But if we are the body...

2. On the Church, the Continuation of God's Narrative

We call Evangelicals to take seriously the visible character of the Church. We call for a commitment to its mission in the world in fidelity to God's mission (Missio Dei), and for an exploration of the ecumenical implications this has for the unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity of the Church. Thus, we call Evangelicals to turn away from an individualism that makes the Church a mere addendum to God's redemptive plan. Individualistic Evangelicalism has contributed to the current problems of churchless Christianity, redefinitions of the Church according to business models, separatist ecclesiologies and judgmental attitudes toward the Church. Therefore, we call Evangelicals to recover their place in the community of the Church catholic.

[reprinted without alteration with permission from: www.aefcall.org]

If I could chose one area of theology that I could change in order to have the greatest impact on The Church of the Nazarene, it would be in the area of ecclesiolgy. Why? Because there is perhaps no other area with as far reaching implications as ecclesiology. The way we understand ourselves as the church determines the way we view salvation, the way we view sanctification, the way we view mission, discipleship, worship, sacraments, and on and on and on. So what would I changes about our ecclesiology? Simple. I ask only that we consider ecclesiology with a seriousness commensurate with its far-reaching implications. The AEF Call hits the nail on the head calling evangelicals to "take seriously the visible character of the church."

Perhaps the most well-known biblical image of "church" is in Paul's "body of Christ" metaphor.

"Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others" (Rom. 12-4-5).

"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink... Now the body is not made up of one part but of many... As it is, there are many parts, but one body... Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it" (I Cor 12.12-27).

We all have heard this metaphor many times, yet its magnitude is not apparent until we consider it in light of another Pauline story. It too is a well known story, but the stories are seldom connected. In this second story, we find a Jew named Saul traveling the world seeking out the church and trying to stamp out the church by identifying, torturing and killing its members. On one quest to Damascus, Saul is stopped in his tracks, blinded, and spoken to. The voice asked Saul a question, "why do you persecute me?" Saul replies with a question, "who are you?" To Saul's question, the voice responds, "I am Jesus of Nazareth." After this experience Saul changes his name to Paul, begins building - rather than destroying - the church, and the rest, as they say, is history.

What I find so amazing is the voices question. Jesus speaks to Saul and says, "why do you persecute me?" This is astonishing! Jesus Christ has long since been crucified, resurrected, ascended and sent his Spirit to breath life into his church. Even so, Jesus does not ask Saul why he is persecuting the church. He asks Saul why he persecutes him. The voice from heaven makes a clear equation. The Church = Jesus Christ.

We must, therefore, correct an earlier comment. In light of Paul's conversation with Christ on the Damascus Road, Paul's "body ecclesiology" is not a metaphor. It is not a comparison. It is not a literary device. It is a declaration. Christ is really and truly present in the world! His presence, however is not in one human body, but in the many who have been baptized into his death and resurrection.

OK, so where I am going with all this? If we began to understand that the Church = Christ, then we really have to ask some hard questions about the way we understand "church": its worship, its mission, its witness, its programming. Is what we do a continuation of Christ: who he is and what he did? Does our worship continue Christ's relationship to the Father as revealed in scripture? Does our mission and the way we accomplish our mission faithfully and truthfully continue the mission and ministry of Christ as revealed in scripture? Is the life of the church clearly revealing to the world not only the goal of Christ's life and ministry, but also the means by which Christ accomplished his divine goals? In short, is the church fully and totally cruciform in all that it is and all that it does? Does the church bear faithful witness to the "peacable reign of God" (Bryan Stone, Evangelism After Christendom)?

My contention is that much of today's evangelical church cannot honestly answer those questions in the affirmative. Such a church would place such things as "unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity" at a premium. Yet many of us live and minister in churches that view such values as undesirable. We are happy being sectarian, so we continue trying to convert Orthodox, Roman-Catholics, and all others not like us to Christianity. We are happy holding "relevance" as the highest goal, so we have removed all that is sacred for the sake of being understandable, sensitive and contemporary. We certainly don't want to be confused with the catholics, so we insist that we believe in "the holy universal church." And most of us probably can't pronounce - let alone spell - apostolicity.

It is time we take our ecclesiology seriously and recover [our] place in the community of the Church catholic. We ARE the body of Christ, and its time we think seriously about what that means.