What is the task of the church? Sounds like an easy question, no? The answer is more complicated. We can probably agree on three basic tasks: (1) to preach the gospel, (2) to administer the sacraments, (3) to maintain discipline among its members. But beyond this we differ. Should the church be helping the poor? Should it be an alternative polity, as Stanley Hauerwas and others have argued? Should it be making political pronouncements, as so many denominations do?
We cannot answer these questions without first making a crucial distinction – one that is too often ignored. There are, in fact, two uses of the term church:
- the church as institution, and
- the church as corpus Christi or body of Christ.
The institutional church is an organized body to be distinguished from other communities, such as marriage, family, state, business enterprise, &c. God has given it the three tasks mentioned above. It is called to gather at least once a week to hear the Word, to celebrate the sacraments, and to nourish and support believers in their life of obedience before the face of God . It is bound together by a common confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, the second Person of the Trinity, who was sent by the Father to offer his life as a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28). The institutional church is governed by specific office-holders, as prescribed in scripture (e.g., I Timothy 3:1-13).
However, the body of Christ is not a differentiated institution at all. It encompasses the entire people of God in every aspect of their lives. It includes the institutional church but is hardly limited to it. It is synonymous with the kingdom of God or the City of God, as Augustine called it. It is more than formal liturgy and synodical assemblies. Like God’s ancient people Israel, the church as corpus Christi is mandated to serve God and neighbour in every calling and cultural setting, and not just in the institutional church. In this sense the church’s mandate encompasses also the state’s mandate to do public justice, the family’s task of raising children to assume adult responsibilities, and the business enterprise’s vocation to be a steward of creation’s potential, among many other legitimate activities. The task of the corpus Christi is thus not institutionally delimited but is bound by the central divine command to love God and neighbour in every area of life (Matthew 22:37-40).
Many Christians lose sight of this fundamental distinction between church institution and corpus Christi. Nevertheless, recognizing it will enable us better to comprehend how our membership in Christ’s body impacts obedient living across the full spectrum of human activities, without in any way deflecting the institutional church from its divinely-mandated mission.
March 27th, 2010 | 8:36 am | #1
I would go a step farther and say that for most people the institutional church is the corpus Christi. The irony is that we just don’t see anything resembling the institutional church anywhere in Scripture, whether in its Protestants, Roman or Orthodox iterations. In turning the fellowship of the saints into an institution, the church has lost the fundamental meaning of what it means to be the church. The great error of the Reformation is that it left ecclesiology more or less “un-Reformed”.
March 27th, 2010 | 8:45 am | #2
Thanks for a thought-provoking post. I myself am inclined to side with Arthur in the sense of trying to find a way to affirm that the institutional church is the body of Christ. And, as a Pentecostal, I wonder if one of the ways to make this happen is by an ecumenical discussion about charisms since they form the basis for offices. Does the Spirit not create enduring offices by continuously bestowing charisms on each generation in and through the church’s sacramental and doctrinal existence? This, at least, to my mind is how I can affirm an enduring role of the episcopacy. I am, obviously, from a wing of the Pentecostal movement with bishops.
March 27th, 2010 | 11:09 am | #3
“The irony is that we just don’t see anything resembling the institutional church anywhere in Scripture”
Well, they had regular meetings with regularly scheduled readings, communions, baptisms, ordinations, etc. They had a hierarchy of officials (pastors, bishops, etc.). They had outreach to distribute food and take care of widows and orphans. They had church councils to determine doctrine (Acts 15).
They didn’t have the full-blown institutional Church, but they did have the early family resemblance. Either I’m simply disagreeing with you or am I missing your meaning?
March 27th, 2010 | 11:32 am | #4
“trying to find a way to affirm that the institutional church is the body of Christ”
Jesus said that the wheat and the tares would grow together until the final division. Could we not affirm the institutional Church as the visible Body, and leave the spiritual final judgment up to the Lord?
Of course, this distinction would need to be taught carefully, so as not to leave people in presumption, on the one hand (“At least I know I’m one of the truly saved, as opposed to these other folks”), or false security, on the other (“As long as I’m a church member, I’m okay”).
March 27th, 2010 | 12:41 pm | #5
David Koyzis: “the church as corpus Christi is mandated to serve God and neighbour in every calling and cultural setting, and not just in the institutional church. In this sense the church’s mandate encompasses also the state’s mandate to do public justice, the family’s task of raising children to assume adult responsibilities, and the business enterprise’s vocation to be a steward of creation’s potential, among many other legitimate activities. The task of the corpus Christi is thus not institutionally delimited but is bound by the central divine command to love God and neighbour in every area of life (Matthew 22:37-40).”
David, are you familiar with the arguments against your position?
FWIW, I don’t take an exception to your argument, but I know those who do. And some of them take vehement or staunch exception to your arguments.
March 27th, 2010 | 1:08 pm | #6
Great. Post.
March 27th, 2010 | 3:37 pm | #7
TUAD, what are these arguments? Who makes them?
March 27th, 2010 | 10:31 pm | #8
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March 28th, 2010 | 10:01 am | #9
Craig, the parable of the wheat and tares is not speaking about the church, it is speaking about the world…
Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. (Mat 13:36-39)
I don’t understand why people constantly try to apply this parable to the church.
The problem is that the institutional church defenders read our church traditions back into the Scriptures as if the early church had hour long services on Sunday morning with pulpits and pews. They devoted herself to prayer, we pray on Sunday mornings. They had elders, we have professional pastors. See we are just like the early church. Except that the early church was more of a family and the institutional church is more like a club that meets a couple of hours a week.
March 28th, 2010 | 11:53 am | #10
I would think a great deal of the institutional face of the church would reflect the gifts/ appointments/ officeholders determined by the Holy Spirit, and would not be at our disposal to set up or remove as Arthur suggests.
March 28th, 2010 | 1:13 pm | #11
Since Max Weber there has been a persistent tendency to play off institution and charisma as if one necessarily precludes the other. I am currently grappling with Weber and his interpreters in my current project on authority and the imago Dei. I have just come across an interesting discussion in Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology about this issue with respect to the authorship of the pastoral epistles. Because I Timothy reflects a certain concern for offices within the institutional church, many scholars now assume that Paul could not have authored it. Why? Because the early church had not yet seen a “routinization of charisma,” which this book presupposes.
I recall in my youth having a discussion with a slightly older man who believed that denominations were bad and was thus part of a church that claimed not to be a denomination. Even at the time this struck me as entirely disingenuous. Of course this church body simply became another organized denomination. When human beings come together, they organize and create specific offices within the organization. This is quite simply how we human beings were created. To deny this is to deny reality.
My sense is that Sido and others have too easily bought into the Weberian paradigm, which is hardly beyond critique.
March 28th, 2010 | 3:09 pm | #12
There are a lot of issues here that don’t easily translate from the first to the twenty-first century.
1. Because Christians met in house churches until toward the end of the second/beginning of the third century, it is much easier to talk about intimacy, hospitality, and family (although there was plenty of fighting among those ‘families’ if Paul’s letters tell us anything).
2. The arguments I have read recently against Pauline authorship of the Pastorals has to do with clearly defined offices more so than routinization of charisma. If the anonymous prophet, John, who compose the Apocalpyse is suggestive of what is happening toward the end of the first century in Asia Minor, then there is no routinization here. One might add the Shepherd of Hermas here, which is also a prophecy, and the Ascension of Isaiah text, which is about prophecy. In short, the charismatic dimension of Christianity is all over the place in my view, and this continues for some time (think about the New Prophecy/Montanism emerging in the 160s).
3. Thus the argument against Pauline authorship turns more on the observation that between the 30s and 70s, all the documents we have do not suggest offices. This is also contingent on the dating of other books like Acts of the Apostles, which would be dated after 70 and the fall of Jerusalem even though it narrates events from circa 30-60.
4. Anti-denominationalism is one of those deep ironies of history to my mind. The term denomination was first applied by Presbyterians, Baptists, etc., in the early 1700s as a way of legitimizing themselves in England. They were not the establishment church, which was the CofE, and they did not want to be identified as a “sect” for obvious reasons (sects did not fair too well since they had no legal standing and were looked upon pejoratively). By the late 1800s in the US, the very churches that first took the tag denomination were being viewed as “establishment churches.” Thus anti-denominationalism is really anti-establishment, whatever the established church happens to be. I really think learning the history of these discussions helps, but then, I am a historian so I’m pretty biased here.
To my mind, to speak of the church as an institution is simply to speak of the church as a visible body. The distinction that David wants to draw strikes me as being close to the visible/invisible church distinction that Reformed theologians wanted to draw based on their doctrine of election. The invisible church just are the elect wherever they may be. This is not t say that David is Reformed because I don’t know, but that distinction has held for a long time in Evangelical circles. I myself don’t care for it, and would prefer to say that the visible body of Christ is the people and their occupation of offices. You’ve got to have an institution that preserves doctrine for the sake of discipleship if nothing else.
March 28th, 2010 | 4:20 pm | #13
“I don’t understand why people constantly try to apply this parable to the church.”
Dear Arthur, The “church” interpretation is at least plausible, and to my mind the most persuasive. The wheat and tares parable is introduced by Jesus as, “The kingdom of heaven is like….” It is contained in a series of similar parables designed to illustrate God’s Kingdom. Jesus then explains the parable: the angels “shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity.” It appears that these iniquitous people are in God’s kingdom before being separated.
How can that be possible? Plausibly, it is possible because God’s kingdom on earth is not only the spiritually redeemed, but the visible institution, which contains both Christians and non-Christians who look like Christians (the tares).
This interpretation is brought out by the other parables in the same chapter, such as the story of the net bringing in “every kind” of fish; the good and bad are separated only at the judgment.
For your broader point, I guess I would just repeat something said earlier: New Testament Christians didn’t have the full-blown institutional Church, but they did have the early family resemblance.
March 28th, 2010 | 4:24 pm | #14
Dale Coulter writes:
Not so. The distinction between visible and invisible churches is that which Augustine made in recognizing that not everyone within the visible institution is necessarily a truly believing Christian. Even the Roman Catholic Church would recognize that going through the motions every sunday while living as one pleases the rest of the week is no guarantee of salvation.
The distinction I have made here has nothing to do with that between elect and nonelect. It has everything to do with recognizing that Christians live their lives to the glory of God within the gathering body, with its proper liturgies, polity, &c., but are no less members of Christ’s church in their other activities as well. That is to say that the body of Christ is as extensive as everything we do and say, whether under the auspices of the local church body or in some other communal setting, such as the business enterprise, educational institution, labour union, &c.
I would put it this way: labour + leisure + liturgy = life. And all are to be lived to God’s glory.
March 28th, 2010 | 5:00 pm | #15
I would say “Amen” to David’s comments in #14. I agree with what you say wholeheartedly, especially when you say, “…labour + leisure + liturgy = life. And all are to be lived to God’s glory.” I may take Communion at my church during the Sunday Liturgy, but if the rest of my life outside that Liturgy is not lived for the glory of God, my faith means little. This same argument that David makes in comment #14 was also made by Alexander Schmemann, an Orthodox priest, in For the Life of the World.
March 28th, 2010 | 5:07 pm | #16
David,
I see. Thanks for the clarification. After I wrote that statement I thought it was probably a stretch, but then, I can’t edit my posts on here so it had to remain.
I take it, and please correct me if I’m misreading you a second time, that the distinction is important for you in order to extend the ecclesial identity to all Christian activities. Christians are always the body of Christ whether gathered together or not, is that it?
It’s an interesting move so I reiterate my original comment about it being thought provoking. I’d have to think about what one might lose when making such a distinction as opposed to talking about the church as a visible body with a visible structure to it, and then speaking of the church’s mission in the world as the extension of the members of that body to bring the kingdom. I don’t think kingdom of God and body of Christ are the same.
Another issue for me, and I’m thinking “aloud” here, is that I’m wondering how your way of defining body of Christ fits with church militant and church triumphant ideas. The one mystical body of Christ includes both right?
March 28th, 2010 | 5:25 pm | #17
I might clarify the last comment. I assumed that the invisible/visible distinction on the Catholic view had to do at least with the fact that the church triumphant was part of the invisible body of Christ, which is the communion of the saints in heaven and earth, even if no longer part of the visible body on earth.
March 28th, 2010 | 6:30 pm | #18
Dale, you write:
Precisely!
As for the church triumphant, I must admit to a degree of agnosticism as to the intermediate state between death and general resurrection, primarily because scripture itself is vague on the issue. Nevertheless, I would agree that the body of Christ must include both believers on earth and those who have passed from this life, recognizing that we will all be united when Jesus comes to bring his kingdom to fulfilment at the end of the present age.
As a Reformed Christian I do not, of course, accept the invocation of the saints, but I do believe that we must attend to the lives and writings of our forebears in the faith, much in the fashion of Chesterton’s famous democracy of the dead.
March 29th, 2010 | 11:52 pm | #19
Can anyone give me a sense of why ‘making disciples’, is not considered one of the basic tasks of the church? As I have mediated on John 13-17 the last year, it seems to me that Jesus work(task) of making disciples who could make disciples was one of the key ways that Jesus wanted us to ‘love one another as I have loved you’
March 30th, 2010 | 7:49 am | #20
“Can anyone give me a sense of why ‘making disciples’, is not considered one of the basic tasks of the church?”
Not considered by whom? I don’t know of any Christian group which does not consider making disciples one of the Church’s basic tasks.
March 30th, 2010 | 8:26 am | #21
Making disciples is a task which is not distinct from the three marks of the church I mentioned in my post; the latter are simply ways in which the church as institution fleshes out this task. I would further argue that the task of being disciples logically comes before making disciples, and this is something which belongs to the corpus Christi in every walk of life.
March 30th, 2010 | 9:48 am | #22
Ironic, is it not, that on an evangelical blog no one has really tried to test Koyzis’ distinction by Scripture. I, for one, would want to dissent. For example, in attempting to correct excesses in the infant church at Corinth, Paul addresses this “institutional” congregation as the body of Christ, most intensively in I Cor 12. Notable is that the discussion there is exactly one of order. I have often wondered, as a Reformed Christian myself, if perhaps in identifying the marks of the church, the omission of love alongside the more practice oriented criteria of doctrine, sacraments, and discipline don’t create the real climate for David’s “key distinction.” In any event, I find it hard (perhaps impossible) to find this distinction in the pages of Holy Scripture. It might turn out to be a useful heuristic or analytical device, but it cannot turn out to be “key,” and I suspect would ultimately lead us astray in our thinking about ecclesiology.
March 30th, 2010 | 10:24 am | #23
Mr. Trevethan:
Reread what I wrote above:
. . . including the institutional church.
March 30th, 2010 | 4:05 pm | #24
As for finding the distinction between church as institution and church as body of Christ in the pages of scripture, you are looking in the wrong place. May I assume you would not deny the distinction between (institutional) church and state, which the US Constitution presupposes? Yet one would be hard pressed to find it in scripture, which was written in the context of a less differentiated society than our own. I am here appealing to our powers of observation of social realities, not endeavouring to articulate a theological doctrine as such. However, I think the distinction I propose above does help us to sort through some dilemmas that might otherwise seem insoluble. I can go into detail, if you’d like.
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