There is a perception that Evangelicalism is deeply individualistic – the gospel is all about personal faith, your conversion story, your relationship with Jesus. And this can be a real danger for us. But it is not what we aim at.
Integral to the gospel is God’s work of creating a people for himself, called out of the world and drawn together in unity by his grace. This is the story of Israel, the genealogical descendants of Abraham called out to be the Old Covenant people of God. And this is the story of the Church, descendants of Abraham by faith called out to be the New Covenant people of God.
So while there is a deeply personal and voluntary emphasis in the gospel there is no room for individualism. We are incorporated into Christ by faith, but this is incorporation into a people, God’s people, the Church.
“The one holy universal church is the Body of Christ, to which all true believers belong.”
What are we affirming in this statement?
This statement resembles the creedal confession of “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” While it doesn’t use the words ‘catholic’ and ‘apostolic’, it gives a distinctly Protestant expression of catholicity and apostolicity – identifying the true church as encompassing “all true believers” not merely one particular institution.
“The one holy universal church is the Body of Christ”
Oneness – There is only one Church, united across both time and place. According to Paul, we all were baptised by the same Spirit into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). This means actual spiritual union with each other, even where visible divisions are prominent (just as they were in Corinth). These divisions are the tragedy of a single divided family – not separate families or tribes – divisions that we look forward to being permanently healed when Christ returns.
Acknowledging this oneness calls us to generosity and unity wherever possible in the present. Secondary differences are rightly expressed in denominations and different congregations within cities and towns. However, we should recognise these as expressions of the one true church and seek to be visibly one in as many ways as possible even as these differences persist (cooperating in evangelistic and compassionate ministries in a variety of contexts, e.g. CUs).
Holiness – This is as much an aspirational descriptor as it is a present reality and a future promise. The Church is set apart for God’s purposes, “a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.” (Deuteronomy 26:19). This reality fuels the aspiration to live accordingly – “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do” (1 Peter 1:15). And as we pursue that ideal, our glorious hope is that God will sanctify his Church to present her pure and blameless before him on the final day (see Revelation 21).
Universality – In the Church, God incorporates people from all nations, social spheres, men and women alike. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28) The Church is also called to be everywhere, bearing witness to Jesus (Acts 1:8). The way that the gospel expresses itself in the gathered Church is adaptable to any cultural setting. Therefore, the Church is called to be both hospitable and missional.
Body of Christ – Whoever God may call to lead different churches in different times and places, the Church is subject ultimately to its head, Christ. Just as the body is made up of many different parts working together, the Church is diverse in background and gifting (see 1 Corinthians 12). As Christ’s body, the Church is the concrete expression of Christ acting in the world – his ambassadors and commissioned agents to do good and proclaim the good news.
“to which all true believers belong.”
The Church is not merely its visible expressions, nor primarily an institution. It includes all believers, even those in errant expressions of the Church – belonging to the Church is not dependent upon an infallible human organisation, but upon union with Christ. Thus we can recognise the Church even beyond the bounds of institutional Evangelicalism or even beyond who we can cooperate with for evangelism.
Nevertheless there is also an emphasis upon apostolicity as we consider “true” belief. There is core content to the faith passed down from the apostles through Scripture by which someone is united to Christ.
Recognition of our belonging to the body of Christ which is the Church is motivation to deep involvement with the Church in its visible, local, congregational expressions. Not that belonging to ‘a church’ makes you a Christian, but being a Christian compels you to engage with, serve, commit to, and draw life from the body of Christ in concrete, local, embodied ways. We commit to our local congregation because we’re committed to the universal Church and that is where this commitment finds expression on a human scale.
Where is this challenged or a challenge when studying theology at university?
It can be difficult to commit to a local church while you’re studying theology for a variety of reason. The teaching doesn’t seem as deep, exciting or stimulating as your lectures. Mid-week small groups are tame compared to your seminars and tutorials, no one seems that interested in the theology that you’re finding profound at both an intellectual and spiritual level. The significant and sometimes deeply disturbing challenges that you face in theology appear to be dismissed, naively handled, or even just inappropriate to bring up at all at church. Your pastor keeps saying ‘Paul’ rather than ‘the author’ when preaching through 1 Timothy and it’s really getting to you. You get the picture.
Overcoming these challenges:
Instead of critiquing the theology or lack thereof in the preaching of your church, recognise what and who preaching is primarily for. In his article, Listening Well to Preaching, Timothy Ward writes,
"Preaching is not primarily for the teaching of the content of the Bible … not primarily for education in doctrine and theology … not primarily talk about Christ ... It is primarily a word from Christ - a central means that Christ has ordained for presenting his gospel and his very self to us through the preacher.
Recognise that the value of being at church goes far beyond receiving good ‘content’. It is participation in the body of Christ, one of the best places to learn love for those who are unlike you, to expose your own pride and selfish motives and to be shaped more like Christ.
This requires that we learn humility! It takes humility to recognise your own blind spots and naivety. It takes humility to persevere in loving a community full of people unlike you. It takes humility to sit under the same teaching as everyone else in church. Humility is the preeminent Christian virtue, learn it well.
Seek to use your theological learning to serve the church. Whether this is some ‘official role’ or simply contributing as helpfully as you can in your small group, this is a healthy practice for any theology student.
Make good use of the ‘third space’ of your Theology Network hub. While there will be people in church who sincerely want to listen to your theological struggles and help you through them, there will be challenges and doubts that are best dealt with in a space between the academic and Church worlds. Engage well in your Theology Network hub with the view to free yourself up to be active and engaged in church.
Which 'One True Church'?
One other challenge may be the pull to Rome or the East, especially as they make powerful and exclusive claims to be the ‘one true Church’. It’s easy to feel intimidated by these claims, or feel compelled by the apparent weight of history behind them, especially coming from a church background with typically under-thought or at least under-taught ecclesiology.
However, there are plenty of good reasons for a robust historic Protestant view of the Church. Protestants have as much claim to tracing our roots back to the early church as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, and the primary task in the mind of Reformers like Luther and Calvin was not departure from but a return to the historic Christian faith represented in the Church Fathers.
There are far too many detailed issues to get into here, but one good resource for wrestling with this is Gavin Ortlund’s ministry, Truth Unites, in which he addresses all the major Roman Catholic and Easter Orthodox arguments against Protestantism.
How does this help us do Evangelical Christian theology better?
The Church is the community which forms the proper context for Evangelical theology. Theology is done by the people of God and for the people of God in their inward and outward facing aspects. That is, good Evangelical theology is directed by the real life concerns of the people of God as they seek to live for him, and it is directed towards equipping the Church to live for the glory of God and bear effective witness to the world. Thus theologian Graham McFarlane argues that this dual-aspect community of the inward-and-outward-looking church is necessary for theology to have any life bringing power, any relevance to a dying world. Without the Church it just remains an ivory tower exercise. (See Graham McFarlane, A Model for Evangelical Theology, 203-236).
Evangelical theology will also learn to recognise Christ’s voice speaking across the whole Church, not just in Evangelical corners. This means attending to historic voices not just contemporary writers. It means attending to Global South theologians not just Western thinkers. It means attending to thinkers outside the Evangelical fold. The Bible is not limited to any one denominational expression, we have no exclusive claim on Christ speaking – even if we make confident claims to faithfulness to the core of the gospel. Christ speaks powerfully throughout his whole Church wherever Scripture is read. We should attend to and critically engage with theology from across the entire breadth of the Church, attentively listening to Christ’s voice wherever he is heard speaking. (See R. B. Jamieson and Tyler Witman, Biblical Reasoning, 48).
Next Up: Final Judgement and Eternal Glory
Taking it Further:
- Catholic and Evangelical Without Contradiction
- What is a Church? What is a CU?
- Should we blame the Reformation for secularism? Matthew Barrett and Samuel G. Parkison
- What is Reformed Catholicity? Matthew Barrett and Ronni Kurtz
- Why did Calvin think the Fathers were on his side? Matthew Barrett and Ronni Kurtz
