Category Archive: Theology – Ecclesiology
Body Parts
Many of the churches I have attended as an adult are full of professionals — doctors and lawyers and PhDs. It is a comfortable place for me because I share so many unstated assumptions about the world with my friends. It is a church of brains, but we may be missing some other important body parts that are gathered en masse at the Baptist church down the street. — Peter Leithart, The End of Protestantism.
When the apostle Paul speaks of the church as a body and each of us as members of it, we might be inclined to think that he is speaking about our own local congregation. But is it the case that every local congregation is a complete body, with all the parts intact and functioning?
Paul’s letter is to the church in Corinth. It is not written about each distinct congregation in a particular city, in spite of all of their differences and their divisions from each other. Rather, it is written to the whole church in a particular city or region. More broadly, Paul is also speaking about the whole church throughout the world.
What happens — and what denominationalism ends up producing — is that particular body parts tend to cluster together with similar body parts, hands with hands, feet with feet, eyes with eyes, brains (or what people think of as brains) with brains.
People who are interested in helping the needy cluster together with others interested in helping the needy. Theology wonks go to church with other theology wonks and often disdain those who don’t read much. People who have a heart for missions want to be with others who share their missionary zeal.
A hand shows up at a church and thinks “Huh. Not many hands here. I guess I’ll go where there are more hands.” But hands are precisely what that church needs.
We need each other. And we have no promise that every gift — every body part — exists in every local congregation. We need the body parts that are found in the church down the street and the body parts in the other church across town and so on.
It’s possible that we too have some body parts that those other churches lack. And maybe if we stopped thinking that we were superior to them — we’re brains and they’re not; we’re feet and they just stand still — we might even be of service to them so that the whole body grows up into the fullness of Christ, locally and globally.
Empty Building
Sometimes people talk as if a church building is a waste of space. After all, if it’s used only for the Lord’s service on Sunday morning (and maybe evening), that’s still only one day’s use out of seven. Better, then, to fill it up with other things, rent it out all week long for other uses — do something with it or not have it at all.
Couldn’t one say much the same thing with the empty chair at the table when Dad is overseas with the military? Why have an empty chair? It just takes up space at the table. But that empty chair represents and expresses the importance Dad has in the life of the family and the expectation that he will return and be welcome.
Richard Paquier puts it this way:
When a building is especially and uniquely intended for an encounter between the Lord and his people, it is likewise the customary location of the divine presence; it is the symbol of the divine presence in the secular life of the city. There as nowhere else, the holy word re-echoes regularly; there the sacraments are celebrated. From one Sunday to another, from one divine service to the next, the place of worship is in a state of anticipation. Even its emptiness between times declares its special destination and readiness for the divine presence (Dynamics of Worship, pp. 40-41).
Royal Majesty
The church is not only the spokesman of Christ the Prophet, not only the organ of Christ the Sacrificer, it is also the army of Christ the King. And something of the royal majesty and glory of the Risen One who ascended to heaven has to come through in the worship of the church. Worship has to reveal partly in its liturgical forms the royal glory of Christ, the triumph and present power of the Head of the church, who was once the crucified, and who is now the living, the conqueror.
By its hymns, candles, the beauty of the ornaments of the sanctuary, and all the dignity and fullness of the divine service, the church makes known to the world that its Lord reigns in the midst of it in his divine beauty. — Richard Paquier, Dynamics of Worship, pp. 22-23.
Teaching, Fellowship, Bread, and Prayers
In Acts 2, we are told of the early church: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. And they sold their possessions and goods and distributed to all, as any had need.”
Richard Paquier comments on the interrelationship here between the church’s adherence to the apostles’ teaching, the church’s common prayers and partaking of the Lord’s Supper, and the church’s care for the poor:
These three aspects of the common life of the first believers, even if clearly distinguished from each other, are nevertheless very intimately connected.
The breaking of bread and the prayers, therefore, include necessarily the teaching of the faith and the declaration of the word; worship is done in a brotherly agape [love] and includes perhaps already an offering for the poor (cf. I Cor. 16:1-2).
It is in prayer and in the fraternal and sacramental communion that the congregation nourishes its life in Christ and draws its strength in order to witness to the outside: it is there as well that the impetus is given to those charged with the dedication of themselves to their less fortunate brethren.
When worship is neglected or degenerates, witness to the faith and charitable works dry up; and inversely, a church that is no longer missionary within its environment and gives only parsimoniously to help the poor, proves that the worship it celebrates is merely an empty formality (Dynamics of Worship, xviii-xix).
Messages to Grandpa
As James Jordan points out (in the passage I quoted here), the communion of saints is not that I am connected to you and you are connected to me, but that you are in Christ and I am in Christ and we are united in Him. He is the connecting link between Christians. Jordan’s application had to do with the possibility of speaking to the saints and asking them to pray for us. But what he says also bears rich fruit for our comfort when we lose loved ones.
When a loved one dies, so much is left unsaid. We want to tell Grandpa how much we love him. We wish he could know what we’re doing. Sometimes, we wish we could ask his forgiveness for wrongs we’ve committed. But there is no indication in Scripture that our loved ones in heaven are now watching everything that we do, let alone that they can hear what we might say to them.
But then our communion with Grandpa was never first and foremost our family relationship or the fact that we could see him face to face or that the words from our mouths could reach his ear. Our communion with Grandpa was first of all in Christ: He was in Christ, and so were we. And that hasn’t changed. Jesus is still the connecting link, and Jesus does see what we do and hear what we say. Which means that if you have anything you want to say to Grandpa, you can tell Jesus about it and ask him to pass the message along.
Can Grandpa hear you? Scripture doesn’t say. But Jesus can, and he can and will pass on any message that he thinks it best to pass on. Which is a great thing to tell grieving grandchildren who wish they could say one more thing to Grandpa.
Building Community in the Church
Building on what he said (in the quotation here) about the communion of saints being in Christ — the communion of saints is not that I’m connected to you and you’re connected to me, but that I’m in Christ and you’re in Christ and we’re connected in Him — Jim Jordan makes an application with regard to our unity and community as the church.
Building up our community in the church includes obeying commandments (e.g., the “one another” passages in Paul’s letters). There are things that the church ought to be doing and there are good practices we can adopt. But those practices and our obedience to the various summonses we find in the Bible aren’t the source or basis of our unity and community. We aren’t together because we share these practices but because we are in Him, and if we want community to grow, we need Him to work: “We must go through Christ, and then we have communion with everyone else. If we have a lack of communion here, we must go through Christ to get it with others.”
Evil and Ecumenicity
C. S. Lewis, writing to Don Giovanni Calabria, 20 September 1947, on how God uses hardships and even enemies to bring about the unity of the Church :
Common perils, common burdens, an almost universal hatred and contempt for the Flock of Christ can, by God’s Grace, contribute much to the healing of our divisions. For those who suffer the same things from the same people for the same Person can scarcely not love each other.
Indeed I could well believe that it is God’s intention, since we have refused milder remedies, to compel us into unity, by persecution even and hardship. Satan is without doubt nothing else than a hammer in the hand of a benevolent and severe God. For all, either willingly or unwillingly, do the will of God: Judas and Satan as tools or instruments, John and Peter as sons.
Even now we see more charity, or certainly less hatred, between separated Christians than there was a century ago. The chief cause of this (under God) seems to me to be the swelling pride and barbarity of the unbelievers. Hitler, unknowingly and unwillingly, greatly benefited the Church! — The Latin Letters of C. S. Lewis, 35, 37.
Jesus vs. Sectarianism
Was there ever anyone with more integrity, and who made greater demands, than Jesus Christ? Yet look at the catholicity of His practice: He ate with publicans, harlots, and sinners, and He took nursing infants into His arms and thus to Himself. Who complained about all this? The Pharisees.
How could Jesus, the spotless Son of God associate with such evil people? Simple: They were (a) members of the visible church, even though that church was borderline apostate (run by Sadducees and Pharisees). They were (b) not excommunicate from that visible church. They were (c) willing to listen to what He had to say.
Now, of course, after they listened for a while, most of them departed, not willing to persevere. They excommunicated themselves. But initially, they were welcomed according to the catholic principle we have outlined. Notice that Jesus ate and drank with them. It requires a clever bit of nominalism to miss the sacramental implications of this. Pharisees, beware! — James B. Jordan, The Sociology of the Church, 15.
In a footnote, Jordan adds:
Beware indeed! Jesus reserved His most ferocious threats of hellfire for those who refuse to recognize other Christians. See Mark 9:38-50 and also Numbers 11:27-29. Jesus articulates an important principle of catholicity in Mark 9:49-50. The man who has salt in himself — the fire of self-preservation and humility — will be a peaceful man, esteeming others better than himself, and with that attitude he can correct the wayward (15n9).
Rolling Stone Christians
While I’m posting Spurgeon quotations, I may as well post this one, which I came across recently in an old back-issue of Credenda/Agenda:
I know there are some who say, “Well, I have given myself to the Lord, but I do not intend to give myself to any church.”
Now why not?
“Because I can be a Christian without it.”
Are you quite clear about that? You can be as good a Christian by disobedience to your Lord’s commands as by being obedient? There is a brick. What is it made for? To help build a house. It is of no use for that brick to tell you that it is just as good a brick while it is kicking about on the ground as it would be in the house. It is a good-for-nothing brick. So you rolling-stone Christians, I do not believe that you are answering your purpose. You are living contrary to the life which Christ would have you live, and you are much to blame for the injury that you do. — Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon at His Best (quoted in Credenda/Agenda 3.2).
The Nursery of the Kingdom
In Trees and Thorns, James Jordan points out that on the Sixth Day God creates man first and then plants the Garden. God did not create Adam already in the Garden. He didn’t create the Garden first and then create the man and move him into the Garden. He created Adam first and then He planted the Garden. That order must be significant.
It appears that God wanted Adam to see Him planting the Garden. After all, Adam was himself going to be a gardener and would start out “serving and guarding” Yahweh’s own Garden. Later, when Adam went out into the world, he would serve the ground, growing grain. But later still, he would be able to plant his own garden, his own orchard, where he would grow his own fruit. First God builds His sanctuary-house; later, Adam would build a house for himself. By creating Adam first and then planting the Garden while Adam watched, God was establishing patterns for Adam to follow.
Jordan writes:
So, God sets up the garden-sanctuary and puts Adam into it, just as God sets up the Church and puts us into it. Adam watched God build His garden-house, and learned something about building his own garden-house. Similarly, from studying how God has set up the church — her structure, government, financing, etc. — we learn how to set up our own domestic and national governments. This is why the Bible spends so much time on Church government and law, and comparatively little on national government and law. The Church is the nursery of the Kingdom, and the principles we learn in the Church are to be carried forth in the transformation of family, state, and other institutions (p. 27).
Crisis, Opportunity, and the Christian Future
A few weeks ago, I reread James Jordan‘s booklet Crisis, Opportunity, and the Christian Future. I had read it before, during my first pastorate, and I recall liking parts of it but finding that much of it went over my head. Perhaps I’ve grown a little taller, so to speak, because I caught much more of what Jordan is saying this time through.
And it’s well worth catching. Some of Jordan’s books are theological studies or exegetical studies. But every now and then, he puts out something that is a bit bigger in scope. There’s exegesis in Crisis and there’s certainly a lot of theology, but this booklet also deals with what God is doing in the whole of history. It’s the kind of thing that may make you say, “Huh? I don’t know about this” at first, but may on second or third reading make you say, “Huh. So that’s what’s going on.”
The booklet starts by talking about how the Trinity is revealed in Genesis, as the course of the narrative twice moves from Father/worship/Garden stuff to Son/brother/land stuff to Spirit/witness/world stuff. So, Jordan argues, does the course of Israel’s history, which is a microcosm of world history.
That last point is crucial. God wants us to be able to understand the times (1 Chron. 12:32), which means understanding our place in history and something of where history is going, and doing so in the light of Scripture. Scripture, of course, doesn’t address the context of North America in the beginning of the 21st century. But as we study the history recorded in Scripture, from creation to the flood and from Abraham to the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, we learn the wisdom we need to understand the whole of world history.
World history, Jordan argues, drawing on the work of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, follows the same basic pattern. It moves from tribalism to a kingdom period to a time of empire. Then, the empire breaks down, sometimes into kingdoms but sometimes all the way down to the tribal level again, before the cycle starts over. That breakdown is not a bad thing, something we ought to fight against and oppose.
That’s what’s happening in America today. Western civilization (the “empire”) is breaking down. So is “America,” if not as a nation then at least as an idea. Lots of people are going to celebrate the Fourth of July tomorrow, but that celebration doesn’t mean as much to people today as it did to previous generations. It’s largely a day for parties and fireworks. Some people, especially Christians, want to preserve America or restore Western civilization. That’s not all bad, but it’s not bad for things to break down into a tribal form either.
What matters to people more and more is their local context, their group of friends, their tribe. Interestingly, as I was reading this section of the book, I saw a report on TV about the Red Hat Society. The women in this society eat together, sing together, comfort each other in times of difficulty, and so forth. What is that if not a tribe?
The church, too, Jordan argues, has gone through these periods, from a more tribal form in the early church to a kingdom form in the medieval period to an “empire” form after the Reformation. But now we’re entering a time when people don’t know the God of the Bible or his laws. At the very same time that the world around us is entering a sort of tribal period, the church also has come through the cycle and is poised to return to a tribal period, too, which means that God is giving us a great opportunity for evangelism and world transformation.
There’s a lot more in this book and I’m tempted to quote it all to you, but I won’t. I will urge you, especially if you’re a pastor, to read and meditate on and digest what Jordan is saying here. It’s something that may give you a new outlook on your work and on the purpose and calling of the church.
Having said that, I will, however, quote this from the close of the book, as Jordan calls the church to “total Bible saturation”:
We will not experience total Bible saturation if all we do is attend Church and hear sermons. The Church must take the bull by the horns and set up classes to raise up a generation that is saturated in the Bible, a generation that has a re-formed common sense and that is operating in terms of that vision and worldview. This means setting aside time for this, week by week, and producing materials to help accomplish this task.
This educational task must be accomplished in churches that have recovered the original “tribal” vision of the Church: a community of enthusiastic singers gathered by real elders (old men) at a table. Such a local church must have a vision for the local community, not be constantly harping on national ills. Such a church must be planted in a place, and reach out with a vision of the New Community of God to all the lonely, isolated, and dispairing people round about, people who are experiencing the many forms of death. Such a church must have something to offer in the way of a new community, and to do this she must know her songs, be feasting at her Lord’s table, and have elders who can provide her a real government. The modern conservative church too often has nothing to offer but doctrine, cold ideas. The church must offer wholistic life to wholistic people (pp. 45-46).
Small Groups
Screwtape on small groups and small churches:
Any small coterie, bound together by some interest which other men dislike or ignore, tends to develop inside itself a hothouse mutual admiration, and towards the outer world, a great deal of pride and hatred which is entertained without shame because the “Cause” is its sponsor and it is thought to be impersonal.Â
Even when the little group exists originally for the Enemy’s own purposes, this remains true. We want the Church to be small not only that fewer men may know the Enemy but also that those who do may acquire the uneasy intensity and the defensive self-righteousness of a secret society or a clique (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, pp. 40-41).