Having already touched on the previous question of how conceiving of the church as apocalyptic informs our understanding of church discipline, here is my response to Steve Long‘s second question regarding the issue of the church’s common confession:
Does the Church as apocalyptic event recognize the need for a common confession such that anyone who could not confess the Nicene Creed should not be baptized?
In thinking about this question, it seems to me that the question of conceiving the church apocalyptically does not directly bear on the question of creedal prerequisites for baptism. Indeed, the relation of creedal confession to the proper subjects of baptism is far more of a conflict between peadobaptist and free church traditions, and to my reading has no direct correlation to whether or not one adpots an “apocalyptic style” in doing theology (see David Toole, Waiting for Godot in Sarajevo for a discussion of doing theology in an “apocalyptic style.” Note also that Toole is Roman Catholic.).
However, having said that, I do think that an apocalyptic conception of the church does strongly orient ecclesiology towards highly prioritizing creedal confession. From an apocalyptic perspective, the church has its being precisely in its pneumatic orientation to the prior event of God’s invasion of the cosmos in Jesus’s death and resurrection. Our existence as God’s people is solely due to our reception of God’s agape, as poured out in Christ’s victory over the powers of death. As such, the participation of persons in the liberating reign of God, of which the church is a sign, sacrament, and foretaste, can only be realized on the basis of truthful confession of the lordship of Christ. Thus, for a church that understands itself apocalyptically, truthful confession regarding the nature of Jesus’s lordship and the character of the triune God is of the utmost centrality. For it is only in our acknowledgement of the truth about Christ that we are, by the Spirit freed into sharing the life of Christ’s apocalyptic victory over the powers.
So, in sum, given that an apocalyptic understanding of the church places its emphasis consistently on the priority of God’s invasive and transformative action in Christ’s history, truthful confession is of the utmost importance. What is central to the church’s apocalyptic identity is what God has done in Christ and the Spirit. The Creed serves as a truthful codification and narration of God’s prior divine initiative, to which we bear witness. As such, from the perspective of apocalyptic ecclesiology, confession of the Creed is of the utmost importance, both in terms of doxology and mission. For it is in proclaiming the truth about Christ’s lordship and the divine nature that we respond rightly to God in the form of worship. Likewise, this very movement of doxology is coextensive with the church’s missional existence which is solely concerned with our call to “proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9).
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