The Church
Rev Anthony Cane
| The
Christian Church has its origins in the group of
disciples whom Jesus gathered around him at the
beginning of his ministry. The word Church
is derived from the Greek for belonging
to the Lord and assembly.
The Church, then, is not an end in itself, nor
complete or perfect in the present, but a sign
pointing to the coming Kingdom of God proclaimed
by its founder Jesus Christ. From New
Testament times onwards there has been a variety
of images and doctrines to describe the Church,
rather than any single definition. For example
the Bible describes the church in various places
as the people of God, the body of Christ, a new
humanity, the household or family, the flock and
the faithful.
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From the
letters of St Paul to young churches recorded in
the New Testament, and the gospels themselves, it
is apparent that the Church has always been
diverse, although common elements can be
identified: faith in Jesus as Messiah and Lord,
the practice of baptism and the celebration of
the Eucharist (Holy Communion), preaching and
teaching, an emphasis on communal love and a
reaching out to those in need. So it is
that the Church of England's Book of Common
Prayer can describe what it calls the visible
Church of Christ as a congregation
of faithful [people], in which the pure word of
God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly
administered, according to Christ's
ordinance… It is hard for any
definition, however, to give a sense that the
life of the church contains at least three
inherent lessons:
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| 1. |
| The
tension between the local and the
universal. Should the Church be
thought of primarily as a local community
of faith, or as a body that (potentially
at least) includes the whole of humanity?
'Each community, suffering and striving
in its place, IS the
church of God… |
But
just because it is the church in its
particular place, its very engagement in
the requirements of that place can
engender narrowness and parochialism,
'tribal' and sectarian attitudes...
[this] 'congregationalist' impulse in
Christianity stands in permanent need of
corrective pressure from the 'great
church' or universalist impulse.'
(Nicholas Lash) |
|
| 2. |
| The
tension between the church in its
ordinary day-to-day reality and the
perfect church as God would have it be,
'on earth as it is in heaven'. Anglicans,
along with most Christians, seek to avoid
the extremes represented by 'those who
simply identify the mundane Church and
its organisation, |
hierarchy
and law with the true Church, and those
who deny that the perfect Church of the
heavens has any connection with that
found on earth, so fallible and corrupt
are all its members'. (Stephen Sykes) |
|
| 3. |
| The
tension between the search for holiness
and involvement in the complexities and
compromises of human history. The
history of the church provides examples
both of holiness movements which have
separated themselves from ordinary
society, and occasions where the
Christians have adopted the methods of
the political and social order to achieve
particular ends. |
St
John's gospel speaks of being in
the world but not of the
world; and whilst this is not easy to
achieve, it expresses something important
about seeking to live through tensions
rather than moving to one of the
extremes. |
|
| There
are no intrinsic reasons why the tensions
outlined above should lead to Christian
divisions, but they have in fact done so,
particularly at and since the Reformation
(sixteenth century). The crucial
difference here was between the Roman
Catholic understanding of the Church as a
divinely given hierarchy and constitution
for human salvation, and the distinction
made by Luther between physical
external Christendom and
'spiritual internal
Christendom' (salvation
belonging only to the latter). The Church
of England rejected both the authority of
Rome and the thinking of the continental
reformers. |
However,
Anglicans of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries also wanted to
affirm a continuity with the whole
history of the Church, and in particular
the early church. In modern times there
have been strenuous efforts to overcome
divisions between the churches. The
Church of England continues to aspire to
be both Catholic and Reformed, to base
itself on the 'threefold cord' of Scripture,
Tradition and Reason,
and to recognise the provisional nature
of its own existence. |
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| While
the Anglican Church is vindicated by its place in
history, with a strikingly balanced witness to
gospel and church and sound learning, its greater
vindication lies in its pointing through its own
history to something of which it is a fragment.
Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the
tension and travail in its soul. It is clumsy and
untidy, it baffles neatness and logic. For it is
sent not to commend itself as 'the best type of
Christianity', but by its very brokenness to
point to the universal church wherein all have
died. Michael
Ramsey
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© St Luke's, Torquay
July 2007
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