Entries (RSS)It seems to me, as a follower of Jesus Christ, that Christians have struggled mightily with being clear and consistent about what they mean when they use the word ”Church” and our history has not always helped us in this regard. For example, Christian history in medieval Europe during the fourteenth century is filled with less than sterling examples of this dilemma. Though of course many things occurred in the fourteenth century and it would be a bit of a stretch to characterize the entire century by a few events, I am going to anyway.
Two periods bracket Christian history in the fourteenth century: The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (BCC) and the Great Schism. Let’s just say that the former precipitated the latter and that the majority of the fourteenth century was dedicated to resolving the issues/events that spilled over from these two periods. The BCC was a period between 1309-1377 when the papacy moved its residence from Rome, Italy to Avignon, France. For the French pope Clement V this was not captivity, it was self preservation, but later popes looked back on it as a period when the church was held captive by the French Monarchy. The Great Schism was the direct result of the BCC when the European Christendom was eventually split between three popes, all excommunicating each other and dividing the church. I believe that this less than exemplary period offers us an opportunity to address what is meant when Christians talk about “Church”.
There is a sense in which it is appropriate to speak of the church as an institution if by that we mean that it is an historical entity, that it has leaders, and that over the centuries it has developed its own peculiar organizational structures and practices. But I do not believe that the church is primarily an institution and when it has tried to be one it has lost sight of its mission and purpose. You see by the fourteenth century it was becoming readily apparent that the church as an institution could not back up its universal claims of temporal and political power in medieval Europe. The BCC and the Great Schism were the practical consequences put into effect when the church failed as a temporal/political power, when it failed as a medieval institution.
So what is the church if it is not primarily an institution? If you read the New Testament long enough you realize that there is no verse, no idea, no indication that is possible for the followers of Jesus Christ to go to church. Practically speaking they have only two viable choices. They can either be church or not be church; they cannot go to church. Christians have through the centuries developed the bad habit of turning language about people in to language about places. Biblically speaking, church is a community. It is a people whose lives are intimately connected with the person of Jesus Christ and the story of his death and resurrection. The Church is a powerful, transformational community of broken, vulnerable people with leaders, organizational structures and practices developed over the centuries, but it is not an institution. It is not building churches that Christians have struggled with through the centuries, it is being Church.
