BLOG 9/14/16. DENOMINATIONS: ENIGMAS AND DISTRACTIONS

BLOG 9/14/16. DENOMINATIONS: ENIGMAS AND DISTRACTIONS

I would not be surprised but what denominations are one of the components of the whole ‘Christendom Era’ that is fading into obscurity. The emerging generation, which has little contact with the church in any form, is even more indifferent to whatever ‘denominations’ are all about. Of course any study of the church’s history is replete with embarrassing episodes of all kinds of strife, of bloodshed, and bitterness over what would appear to be minor points of doctrine, or ecclesiastical authority.

I also think that one has to factor-in, at the outset, what has been classically described as the already-but-not-yet understanding of the in-breaking Kingdom of God / New Creation, i.e., that Jesus did, in fact, come to inaugurate God’s eschatological “I will make all things new” Kingdom, but that it is not yet consummated, and is at present dynamically present in this very already-but-not-yet … ‘in process’ state of realization–this church. This means that we, who are its participants, are also in a state of already-but-not-yet realization, and often get ourselves into tangles as we insist on some state of perfection in understanding, or behavior, or practice that we don’t fully grasp.

It didn’t take any time at all before the infant church found itself with differences over its understanding of Jesus and the apostles, and in claims of authority, or in dealing with pathological personalities … and frequently coming to partially unsatisfying conclusions. In the post-apostolic period, in addition to some power-claims by the leaders of the church in larger centers, there were some very critical and necessary debates of the human-divine nature of Jesus Christ, … or of the church’s teaching on the Holy Trinity: God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There were determinative and helpful clarifications on the true humanity of Jesus, as well as his true divinity (these, alas, continue in different forms to this day!).

And while our written history focuses on such centers of Christian thought as Jerusalem, or Alexandria, or Rome, the church was spreading “like leaven” all along the boundaries of civilization, by men and women who had embraced the teachings of Jesus Christ and his saving role, and were contagious with it, and communicated it in life and conversation which flowed out of their having Christ living in them (mystery that such indwelling was, and is).

What we have in written records is that the church more and more was focused in the center of the Roman Empire, so that the church of Rome became pretty much the authority, which authority it secured with more and more ecclesiastical rules and  consequences, … so much so, that when (especially) in the middle ages some factors began to assert teachings, and questions, and practices that did not conform, the Church of Rome sought to suppress them. But once the ‘protesting reformation’ got loose, and the authority of Rome was renounced by many, there emerged coalitions, or denominations around some teaching or some influential/charismatic leader. So in post-Reformation Christendom, Pandora’s Box was opened all kinds of Christian denominations emerged, sometimes missionally and doctrinally constructive, … and sometimes not.

Now that era is fading fast. Denominations are a fading (and archaic) phenomenon, and Christian folk are much more embracing of each other. The reality is that God never calls us to be Roman Catholic, or Greek Orthodox, or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Pentecostal—no! God calls us to Himself through Jesus Christ, to be part of His New Humanity, and those of us who respond to that call belong to each other in the family of God, and are accountable to each other in that family relationship. What forms and disciplines the church in tomorrow’s world will take? —we’ll have to wait and see, but it will be focused on the life and teachings and mission of Jesus, i.e., it will be apostolic, and it will embrace all of those in every ethnic and cultural setting who are part of that, and in that sense it will be catholic.

http://wipfandstock.com/what-on-earth-is-the-church-14083.html

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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