Yesterday, in quoting from Why We Love the Church, I highlighted four major objections to church as we know it. Today I want to briefly address on part of one of these objections. One of the theological arguments “revolutionaries” and church-leavers make is that we don’t have to go to church to be the church. The Church, it is assumed, is simply plural for Christian. So wherever two or more Christians are gathered to discuss about and live in the way of Jesus, that’s church.
What follows is a small part of my response to this argument from Why We Love the Church.
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The problem with this minimalist ecclesiology is that it confuses definition and function. I have no problem with defining the church as elect people of God, or as the gathered Christian community, or as all those who have put their faith in Jesus. These are pretty standard definitions. But to say the church is the people of God is not the same as saying that wherever the people of God are there you have a church. The problem with the previous sentence is that “church” is used in two different ways. At the beginning of the sentence, “the church” refers to the universal, organic fellowship of Christians. So, of course, the church is the people of God. The two are almost synonymous. But in the second half of the sentence, “a church” suggests a local, concrete expression of the universal, organic fellowship. The church manifests itself in churches. And churches do certain things and are marked by certain characteristics. So as a definition the church may be the people of God, but for God’s people gathered to be a church they must function in certain way. When Paul wrote his letters to local churches, he wasn’t addressing three Christian guys who shared an apartment and talked about the spirituality of Euripides. He was writing to a group of Christians who embraced a certain structure, participated in a certain kind of worship service, and shared a certain kind of doctrinal and ethical standard. This made their gathering a church and not just an exercise in hanging out.
The Revolutionary understanding of the church is right in what it affirms—namely, that ekklesia refers to the people of God—but wrong in all that it leaves out. Specifically, this new ecclesiology argues that a church can be (1) free from structure, (2) free from regular worship services, and (3) free from religion. I’m not suggesting that everyone criticizing the church agree with all three of these statements. “Revolutionary” theology does not tend to be that well-established, or frankly, that well thought out. The new ecclesiology does not spend much time explicitly formulating a doctrine of the church. Rather, the new ecclesiology carries with it a host of assumptions that allow church leavers to redefine the church to their minimalist liking.
