the church

I've been thinking about ecclesiology, or how we understand "church." Becky was here the night before last and we talked about this some. Partially because of her struggles within the Catholic church (both doctrinally and with local leadership), but also because she is someone I've had a long personal relationship with, grounded on our common faith. And that's closer to my present understanding of what church really is.

Kierkegaard was often criticized for not having an ecclesiology at all. But I think maybe his understanding of church just didn't fit with what his critics were looking for. For example, in this passage (from Training in Christianity) others might see only individualism, but I see aspects of a solid ecclesiology:

When the individual appeals to his God-relationship in opposition to the established order, it looks indeed as if he made himself more than a man. Nevertheless, he does not by any means do that; for he concedes that every man, absolutely every man, has or should have for his part the same relationship to God. As little as one who says he is in love denies by this that others have the same experience, just so little or even less does such an individual deny that another (but always as an individual) has the same God-relationship. But the established order refuses to entertain the notion that it might consist of so loose an aggregation of millions of individuals each of which severally has his own God-relationship. The established order desires to be totalitarian, recognizing nothing over it, but having under it every individual who is integrated in it.

First, there's the basis for (and call to) unity: "...every man, absolutely every man, has or should have for his part the same relationship to God." There is one God, and therefore to have relationship with him is to have relationship with one another. And it is precisely this God-relationship that unites us. As Paul writes:

Now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one... that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end.

...through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God... (Eph 2.13-19)

Second, Kierkegaard highlights that there are many related to God (and thus to each other) in this way. United not by doctrinal statements or institutional membership but by their relationship with the one God. This is the church, the Body. Yet what church accepts this, or preaches this? What church does not equate unity with institutional (congregational, denominational) membership? As Kierkegaard says, the institutional church "refuses to entertain the notion that [the church] might consist of so loose an aggregation of millions of individuals each of which severally has his own God-relationship."

This "aggregation" cannot be controlled by anyone (except God) and serves no human institution. It cannot be harnessed for our purposes. But it is real and can be recognized and experienced--if we know what to look for. The experience is in discovering others with a Christlike spirit, like the spirit that inspires us, recognizing them by the way they live and act. Loving these brothers and sisters. Feeling the warmth and strength of the God-relationship that connects us. This is the experience of the Body, the church.

(for previous thoughts on institutions, community, and relationship, start here...)