Recently my attention was drawn to a very good article by Nicholas Healy, “Ecclesiology and Communion.” I’ve found Healy’s work helpful for a while, but this article was particularly helpful in its diagnosis of some of the key problems of “communion ecclesiology” (something I have a lot of sympathy for, as does Healy), and the “new ecclesiology” (think the work of Stanley Hauerwas, George Lindbeck, William Cavanaugh, etc.).

One of the main points that the article presses is that the current emphasis in ecclesiology, both in its “communion” and “new” forms is a self-conscious attempt on the part of theologians to respond to the perceived threats of modernity, however those be construed. In the face of the evils of modernity many feel it necessary to assert the church as an alternative which solves or provides a way of overcoming these woes.

What is interesting about this is the way in which, in many of these theologians’ work, the church and its actions take center stage and eclipse theological reflection on the work of the Triune God in salvation. Rather than speaking of the free actions of the Son and Spirit the focus is solely on the church’s embodied communal practices which provide an alternative to modernity. Healy notes that this is distinctly different from premodern theologians such as Thomas Aquinas who tended to speak of the church on the basis of other doctrinal foci such as Christology, pneumatology, and soteriology. Now however the doctrines of God and salvation tend to only be used by these theologians to support their concepts of communion and practice. John Zizioulas definitely does this in his work where the Trinity is basically used as the ground of the ontology he pushes. You never get the sense in Zizioulas that the Triune God is actively doing things.

Healy wonders then, what all this means. Why did premodern theologians never feel the need to posit the church as a settled alternative to the world in their attempts to argue for the Christian faith? Healy raises the question of whether or not the current rush to establish a vibrant ecclesiology is in some ways tied up with a lack of confidence in the gospel. In the face of the perceived threats of the modern world in which Christianity is seriously questioned, do we feel that the only way to keep things going is by positing ourselves as a coherent whole that is able to outdo and overcome liberal modernity? Why do we feel compelled to posit the church as an alternative world in our attempt to argue for the Christian faith? Why do we feel like just talking about the free actions of Christ and the Spirit is somehow inadequate to the task? Healy suggest that “Perhaps the outrageousness of the gospel claims may seem less outrageous when they are placed within a critical account of the woes of modernity and how we may be saved from them” (p. 289).

In other words, there is a very real possibility that the instinct—which I share, mind you—to rely on the communal life of the church as a defense of Christianity against modernity is based on a lack of confidence in the gospel itself. If we get nervous about hearing about Jesus’s free actions and the Spirit’s independent challenges that he may bring to us from outsider ourselves, there’s a fair chance that this may well be the case. Paul insisted that “we proclaim not ourselves” (2 Cor 4:5). One wonders if, in the contemporary ecclesiological consciousness, we are being tempted to simply proclaim ourselves as the church rather than Christ as Lord. Its a point worth meditating on.