Musings on Ecclesiology
My understanding of the church had been relatively staid
until I entered the parish setting. I
would say that initially, my thinking of the church revolved around a
location. The church was a place.
Church was where you went, and where you belonged – as in
membership. All my life I had ‘belonged’
to the United Methodist Church. But that
location was also a positive location, where I felt welcomed, and where I was
fortunate enough to find a voice for my faith as well as a voice for my
doubts. Church, in my estimation now,
was the place where you went and from
which you learned how to, for lack of a better word, behave like a Christian the rest of the week.
Over the years, my thinking has changed
from an institutional mentality to more of an idea of a movement. I would like to believe that my old
understanding entailed some kind of transformative aspect as a result from
being a part of the church; some kind of response that continued to re-fashion
and renew me as well as those around me.
Speaking personally, I felt the church did just that. I can only speak for myself, but I found the
church to be the place of transformation and healing. When my parents divorced, it was the church
youth group in which I found solace and a place to feel loved. It was through the church that I was able to
confront my doubts about the faith and find a deeper spiritual core and a light
in the darkness. I believed the church
was a place of transformation. I still do. In that respect, belonging to the church also meant
having a true sense of belonging.
However, over the last 10 years, I have found (from the
inside) that it would appear that much of the church’s focus is on survival. In particular, the focus is on the survival
of the institution. I find that we are
becoming focused more upon the definition
of a church than we are the demonstration
of church. This is not an approach or idea that I am remotely comfortable with. It seems that the churches as institutions
are interested in defining the style rather than understanding the nuance of
denominations. We are losing our
denominational lineage, it often seems, to the oversimplification of the terms
‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’.
It also appears that people aren’t asking denominational
questions anymore. They aren’t asking,
“Are you Presbyterian? Are you
Catholic? Are you Methodist?” They ask, “Is your church conservative? Is it a fundamentalist church? Is it traditional? Is the service contemporary?” Theological ties to Luther, Calvin, Wesley,
Augustine, Anselm, Barth, matter less and less.
As the world moves on, and we find that there has not only arisen a king
who doesn’t remember Joseph[1],
there is a generation that is arising that doesn’t remember the King.
This may have much to do with our ignorance. Ignorance of what we believe, ignorance of
what other Christian traditions believe.
“Evangelical pollsters”, says Stephen Prothero, “have lamented for some
time the disparity between Americans’ veneration of the Bible and their
understanding of it, painting a picture of a nation that believes God has
spoken in scripture but can’t be bothered to listen to what God has to say.”[2] While this information is usually utilized to
demonstrate how one group has an advantage over another (such as conservatives
over liberals), it goes to a larger point.
In our zeal for clarification of beliefs, we have forgotten why we sought clarification. Was it to unite? Was it to understand? Was it to disengage? Was it to excise ourselves or another?
When I was in elementary school, the social studies book we
used was written as something of a travelogue, telling the story of a family
that went on an extended vacation tour of the country. Their story was to be the narrative by which
the book was going to tell a cultural narrative. About halfway through the year, I remember
clearly, I turned back to the beginning of the book because I had forgotten the
names of the family who we were following, and I had forgotten why they were meandering across the
country. Perhaps the same can be said
for the faith. We have a story that is
ours to follow, yet in our utilization of it to explain our own culture; we
have forgotten the why of the
original story as well as the particular stories of our own denominational
journeys. “Catholics have forgotten the
words of the Baltimore Catechism their parents and grandparents once knew by
heart. Protestants have forgotten the
key plot points in the Exodus story which beckoned New England’s colonists to a
New World Zion. Methodists have
forgotten what distinguishes them from Baptists.”[3]
As such, it would seem, then, that there is a certain inability
to hear one another around the Christian table.
Mostly because we come to the table ready to fight, and also so glued to
our ideas, that the idea of someone coming to the “Christian” table that
doesn’t sound, look, or speak like us is almost anathema. This comes from our having forgotten who we
are, and who it is that stands across from us.
It is why ecumenical movements are looked on with suspicion. It is why people leave churches to start
their own ‘independent’ church. It is
what repels us from one another. It is,
therefore, un-Christian.[4]
The church, I believe, is to give expression to faith, not
substitute itself for faith. In giving expression, that body of the
faithful create a community. That
community then seeks to reflect what David Harrington would call the five core
values of the original Jesus movement: “closeness to God, the primacy of love,
concern for marginal persons, radical ethical stances, and forgiveness.”[5]
I also believe that the church, specifically the United
Methodist Church but generally the church universal, is to become the church
that recognizes the ‘gray areas’ of the world rather than being solidly black
or white. This comes from my reading of
Adam Hamilton’s book (aptly titled) Seeing Gray in a World of Black and
White. In it, he writes, “How often
the Christian church’s ability to accomplish good is diminished by our
infighting. What if all 224 million
Christians in America were actually working together to shape a nation that
looks like Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God, where poverty does not exist,
where people practice justice, where love of neighbor is universally
practiced? But this will never
happen. We are too busy ‘straining
gnats.’”[6]
It is here that I find the sad reality of our Christian
conflicts, but it is here where I also find strength of purpose. The church universal may never get together. However,
this does not mean that the goal of seeking Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom is not
worth pursuing. We are to pursue it and we are to have a story to tell.
As such, I believe the church is a witness to faith. All
that it does internally and externally are to reflect Christ. In some ways this is the Augustinian model of
the two cities – the city of the world and the City of God. That distinction is a good one. The church is a witness to the
counter-narrative of Christ in the world.
But it cannot be completely separated from the world or else it returns
to McNeal’s club mentality where people “join” and members are ‘in’ while
others are ‘out’.[7] So to the more Augustinian model, I would say
“yes, but..” or “yes, and…” to which the ‘and’ would be akin to the Lutheran
idea that the church is both a “hidden community and a visible fellowship.”[8] The church has to be in the world, engaged and yet representative of a more holy, sacred
conversation. We cannot abandon our
distinction, but we need to understand that distinction as invitational, not
exclusive. “The crucial matter in religion
is steadfast love for God and neighbor, empowered by the redeeming and
sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.”[9]
[1] See Exodus 1:8.
[2] Prothero, Stephen Religious Literacy (New York: Harper Collins, 2007) p. 7.
[3] Ibid p. 8.
[4] This is the title of a book (UnChristian)
that I found quite eye-opening and saddening.
[5] Daniel Harrington, The Church According to the New Testament (Franklin: Sheed &
Ward, 2001).
[6] Adam Hamilton, Seeing Grey in a World of Black and White (Nashville: Abingdon
Press, 2008)p. 12 with a reference to Matthew 23:24.
[7] Reggie McNeal The Present Future Church (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003)
introduction.
[8] Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press,
2002) p. 40.
[9] The
United Methodist Book of Discipline (Nashville: The United Methodist
Publishing House, 2012) ¶102.
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