an ecclesial fly-by
I have to keep reminding myself, as do my fellow colleagues, that this is only an introductory course in theology and that everything is really a fly-by. It would take me several courses and a few months of pouring through each of these particular areas of theology that we are covering just to get a decent grasp of what is going on. The other thing about fly-by’s is once you’ve seen it, then there isn’t much to it after that. So after already having had a fly-by on ecclesiology, this one didn’t really interest me that much and I just found myself wanting to explore the cockpit, and hell maybe even fly the damn thing. Enough with the metaphor.
Daniel Migliore and Veli-Matti Karkkainen offer very good introductions to the issue of ecclesiology. Karkkainen’s is quite broad, and does a really good job of trying to broaden the types of ecclesiologies (Luthern, Free Church, Pentecostal, Ecumenical, etc) while Migliore works off of Avery Dulle’s models of church. When I first read Dulle’s work a few years ago, I was fascinated, especially with the Mystical Communion model. This particular model is good interms of having a spiritually centered community, but as Migliore rightly points out, the focus can become insular and self-oriented. What is lost is the missio dei and the role the church plays in that. So Migliore, after listing the pros and cons of each of Dulles’s models, rounds out his chapter on ecclesiology developing both the communion and the mission sides of the church and begins to imagine what those pieces might look like in a local church.
Migliore states, “…the nature of the church as essentially the beginning of new life in communion. Human life comes to completion by participation in and reflection of the triune love of God. As it participates in the love of God through Christ in the Spirit, the church becomes a sign and a provisional realization of the destiny of humanity and indeed of the entire creation.” This very much sounds like ‘kingdom of God’ speak to me, but he goes on to say that this is not meant to be identical to the reign of God, but merely be a witness to it. I’m am not sure I can buy this apparent ability to divorce our witness from our being, but Migliore also does what Dulles does not and that is tie in the mission of God as the other side of being the church. Toward the end of the chapter, he makes a case that mission of the church will take special care to recognize and care for the poor, which makes me believe is where he really wants to spend his time, which is unfortunate that he did not, because I think he is spot on. If this new community that he wants to us to realize is mystical and missional communion, but does not have a place for the poor in its life, then it is essentially useless.
An aside. Veli-Matti Karkkainen’s An Introduction to Ecclesiology is looking like a really good introduction to ecclesiology. If read with Avery Dulles’s Models of Church, you could have the makings of a really good beginning to studying the church. Are there any other good works out there that I should know about?
Up next:
Karkainen Part Two and Placher’s Essentials of Christian Theology Ch. 6