More thoughts on ecclesiology

A busy weekend at home in Greeley... and now back to blogging!

In a previous post I mentioned my upcoming presentations at the American Church in Paris.  I have refined them a bit more:  the theme of the presentations is "Spirit, Power, and Community: on Being the Church."  Today I would like to introduce the Bible study, "Life in the koinonia: Biblical Foundations for Church Order" which looks at the nature of the church in the New Testament.  

Paul Minear has identified more than fifty models and metaphors of the church in the New Testament.  In my presentation, I am focusing on just four:  the two dominant models in the NT, the church as the People of God and as the Body of Christ, plus two which have received modern currency:  the church as the New Humanity and as the Missional (or apostolic) Community.  The New Humanity model is prominent in feminist and liberationist ecclesiologies; the Apostolic Community model has been embraced by the "missional church" movement.

Two of these models, "People of God" and "New Humanity" are essentialist models:  they describe the community primarily in terms of what they are; whereas the other two, "Body of Christ" and "Apostolic Community" describe the church according to how they function.  If one wishes to take it a step further, the "essentialist" models describe the church in terms of the wisdom / reign of God traditions of the gospels, whereas the "instrumental" or "functional" models found their descriptions on the Christ/redeemer traditions of Acts and the Pauline epistles.  

Of course, these are ideal, foundational models.  None of them is perfectly comprehensive, and they are not discrete categories.  Most importantly, however, they are ideals, and function (to borrow a phrase) more as "aspirational goals" than as "pragmatic realities."  The church has a dual divine and human nature to it -- it is a spiritual community consisting of human beings.  In his exhortation on The Necessity of Reforming the Church, Calvin described the dual nature of the church:

[Church] order, including the sacraments, resemble the body; whereas the doctrine, which prescribes the rule for the right worship of God and point out the ground on which the conscience of men must base their confidence in salvation, is the soul which animates the body and renders it lively and active, and in short makes it other than a dead and useless corpse.”   In J.K.S. Reid, ed. Theological Treatises. Library of Christian Classics. (Philadelphia: Westiminster) 1954, p. 20.

The church requires a structure to give shape to its life; it requires Spirit to give life to its shape. 

On earth, at least, it always exists as a concrete personal and organizational reality.  Just as Jesus, as a divine/human being, was subject to the limits and complexities of embodiment, so the church, as a divine/human society, is subject to the limits and complexities of organizational life. 

As an organization, the church exhibits qualities and functions that are inherent in organizations:

• It adopts an identity that is sustained in part by enforcing organizational boundaries.
• It functions according to a self-identified mission and purpose
• It develops core technologies that define how it achieves its mission and purpose
• It defines and enforces relational norms and distributes power in the system
• It relies on decision-making structures

This sphere of incarnate, organizational life, is the arena of polity.  Here, the three essential elements of Spirit, power, and community find their balance and expression.