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.
I suspect that the premoderns’ existence within Christendom may also affect their tendency to not focus on the church as a locus of activity. When everybody is in the church, it’s hard for the church to actively stand up over and against something else – that “something else” is at least nominally within the church. The current ecclesiologies reflect the contemporary disestablished state of the church, in which it is far more transparently clear that there are elements in society that are clearly outside the church.
This is not to say that there isn’t a legitimate point here, but I’m not so sure it would even be conceivable for the premoderns (or at least the Medieval ones) to run across these issues.
An excellent point.
I think that’s a good point… you can certainly make arguments like “up to this point, we’ve never had to worry about ecclesiology. Therefore we must be doing something wrong.” That might be right, but at the same time… we’ve never been here before. I think there are a number of historical contexts into which one might parachute and find well-meaning Christians saying things like “why do we have to worry about how many natures Christ had… can’t we just be confident in the Gospel?”
I think the issue boils down to how our situation in modernity ought to determine the shape of our theologizing. I don’t have an answer for that, but I think that’s where the answer lies, for whatever that’s worth.
Separately, I don’t think your example about the natures of Christ quite works here. Understanding the identity of Christ is the very stuff of the gospel in way that articulating our identity as the church is not. I think we risk losing any meaningful distinction between Christ and the church if this is unrecognized.
I think this is more true for Hauerwas than for Yoder or Cavanaugh (and there’s no way to extract Yoder from the “new ecclesiology”). That said, I don’t think it’s really as much of an issue as Healy seems to think.
Haven’t read the article, but based on your synopsis, Halden, I think Healy’s missed some key points. Christology, soteriology, and ecclesiology simply can’t be separated like this, particularly in Cavanaugh’s work. As I read them – and I’m an “evangelical,” mind you – part of the current state of things is a preoccupation with individualized piety, the “personal relationship with Christ” in which the claims of the gospel have for so long been couched in our culture. They respond to that by saying that such is a captive gospel without a robust ecclesiological embodiment. And as I read Scripture, that’s precisely what’s called for in the narrative.
I certainly wouldn’t mind if more attention was paid to the Triune God’s direct activity, but if we understand that such is in great part mediated to the world through the church – we are a priesthood after all – then I think we run into a false dichotomy. This is probably why I like Lohfink so much, too.
Great thoughts-and welcome since I have had my imagination captured by Lindbeck (and others similar) for awhile, and have found plenty of both devotional and bookish excitement there-but I have always wrestled with the ecclesiology therein, not from offense but in the usual criticism of “tribalism” that can be put on it.
Yet I noticed in many of my friends’ interaction with local churches (friends who were in some way ‘outside the church’ or very critical of it), there was a desire to see something beyond the “personal” realm mentioned, and a desire to see a church that did not necessarily have hi-tech, or trendy pastoral care as its main signifier, they actually were desiring some distinctive elements, even a “tribal” character
The real fear is there, when language comes in, as in Lindbeck, that many of the doctrinal functions of the Church are passed along in communal, learned forms: a grammar. This strays into a possible world (though i dont think it has to go there) of sheer inculcation of right beliefs vs. active participation of God in history. Yet most of the rest of his work actually helps the opposite: that the Gospel really is peculiar. Hauerwas is also obviously similar in this.
Yet it is a good question, and I am with you, i think the dichotomy is false, much of pragmatic ecclesiology is based on how effective our witness is by how we are shaping our communal life, and this is contained within the Gospel itself. So it might not be that “new ecclesiology” is slighting God’s direct activity, but simply magnifying a portion of what that is, namely, through the Church’s life to itself and the beyond.
I’ve found John Webster a wonderful read if one is looking for a theologian who believes in the priority and utterly sufficient efficacy of the triune God of the gospel. He is wary of communio ecclesiology and the attention to the practices of the church for just the reasons Healy seems to be suggesting. And I say all that, too, as one sympathetic in many similar ways.
Matt,
Can you recommend a book or an article where Webster expresses this wariness?
Thanks!
I’ll just chime in here. A really good article is found in his book, Word and Church entitled “Christ, Church, and Reconciliation.” Also his two part essay in Confessing God, “On Evangelical Ecclesiology” is helpful in understanding Webster’s postion.
Thanks for these sources, Halden. Looking forward to his book on Hauerwas.
I think someone like Rowan Williams is helpful here. Williams is strong on ecclesiology but not in a way that allows the church to settle down as the remedy to what is “out there.” His theology is shot through with an emphasis on the freedom of God’s act as well as the church facing judgment as it encounters the living God. Yet, he is able to develop a strong ecclesiology in which the church is called to be a visible, social alternative social reality who’s shape of living is to conform to the shape of the triune life; namely, gift.
Good point.