Explorations in Ecclesiology and Ethnography

Christian B. Scharen

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781467436960
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematische Theologie & Ethik

In Explorations in Ecclesiology and Ethnography Christian Scharen and several other contributors explore empirical and theological understandings of the church. Like the first volume in the Studies in Ecclesiology and Ethnography series, this second volume seeks to bridge the great divide between theological research and ethnography (qualitative research).The book's wide-ranging chapters cover such fascinating topics as geographic habits of American evangelicals, debates over difficult issues like homosexuality, and responses to social problems like drug abuse and homelessness. The contributors together model a collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach, with fruitful results that will set a new standard for ecclesiological research. Contributors:
Christopher Brittain
Helen Cameron
Henk De Roest
Paul Fiddes
Matthew Guest
Roger Haight
Harald Hegstad
Mark Mulder
Paul Murray
James Nieman
Christian B. Scharen
James K. A. Smith
John Swinton
Pete Ward
Clare Watkins

PART ONE

On Congregations and the Church

CHAPTER 1

On the Dynamic Relation between Ecclesiology and Congregational Studies

James Nieman and Roger Haight, SJ

Ecclesiology is presently responding to two sources of pressure from opposite directions. On the one hand, a more exact knowledge of the historical origins of the church and the variety of forms the church has assumed across its historical life challenge the idea of a normative ecclesiology. On the other hand, emergent churches in all parts of the world, particularly in Africa and Asia, sometimes appear to stand at the margins of being identifiably Christian. These two concerns intersect in the study of some congregations where broad doctrinal claims about the church are being tested by a realistic scrutiny of the concrete political and social dynamisms driving particular churches and the practices of actual congregations. Part of the liveliness of the discipline of ecclesiology today stems from an interaction between the desire to preserve the essential character of the church and the need that it adapt to new historical situations, between a normative concept of the church and the need that it become inculturated in the life of its members.

The foci of these two pressure points are addressed by two distinct subdisciplines of ecclesiology, the one pursuing a normative concept of the church, the other studying its historical manifestations, most concretely in congregational studies. Taking up these lines of force, this chapter develops a response to the following questions: How does formal academic ecclesiology relate to congregational studies, and vice versa? The chapter contains two parts. The first assumes the point of view of academic ecclesiology, and from that perspective theorizes on the relationship between these two ecclesiological subdisciplines. The second assumes the perspective of the discipline of congregational studies and reflects on how that field of study bears on the more general understanding of the church as such. The two probes into this relationship yield remarkably similar conclusions concerning the mutual relevance and influence that each discipline should have on the other in advancing a more holistic understanding of church.

Part 1: From the Perspective of General Ecclesiology

We begin this analysis of the relationship between general or formal ecclesiology and congregational studies from the broader vantage point of the former as distinct from the particular focus of congregational studies.¹ This part is divided into three sections. The first establishes further the methodological presuppositions from which these ecclesiological reflections arise. From that basis it formulates an understanding of the relationship between general ecclesiology and congregational studies in four theses. The third section will then test those theses by entering into dialogue with an earlier writing of James Nieman on congregational studies and ecclesiology on the specific topic of the marks of the church.

Ecclesiology from Below

This first foray into ecclesiological language, especially regarding presuppositions and method, is designed to lay out some of the presuppositions and principles in the study of the church that govern part 1 of this chapter. Ecclesiological method and language are far from standardized. Thus we begin by mapping the field on which this particular game will be played. This may be accomplished by a contrast between ecclesiology from above and from below and a consideration of some of the consequences that flow from a method that proceeds from below.

The phrases “from above” and “from below” in ecclesiology operate by analogy with their use in Christology. The key word in both terms is “from”; the phrases designate a point of departure and a method, not content. Christology from above begins the process of understanding the person Jesus Christ with statements of authority that name the confessional beliefs of Christians about Jesus Christ; these may be drawn from Scripture or from the classical doctrines about Christ; they are metaphysical in character. By contrast, Christology from below begins the formal process of understanding and explaining who Jesus Christ is by first focusing on the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth in history and the religious experience of him that led to the doctrinal interpretations. Christology from below begins with history and traces the genesis and development of christological belief. Although the point of departure of this Christology is historical, it concludes with equally confessional interpretations of Jesus and hermeneutical appropriations of them. The result is critical affirmation of Jesus as the Christ in whom is found God’s salvation.

The contrast in ecclesiology is analogous. In ecclesiology from above, understanding the church begins with and is based upon the authority of Scripture or classical doctrines. It usually presupposes a specific church. Its nature and qualities are characterized by biblical metaphors — “the body of Christ” is a good example. The origin of the church is construed in doctrinal terms with Jesus Christ as the founder, so that the ministries and corresponding structure of the church correlate with God’s will. By contrast, ecclesiology from below begins historically with a historical account of the genesis of the church beginning with the ministry of Jesus. In a critical historical account, Jesus’ role in the origin of the church is shifted from being founder to being the foundation of a church that comes into being later in the first century in the memory of Jesus and under the influence of the Spirit. Ecclesiology from below traces the gradual formation of the church during the first century, using historical and sociological categories and also recognizing the early church’s experience and testimony to the power of God in the whole movement, that is, its theological dimension. In contrast to the tendency of ecclesiology from above, ecclesiology from below notices the pluralism of church polities during the course of the church’s formation.

Much more should be said about the qualities of these two types of ecclesiology, but the point here is simply to stipulate that this whole chapter unfolds within the framework of an ecclesiology from below. From the perspectives of both authors, this method offers a more adequate approach in our historically conscious and theologically critical age. On that premise, we can lay down at least two qualities of a historically conscious ecclesiology that will have a bearing on the subject matter of this chapter.

First, an ecclesiology from below not only begins with history but also continues to attend to the existential historical community that calls itself church. The historical point of departure also remains as the consistent referent of what is said about the church. We know nothing of a heavenly church before grasping the church of history. The shift to a historical genetic base or starting point for understanding the church widens the field of vision. A historically conscious ecclesiology from below has to attend to the whole Christian movement. Ecclesiology through the ages and in particular after the Reformation has become a tribal discipline: each church has its own ecclesiology; each finds its own polity reflected in the New Testament; and so on. Against this trend, ecclesiology from below imposes on the ecclesiologist what may be called a “whole-part” optic. One’s own particular church is not the whole church, although the whole church in a theological sense is manifest in it; rather, the particular church is both authentic church and part of a larger embodiment of the church of which a single church is a part.²

A second quality of ecclesiology from below cautions against reductionism in a historical and sociological interpretation of the church. The data for ecclesiology include the empirical history of the genesis and development of the church and also the development of the beliefs of the community about its nature and purpose. The church in its beginnings and constantly through its history bears witness to the presence and power of God in its origins, development, religious life, and future. It lives in and by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit as the source of the transcendent energy that brought it into being and, as promise, sustains its life into the future. There can be no historicist or sociological reduction of the church in an ecclesiology from below to a merely human organization. The historical data include the confessional witness to a transcendent dimension of the church.

Four Theses on the Relation of General Ecclesiology and Congregational Studies

From the basis of an ecclesiology from below, we can now move to four theses that together broadly define the disciplinary relationship between general ecclesiology and the more focused discipline of congregational studies. The first thesis governs the others: it posits that the study of the church has to be simultaneously historical and theological. From this thesis flow the next three theses, which move in the following direction: on the supposition that the basic unit of the church is the congregation, one can say, broadly speaking, that congregational studies determine the object of ecclesiology. Even so, formal ecclesiology, appealing to theological data, determines the nature and purpose of this social institution. However, the normative theological claims about the church are chastened and measured by congregational studies. The relationship is thus interactive and dynamic.³

1. The study of the church must attend simultaneously to the historical and theological character of the church. A very first principle of ecclesiology deserving attention states that the church exists in a twofold relationship: it is simultaneously related to the world and to God. Because of this duality, the church must always be understood simultaneously in two languages: concrete historical language and theological language, sociological language and doctrinal language.⁴ With a moment’s reflection it becomes self-evident that the church exists in a twofold relationship to the world and to God. The point of making the distinction, then, lies in the attention it focuses on the difference between these relationships so that we can see clearly how they relate to each other. The two relationships coexist and mutually influence and condition each other. This has first of all a bearing on how we understand the church, both generally and at any given time and in any particular instance. On the one hand, the church cannot be understood exclusively in theological terms; on the other, it cannot be understood in exclusively empirical, historical, or worldly terms. The principle forbids any reductionist understanding of the church in either direction.⁵ Schleiermacher expresses the tension for understanding the church this way: a merely theological interpretation of the church would be empty and unreal; a merely historical interpretation of the church would miss completely its inner reality or substance.⁶

The twofold relationship that constitutes the church means that two sources of energy flow into the church, one coming from the world, the other coming from God. The twofold relationship to the world and to God should not be conceived as defining a stable state, passive and inert. The duality points to a dynamic interaction of nature and grace. The relationship of the church to God marks a line of power within the lives of the people who constitute the church and through them to the wider community itself. The same is true of the relationship to the world. Schleiermacher also describes these two interacting forces in the church with the perhaps misleading language of the “invisible” and “visible” church. He writes, “Thus the invisible church is the totality of the effects of the Spirit as a connected whole; but these effects, as connected with those lingering influences of the collective life of universal sinfulness which are never absent from any life that has been taken possession of by the divine Spirit, constitute the visible church.”⁷ But the visible aspect of the church should not be reduced to or equated with what is sinful. It includes the whole positive dynamics of history, society, and institution.

Schleiermacher is close to Schillebeeckx on this point. There is only one church, and it is an empirical, historical phenomenon. The Spirit of God released by Jesus the Christ is at work in this church, however, and the activity of God as Spirit sets up a tension between the drag of the sinfulness of the world within the church and the uplifting and divinizing effects of the Spirit. The term “invisible church” refers to all those effects, the sum total of them, that flow from God as Spirit. This distinction underscores that the church can never be reduced to a human organization and never romanticized with a theological language that leaves the organization behind. It also represents these two sides of the church as a dynamic interaction of forces. On the personal level, God’s Spirit or grace moves to open up the lethargic and egoistic dimensions of human freedom into self-transcendence and service of the other. On the social level, as water becomes sign or symbol of God’s action within human existence in baptism, so too the social-historical and institutional aspects of the church, which often appear to limit human freedom and confine the Spirit, can be transformed into platforms for genuine spiritual activity. According to the principles of sacramentality and accommodation, God acts in the world through creatures, human agents, and institutions.⁸

We began by distinguishing between ecclesiology from above and from below in order to clarify a perspective. The strategy is to distinguish in order to unite elements coherently. These principles put these aspects of the church back together again. We can now draw out some of the dimensions of this dialectical understanding of the church. On the basis of this tensive understanding of the church that exists in an interaction of two forces, one can derive some axioms for understanding the relationship between ecclesiology and congregational studies. The word “derived” is not used in the sense of an objective logical deduction. Rather, this co-construal of the elements constituting the church and regulating an approach to understanding suggests the three theses that follow.

2. Congregational studies ultimately specifies the object studied by ecclesiology. This statement is, in fact, contentious and would have to be argued ecclesiologically with churches that take the basic unit of the church to be the diocese or synod or some group larger than the congregation, but this argument can be made irenically.⁹ On the supposition that the church experienced most directly and existentially is the congregation, however, the discipline whose focus is precisely that empirical historical community provides the first definition of the ecclesial community. Congregational studies analyzes on the ground the primary referent or subject matter of ecclesiology. The larger church consists in various forms of communion among these basic churches. This thesis therefore does not undermine the fact that many churches define their basic units on the larger scale of the diocese or synod.

3. General ecclesiology, rather than field studies, determines the form...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction
• Part One: On Congregations and the Church
• Part Two: On Congregations and Worship
• Part Three: On Congregations and Society
• Index