Weird Ecclesiology

Every now and then I find it useful to pause and consider what I think about various topics. What is useful about it is that I separate my own judgment from what I have been told. I know what my church believes about ecclesiology, and I may even  have a pretty good grasp of what various other churches think.

But what do I think? The question takes in what I can fully endorse based on the limits of my own grasp of matters. It could be that a wiser man or a better informed one would have a better opinion, but that is not the issue here. What can I confidently affirm, with the light I possess at this point in my life?

The church, in the sense of the mystical body of Christ on earth, consists in Christians cooperatively using their spiritual gifts to advance the work of God's kingdom on earth.

And that is all. If there is more to it I can't see it. By implication, wherever you have Christians serving together in the Spirit and by their gifts, there is the church. The contrary is true as well. Let us say that the same group of Christians becomes corrupt in faith and practice and the spiritually empowered work of the gospel no longer goes forward. There, I would say, the true church, the mystical body, has disappeared.

Let us suppose again that the same church experiences a revival or renewal and once again the people are serving together in the gifts of the Spirit. Now the true church has reappeared. It disappeared when the Spirit was quenched and reappeared when he reignited.

Thus I read church history as a series of episodes of the mystical body of Christ appearing sometimes, disappearing at other times, in various times and places. A church may become apostate, foolish and dead, but the Spirit is always looking to manifest again with those who love him. You never know where true Christianity is going to break out, and at the same time, it is puzzling and heartbreaking to read how some strong and vibrant spiritual movements have shipwrecked their faith and become useless talkers.

You can think of this history as if you were watching from a mountaintop night by night and seeing campfires on the plain below. As the travelers and their camps progress on their journeys you observe that sometimes a campfire goes out and is not seen again, perhaps for a long time, and perhaps it never is relit. Sometimes, though, a new fire flares up in a place you don't expect.

Now, inasmuch as this is a very simple ecclesiology, and indeed I cannot imagine how it could be any simpler, it no doubt does not account for everything a fuller theory would. Moreover, mine is a functional definition as distinct from a forensic one. It does not attempt to define who the true Christians are, or which denomination is right, or anything like that. It merely specifies what the true church does, whenever and wherever it exists.