and the whole Epistle to the Galatians attest, there are doctrines and practices that unnecessarily hinder the mission. A truly missional church will joyfully put itself under this kind of Gospel-centered criticism.

So what does this look like? Well, it starts with not giving up on the church. Then the next step is to follow criticism with construction. Tell us what’s wrong, but tell us more about how to do it right. The path to construction comes by mulling over one’s criticism with these questions in mind: What about this doctrine or practice bothers me? Is the motivation for my criticism truly missional? If so, what does the missional alternative look like? And if you are not willing to enter into these constructive reflections, then maybe you should consider putting your criticisms on the shelf. For goodness sake, if you are not going to hike, stop cutting your toothbrush in half!

What do you think?
Is traveling light a good idea?
Does a missional understanding help?
How can we avoid the twin dangers of institutionalism and spiritualism?
Am I right that criticism without construction is incomplete?
How else might one move from criticism to construction?

Do Christians make the Church or does the Church make Christians?

Does a gathering of individual Christians make a collective church of Christians? Or is there a realistic entity called “the Church” that makes its participants into Christians? This is the basic theological question that still plagues us today. This perennial tension between individualists and communitarians crops up both between and within the alternative proposals for renewal today. For instance, one can find within the emergent conversation both radical individualists and radical communitarians. Both claim to value community. That is not the issue. This issue is whether the basis of ecclesial community is found in the collective of free individuals or in the community itself as such which then grants communal identity to its members. An arsenal of arguments are assembled, the battle rages on, and yet no victor is in sight.

Part of the problem in the debate between communitarians and individualists is that it remains solely on the sociological plane. The missing piece to the puzzle is the very center of church life itself: Jesus Christ. The debate will go on in perpetuity as long as it remains a struggle between two foci. But when a third point is added, a triangle is formed and a more rich discussion can follow.

So then, how do the Church, the Christian and Christ relate?

The classic way to formulate the basic options was put forth by Schleiermacher (19^th Cen). He put it in terms of a contrast between the Protestant and Catholic ecclesiological principles (Christian Faith 103-108):

The Protestant principle is that the relationship between the Christian and the Church depends on the Christian's relationship to Christ.

The Catholic principle is that the relationship between the Christian and Christ depends on the Christian's relationship to Church.

Of course, this leads us into a whole other web of problems. Which principle gives pride of place to Christ? Which principle avoids the perils of the extremes? Are these principles adequate descriptions of the Protestant/Catholic difference? How do we acknowledge both the freedom of Christ and the indispensability of the Church? Is there a way to synthesize the principles? Is there a third option? But at least they are properly theological problems and therefore we might be able to get somewhere. In other words, a good ecclesiology must deal in Christological currency.

Although I enjoy being provocative, it seems appropriate to at least sketch the beginnings of my own solution to this basis ecclesiological problem. I would recommend that we navigate Schleiermacher’s triangle by means of the concept of mission. My inspiration here is von Balthasar, who outlines a missional concept of theological personhood in his Theo-Drama vol. III. Balthasar’s advance is that our personhood is grounded neither in our individual Christianity nor our participation in the community of the Church as such, but rather in the fulfillment of our mission. We are sent by God. This is who we are, both as individual Christians and as a communal Church. Balthasar gives the example of Paul, who as an individual missionary was on the periphery of the church and yet served the church precisely in his peripheral mission. He notes rightly that individualism and communitarianism coincide for Paul, especially when he reflects on his suffering for the church (e.g., Colossians 2).

Here’s how one might render Balthasar’s insight in terms of Schleiermacher’s triangle:

The Missional principle is that the Christian's relationship to both Christ and the Church depends on her participation in the mission to which Christ sends the Church.

My hope is that this way of putting things will keep the Christian and the Church in proper balance as they subsist in the one mission of Christ. This certainly doesn’t solve all the problems, but it may help to reframe it in a fruitful way.

Any thoughts?
Any communitarians or individualists out there who want to take me to task?
Any objections to Schleiermacher’s way of Christologizing the problem?
Any suggestions toward a missional solution to these problems?

Is Church Discipline Really Possible Anymore?

My thoughts this week have converged on the issue of church discipline. First I had an e-mail conversation about discipline as the third mark of the church. Next the latest Christianity Today came with church discipline as its theme. Then my daily reading for today just happened to be I Corinthians 5, the Pauline locus classicus for church discipline.

As a Wesleyan with both Anabaptist and Catholic influences, I have every reason to emphasize church discipline and have done so for many years. I count myself among those who believe in three marks of the church: word, sacrament, and discipline (roughly corresponding to the prophetic, priestly, and royal offices of the church). The question of the marks of the church was brought to the fore by the Reformation. Without a unified church, the reformers needed a criterion by which to identify the true church. Luther had seven so-called marks, many of which could be combined into larger categories. The preaching of the pure word of God and the right administration of the sacraments were quickly received as the two basic marks. The addition of discipline as a distinct mark comes first from Bucer in Strausborg, but it was quickly dropped by the magisterial reformers (cf. Calvin's Institutes Iv.1.10) in reaction to its perceived over-emphasis in the radical reformation. It was picked back up by the Puritans in their conflict with the Church of England. It was through the Puritans that discipline was passed on to Wesley and the Methodists. The Wesleyan Church mentions it as a mark of the church in its Discipline. Just the distinctive name "Discipline" (as opposed to "Book of Order" or "Canon Law") used in a number of Wesleyan/Methodist/Holiness denominations points to this emphasis.

Enough of the history lesson. The question on my mind is whether church discipline is really possible anymore. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the man who was getting kicked out of the church did not have the option of walking down the street to the next Christian community. There was not the smorgasbord of Christian options now on offer. The same went for the Reformers, who contrary to popular belief were certainly not setting up "Protestant" churches down the street from "Catholic" churches. It was whole duchies and cantons that were reforming, and the formerly catholic parish church became a protestant church, leaving just one church per parish and not the multiplicity we see today, especially in the states. Even as the denominational splitting began centuries later, people were quite troubled over which christian community was the true church. It wasn't always a matter of taste or even needs. For many, eternity was on the line. So church discipline held serious weight for those who took their church membership seriously.

But these days are gone. Nowadays excommunication merely means switching to the church down the road (or to none at all). So the threat of excommunication is rendered empty. Thus all forms of church discipline, which must necessarily have the possibility of excommunication backing them up as their gold standard, have lost their bite. And although I have no desire to reinstate Christendom, I doubt whether the church's mission can be sustained without some kind of formative discipline. Yet it seems like an impossibility.

Now I would love to call for church leaders to reinstill in their people a sense of the cruciality of united christian community. I have done this and I will do this again. But that is for a different setting. Here I simply want to ask whether church discipline has any hope at all. Is it gone for good? Is that a good thing? If not, does it have any chance of return? If so, where is it to be found? Is it found only in visible church unity? Is it found in an increased sectarianism? Is it found through spiritual renewal? Is it found only in missional communities in hostile contexts? Is it a problem with our culture that we have to fix first? Is it merely taking new forms that I am missing?