THE CHURCH (3) Hans Kung

Continuing to examine my understanding of church, this post will use Hans Kung’s book “THE CHURCH” to set a framework for further inquiry. As I wrote earlier, “THE CHURCH” was a highly influential factor in reimagining my ecclesiology. It is has continued to be a reference over the past several decades.

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The Second Vatican Council, also known as Vatican II, which took place from 1962 to 1965, was one of the most important councils in church history, and it profoundly changed the structures and practices of the church. It sought, in the words of Pope John XXIII, aggiornaménto, “to bring the church up to date,” and many of the council’s decrees did bring the church into the modern world. Although the reforms were welcomed by many, they produced internal disruptions greater than any the church has known since the Protestant Reformation. 

Written in the shadow of Vatican II — Kung’s states the purpose for his book in the preface.
One can only know what the Church should be now if one also knows what he church was originally. This means knowing what the Church of today should be in the light of the Gospel, It is the purpose of this book to answer that question.

For Kung, Church always refers to the Roman Catholic Church, a point to be aware of in his writing, but the applicability of his observations and critiques are unmistakably relevant to the catholic [whole] church. There is some attraction to the idea of a “Vatican II” kind of council for the church today — to bring the church up to date— but the Protestant diaspora that followed the Protestant Reformation makes that impractical. You can’t herd cats.
Perhaps these posts can serve as a mini-council? Restoration II 🙂

A presumption shared among many Christians today, and motivation for these posts, is that the church is headed in the wrong direction. Holding that assumption, Kung says the vital question is: “… by what criterion are we to judge that the church is now headed in the wrong direction?”

Answering, Kung eliminates paths most frequently chosen in response to concerns that the church is headed in the wrong direction — adapt itself to the present — because to do so would mean adapting itself to the evil, the anti-God elements, the indifferentism in the world — or secondly, — hold fast to the past, because that would mean ignoring what is good and acceptable and perfect, holding to what has gone simply because to do so is convenient, less disruptive. Clinging tenaciously to the past in this way is no less dangerous than a misdirected adaptation to the present….therefore, that where adaptation to the present is inadequate, because it leads to modernism, clinging to the past is no better, for it leads to traditionalism.

How do we know the church is headed in the right direction? Kung answers:

…The Church is headed in the right direction when, whatever the age in which it lives, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is its criterion, the Gospel which Christ proclaimed and to which the church and the apostles witnessed. The church did not come about of itself. God himself called it into being as the Ecclesia, the body of those who answered the call, and this he did in the world, from among mankind. God himself convoked the Church in the call issued through Jesus, the Christ. This call is the Euangelion, the good news: the news of the dominion of God over this world, the news that the hopes and desires of man should be directed to God alone, the news of God’s love, and man’s love for God and his fellow men. …

The Church, therefore, is the pilgrim community of Believers, not of those who already see and know. The Church must never again wander wander through the desert, through the darkness of sin and error. Fo the Church can also err and for this reason must always be prepared to orientate itself anew, to renew itself.It must always be prepared to seek out a new path, a way that might be as difficult to find as a desert track, or a path through darkness.

There is however, one guiding light it is never without, just as God’s people in the desert always had a guide: God’s word is always there to lead the Church. Through Jesus, the Christ it has been definitively revealed to us. …
With the message of Jesus Christ behind it, the Church is headed in the right direction. Thus armed, it is empowered to take new directions, now and again must do in an attempt to perfect God’s rule which it so frequently inclined to forget.

He further observes:

The Church today does not impenitently leave things as they were, but reforms and renews its life, structures and teaching, adapting itself to the world as it actually is. But it has not just developed a craze for modernity: it is looking for its own origins, to the events that gave it life.
The Church must return to the place from which it proceeded; must return to its origins, to Jesus, to the Gospel. And as a direct consequence, this can only mean forward to a new future, the future God had in mind for mankind.

There is a lot to digest in these citations, only a brief portion of his preface to THE CHURCH. A dissident in the Catholic Church, Kung’s, critiques were a delightful, he voiced criticisms of the Catholic Church I had heard and repeated for many years. It was only when I began to look in the mirror that I realized how relevant he was to the whole church and for me, and the church of Christ in particular.

In listening to those who believe the church is headed in the wrong direction, which, ironically, may be our greatest point of agreement, there are two dogmatic positions — adapt to the present —or— hold fast to the past. Those who do not fall into those categories, most usually, are sympathetic to some amalgamation of the two. In any case, Kung paints us all into a corner.

I am confident that this brief look at THE CHURCH through Kung’s eyes will not scrub our windows clean, but perhaps, there is a bit more light coming through that will illuminate the path as we move forward. My next post will explore restoring the New Testament church.

Still on the journey.