For the Joy of the Journey

 “it is high time to think about, as Kung calls it, is …the real church.”

…no matter how many old movies you have in your DVD collection or how often you watch them, you can’t go back to the time and cultural context that forged them. Any attempt in the present to make something like Casablanca or The Manchurian Candidate or [insert your favorite here] will essentially fall short. It will be a reproduction that apes the signature characteristics — dress, décor, modes of speech, vehicles, and so on — of another time. Similary, a Civil War re-enactor’s club may help keep the memory of that history alive, but it doesn’t make that history present. At the end of the day, the actors put away their muzzle loaders, change back into their normal clothes and drive home to their modern dwellings with electricity, indoor plumbing, and internet.

Steve Skojec

Being convinced that that no “one true church” exists today is not to imply that the Church does not exist. In my understanding, scripture unequivocally confirms, not only that that the Church exists — it is real.

Rather than talking about an ideal church situated in the abstract celestial spheres of theological theory, we [should] consider the real Church as it exists in our world and in human history. The New Testament itself does not begin by laying down a doctrine of the Church which has then to be worked out in practice; it starts with the Church as reality, and reflection upon it comes later. The real church is first and foremost a happening, a fact, an historical event.

Hans Kung – THE CHURCH

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In the midst of writing this post, I was “called” to mow my yard. As is my custom, I use the time mowing to listen to various podcasts. My choice, one of my regulars, was Josh Graves at Otter Creek Church. His sermon was “Deep Church”, one in a series entitled “Church, Why Bother?”
My intention for this post was to pursue Hans Kung’s thoughts on the real church. However, Josh’s sermon and an unexpected conversation with a Nepalese seminarian diverted me. I will return to Kung later.

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Pondering the idea of “real church”, I wonder how my pursuit of “real church” is different than a quest for” the one true church” or “restoring the NewTestament Church” ? This is an important question, if there is no difference, any conclusion I reach about “real church” will be nothing more than another idealistic, abstract notion.
I believe the difference lies in discovery verses explanation. I was reminded of this distinction as I “discovered” an excerpt from Larry Crabb I cited many years ago. Worthy of another post, it is entitled “Fire Lighters” you can read it HERE.

Isa 50:10-11
Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant?
Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD
and rely on his God.
But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze.
This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment.

I am resolved that my pursuit of “real church” will be one of discovery and I will resist my compelling need to explain. As Crabb concludes: “The passion to explain leads us along a path that ends badly.”

Resisting the need to explain is essential, not only in the pursuit of “real church”, but , also in growing faith in God. There are a couple of metaphors I’ve written about before, that can be helpful in avoiding a path of explanation.

Because we are redeemed and flawed people of God … ecclesia…body of Christ we must be humbled by the truth that we are the church now — but not yet. My responsibility is to know I reside on a continuum between an idealized church and the real church. My mission is to discover and surrender to the will of God for His gathered people, in that pilgrimage the real church will come forth. Perhaps that is why Kung declared, in part, …” the inner nature [of the church] can only be seen by believing Christians”.
Walking in the light of our own fires and torches will only bring torment.

Discovery is not an event, it is an adventure.

Still on the journey.

The expression “one true church” refers to an ecclesiological position asserting that Jesus gave his authority in the Great Commission solely to a particular Christian institutional church— what others would call a denomination, believers of this doctrine consider pre-denominational. This view is maintained by the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox communion, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East and the Churches of Christ. Each of them maintains that their own specific institutional church (denomination) exclusively represents the one and only original church.
Wikipedia

“It is our firm conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, as the revelations state, “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.”
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1985/10/the-only-true-church?lang=eng

The existence of so many varied denominations, most claiming to be the church, testifies to the fact that, somewhere, there is, or was a true original. Even counterfeit money is evidence there is a real thing – and that it is valuable. There is only one place to go for answers about the church. The Bible, the word of God, tells all about God’s church, and it clearly presents one church!
httphttp://www.thebible.net/introchurch/ch3.html

Many Christians believe there is “one true church”. The problem is that each of us want to believe our church is the one. Searching for “the one true church” wasn’t a problem for me, because we were the one true church. Eventually, that myth was unmasked.

Asserting a particular church (denomination) is the “one true church” is like declaring your family to be the “perfect family”; they are family, but they aren’t perfect. A perfect family only exists as an idealistic abstraction. Encountering someone who insist their family is perfect, is a huge red flag. That is no less true of those who declare they are “the one true church”.

I am convinced there is no “one true church” today. Every church in existence is in someway, as Kung describes, — “a prisoner of its own theories and prejudices, its own forms and laws, rather than being a prisoner of its Lord.” For those who believe the church is headed in the wrong direction, finding the right (true?) church is like searching for the Holy Grail. If deciding “where to go from here” , means searching for the “true church”, it will be a cold day in hell when we find it.

Although Alexander Campbell’s 1809 statement: …the series of events which have taken place in the churches for many years past, especially in this Western country, as well as from what we know in general of the present state of things in the Christian world, we are persuaded that it is high time for us not only to think, but also to act… is relevant to the present day, contemporary response is different. For Campbell, to act, meant restore the New Testament church. In today’s individualistic consumer culture, to act means shopping for, or building, a church that fits my idealized, abstract conception of church. If not shopping or building, people are leaving, ergo Gallup’s declining church attendance data. In the mean time, competition is fierce. Marketing is the new evangelism. The one true church is, indeed, “my church”.

Where do I go from here? I do not have a clear answer. I do agree with Campbell — “it is high time to think..” (…act comes later). What I want to think about is, as Kung calls it, is …the real church. The next post will wrestle with Kung’s thoughts on the real church.

Still on the journey.

What looks like a serious crisis may mark the moment of new life; what looks a sinister threat may in reality be a great opportunity.

Han Kung —THE CHURCH

The restoration plea is an earnest entreaty to bring back the church of our Lord into its original state. A plea to restore assumes that an original existed and was lost. The restoration plea assumes a pattern existed and could and should be restored.
G K Wallace (church of Christ evangelist)

My church history came in a Restoration Movement context. A movement that sought to restore the whole Christian church based on visible patterns set forth in the New Testament; its momentum came from a conviction that the Church of that day, divided and contentious, was no longer the New Testament church. Unity and peace could only achieved by restoring the the one true Church.

Aspirations of the Restoration Movement, though commendable, were misguided and ultimately failed to build unity or restore an idealized New Testament Church in Acts.

Today’s angst about church is similar, in many ways, to Alexander Campbell’s 18th/19th century days. The opening words of his Declaration and Address are eerily familiar:

FROM the series of events which have taken place in the churches for many years past, especially in this Western country, as well as from what we know in general of the present state of things in the Christian world, we are persuaded that it is high time for us not only to think, but also to act…
Alexander Campbell — Declaration and Address 1809

As I wrote earlier, I share an opinion that the church is headed in the wrong direction. Hopefully, that conclusion has been reached by thoughtful examination of proper criterion as suggested by Kung.
If leadership becomes convinced the church is headed in the wrong direction, what should they do? Any answer will be formulated around perceptions of “wrong direction”.

If the measure of church health is attendance and growth, Gallup’s report on church membership decline, most likely,will be met with “turn around” strategies — doubling down on what has worked in the past, blaming culture influence and expounding on the need to get back to “the basics”.
In my past, the meeting would have concluded with either, plans for an extended Gospel Meeting, or in later years, a new class or conference on church growth. In the most desperate circumstances there would be a change in Preacher / Pastor. Of course, no elders would resign or be fired.

Little or no consideration is given to the possibility that the existing church had become misdirected. As Kung points out: “All too easily the Church can become the prisoner of the image it has made for itself at one particular period in history.” The restoration movement became a prisoner of the image of the church in the book of Acts, most specifically, Acts 2:38 -47

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

From that, an abstract and idealistic ecclesiology developed which described an ideal rather than the real church. As Kung observed, such an ecclesiology might attract unthinking admirers, but it would fail to move, even repulse, a thoughtful critic.
Kung continued: “Only a realistic and concrete view of the church, as opposed to an idealistic and abstract one, will enable us to point out to the critic who only sees the negative side of the Church that the faults, whether real or imagined, do not touch the most profound and essential in the Church.”

In my limited view and experience, contemporary efforts to restore, renew, renovate, et al, are centered in idealistic and abstract, rather than realistic and concrete views of the church. Like the Restoration Movement and similar movements in church history, relying on idealistic and abstract ecclesiology they are destined to fail.

A troubling questions to be addressed: “What make me think I can grasp the vital fundamental dimensions of the Church?”
Kung’s declaration is even more troubling. “Only the believing Christian can do that.”
More to come.

Still on the journey.