Church: Ecclesiology
In this essay, I draw heavily from participation in ecumenical dialogue because talking about “Church” among different churches from around the world exposes many of the assumptions (especially among Protestants) that exist in the US that are not shared in traditions that arose deeper in history and in other parts of the world. I sometimes used to ask my students what makes the church different from a service organization. Often, they had a hard time articulating an answer. For more “liturgical” churches (think especially Catholic or Orthodox), I suspect the same question would provoke a clearer response.
No theological reflection is easy, but the difficulty my students had arises because “church” is a gathering with both concrete reality and spiritual reality–visible and invisible. As a concrete gathering it is easy to “explain” the church as an institution like other institutions. In the US among many Protestants, this seems to be a frequent tendency. For theological reflection on the church, though, the spiritual reality must have its due. The study of ecclesiology reflects on the Church in order to enable individual congregations and even denominations to reflect more clearly and effectively the reality that God intends. So in this essay, I will use two spellings: church for the concrete reality (congregations and denominations) and Church for the spiritual reality those churches are called to embody. (Proper names will be capitalized). Establishing this pattern as an intentional distinction is not easy to carry out. In speech the distinction disappears, and you will see an example of the confusion that results in the following paragraph.
To illustrate the difficulty I use an example from ecumenical work in which I have participated. For a number of years I acted as one of the Moderators of an ecumenical theological dialogue on the Church organized by the Faith and Order Standing Commission of the World Council of Churches. At one point in our dialogue, we were working through the question of whether or not it is possible to say the C/church sins. Protestants wanted to pursue this point in order to address the problem of systemic sin. My own denomination, The United Methodist Church, has issued several formal apologies, including for systemic wrongdoing (such as racism and sexual misconduct by pastors). Members from more “liturgical” churches pushed back. Surely people sin, and people in congregations and denominations sin, no one disputes that, but does the Church sin? The question revealed tendencies to focus on the concrete gathering or the spiritual gathering, as well as the intended closeness between them. The dialogue resolved the matter with the following paragraph:
The Church is the body of Christ; according to his promise, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it (cf. Matt. 16:18). Christ’s victory over sin is complete and irreversible, and by Christ’s promise and grace Christians have confidence that the Church will always share in the fruits of that victory. They also share the realization that, in this present age, believers are vulnerable to the power of sin, both individually and collectively. All churches acknowledge the fact of sin among believers and its often grievous impact. All recognize the continual need for Christian self-examination, penitence, conversion (metanoia), reconciliation and renewal. Holiness and sin relate to the life of the Church in different and unequal ways. Holiness expresses the Church’s identity according to the will of God, while sin stands in contradiction to this identity (cf. Rom. 6 :1-11). You may find the published ecumenical document here: https://www.oikoumene.org/sites/default/files/Document/The_Church_Towards_a_common_vision.pdf
No ecclesiology should ignore the way the visible church falls short (and as I said in the article on Holy Spirit, there is ongoing need to “test the spirits”) but there is also hope that the body of Christ (Church) is preserved among the people who follow Christ, even when they fall short. The image of the Church as body of Christ was key for writing this ecumenical statement (Christ is holy so the Church that is Christ’s body is holy), and it is important to recognize that the very nature of Church as body of Christ is what calls us to recognize the way the institutional form of church falls short of what it is supposed to embody.
The study of ecclesiology also distinguishes between the nature and the mission of the Church. The nature of the Church deals with what it is. The mission of the Church deals with what it is sent into the world to do. This can be a useful distinction, but it has recently been criticized. Some think the order of the words usually determines the shape of theological reflection, with a subtle prioritizing of nature over mission. Many have pointed out that the mission should not be second best. What the Church is is deeply defined by the mission given to the Church.
The Faith and Order document I refer to above took this criticism seriously. The document roots the mission of the Church in the very mission of the Triune God: the sending of the Son and Holy Spirit for the transformation and healing of the world. This mission is the very reason for churches to exist. This is a good place to start thinking about what makes (or should make) churches different from other organizations.
When they actualize their proper nature and carry out their proper mission, the churches are a sign to the world of the work that God is doing in the world. The Church calls all people to see God’s work so that they may participate in it. It is up to churches to conform themselves to God’s mission in order to be this sign.
Ecumenical dialogue encourages churches to see “Churchness” in each other. This requires intense discussion of the marks of the Church (one, holy, catholic, apostolic). Attention may be focused on matters such as orders of ministry, baptism and Holy communion. For more traditional churches, there is usually enough commonality for those discussions to take place. Increasingly, followers of Jesus are gathering with less “traditional” organization, for instance in Pentecostal settings. The World Council has begun to enter into dialogue with these groups and has published results of dialogue specifically with Pentecostal and Evangelical churches. You may find it here:
https://www.oikoumene.org/sites/default/files/2022-11/TGVC_e_Book_.pdf
Thank you for navigating this faultline with such care and diligence. I still struggle and have for a long time with all this.
Pius XII’s accommodation of the Reich, the systematic cover-up of clerical abuse, were institutional decisions, made by church authorities acting in their official capacity, often to protect the institution itself.
The theological framework itself seems to inadvertently provide some institutional cover as I read it. If the Church is holy by nature, and sin belongs only to individual members, then the institution as Institution is immunized from accountability. The apologies become personal and spiritual rather than structural and legal.
This essay (to me) reflects your awareness of this - but yet doesn’t take this fully into account. Maybe it just can’t take that leap - it seems organizations in general mightily struggle on the point of deep reflecower/ culpability /action, and “politics” holds its own tacit power.
Thank you for the opportunity to think this through.
"... the question of whether or not it is possible to say the C/church sins. ... Surely people sin, and people in congregations and denominations sin, no one disputes that, but does the Church sin? ... The dialogue resolved the matter with the following paragraph:
... They also share the realization that, in this present age, believers are vulnerable to the power of sin, both individually and collectively. ..."
My take on this is more sociological, but based on my theological beliefs. That is, that we all have individual (i.e. moral) responsibility - which means groups do not. Yes, some might be swayed by the mob but their actions are still their own individual responsibility.
Our individual responsibility is implied in various places in Scripture, e.g. "whosoever believes in Him" - our asking for God's forgiveness for our sins is the act of an individual. And in the sheep vs. goats separation - we are judged as individuals according to our individual behaviour.
The opposite of this view is most often seen in today's society when corporations are often seen as immoral themselves (especially in certain political circles), as if a corporation itself has moral capacity, without much being said about the culpability of its employees. Certainly corporations can still be held monetarily responsible for the actions of employees since they are subject to its oversight, but that doesn't absolve employees from prosecution for their actions.
This is the reasoning I would apply to the question of whether the C/church sins. Sin is an individual problem, and I would respectfully disagree that it is a collective one aside from the obvious ramification that individuals with a problem are going to be a problem when they're in a group too.
This applies whether the group is a church, government (body) or corporation. Moral capacity is individual. Don't anthropomorphize groups.