The Church as Process

Introduction

This essay is an exploration of the thesis that what makes the Christian church “the church” is a process. Three essential factors belonging to this process are:
• The gathering and sharing of different voices and texts;
• The question, “Where is the gospel of Jesus Christ in this?”; and
• The use of this question in repeated self interrogation.

Taking this position of course has some immediate implications, the most obvious being that this is an ecclesiology “from below” and therefore stands against doctrinal positions about “the church”, which dominate many of the discussions in the academic and ecumenical world. It is an approach that intentionally destabilises the judgements about church which are being used as common ground in these discussions.

It is also a typically feminist approach to take and as such holds its own risks. The main being that the circularity and pluralism of its form means in the end we all may just end up tired, but not particularly satisfied. However, this essay self consciously includes judgements about church and recognises that judgements can be made. However, if the concept of church is intrinsically linked to process then characteristics of identity can be named, described and owned by an ecclesial community, but these characteristics cannot be fixed as pointing to the “character” of the church. As an illustration, the practice of ordained ministry within the Christian community will be examined.

Explaining the process

The gathering and sharing of different voices and texts

Gathering and sharing are terms used to indicate the inherent communality of the process. If there is no gathering “with intent”, there is no church.

However the concepts of gathering and sharing are also designed to be read as continuous. The church as a public, corporate and visible presence, may well characterise the church, but cannot be used to define the church. Unless that which is public, visible and corporate is caught up in gathering and sharing with the “other” it becomes an exclusive entity, and is no longer able to be made as church. Conversely, those that gather covertly for Christian sanctuary and witness in times of persecution for private and invisible communion may well be church.

The gathering and sharing has to be with “the other;” a point emphasised by Anita Monro when she reflects that seeking understanding about identity cannot be achieved through self-referenced reflection only. To do so risks self-destruction. The gathering and sharing of “different voices and texts” refers to the multiplicity, ambiguity and difference of those elements that are used to create social identity.

To identify continuous gathering and sharing of different voices and texts as the first part of the process invokes the catholicity of the church. No voice or text is considered out of bounds in making church, and the “gathering and sharing” is understood as an eternal process.

The question

The second part of the process is a reference question. The point of reference is the gospel of Jesus Christ; which is the reality which invites a response. While the response will necessarily locate itself in the Christian milieu; the response itself does not make church.

Instead, gathering starts when the question is asked and the process begins. Because it is a question, it can be asked in the diverse places which occur in the experience of gathering. A question can remain an impetus for conversation and theology gets done as part of the making of the church.

Implicit in the gathering of different voices, is the understanding that the answers to the question are likely to be as diverse as those who are gathered. The concept of the process allows for those differences to ebb and flow as part of the making of church. Theology can be undone and redone. Through this question the apostolicity of church is invoked.

Continuous self- interrogation

Finally, the question must also be understood to apply to those who are gathering and sharing. Without re-evaluating its own relationship to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the church fails to be made as church. The continuous need for self consciousness in the gospel of Jesus Christ is essential.

It is continuous so that each new voice or text introduced in the gathering participates in the process. As the gathering is an eternal process, so is the questioning and calling out of self-identity. In this way the holiness of the church is invoked.

Ordination as an illustration
A short word on the practices of the church
While ordination is chosen to illustrate this thesis, it should be evident there will be no claim that the practices of the church are constitutive of the church. Instead the approach of Healey is adopted. He argues that while church practices are clearly part of the development of a person’s Christian identity they are not of themselves sufficient in forming this identity. Normative descriptions of such practices fail to account for the “intentions, construals and overlapping social contexts” of those who engage in these practices. Instead the Christian church must accompany its practices with a robust doctrine of the triune God, and even more importantly, a doctrine that does not bind the Holy Spirit to these practices alone.

Gathering and sharing the voices and texts
There are multiple, ambiguous and diverse voices and texts to be gathered on the issue of ordination. However, while only a few can be canvassed here, the thesis demands that if the church is to be made, the gathering of these voices must continue.

At this point in time, the notion of ordination within the church is still strongly associated with the leadership of the church. While no standard pattern for ordination within the early Christian community is discernable within the New Testament text, that there were leaders is in no doubt. The practice of ordination is derived therefore from an understanding that the Christian community can identify and name the leaders within its community.

Francis Sullivan gives a contemporary Roman Catholic account of ordination. When explaining the episcopacy, he states that those who are ordained are appointed by divine institution, the fundamental premise behind apostolic succession. Associated with this is the concept that the teaching ministry of the ordained is regarded as authoritative. Sullivan acknowledges with some sadness that this position is exclusive, but defends it as central teaching of the church appropriately derived from historical and theological understandings.

However, there also other voices on ordination within the Roman Catholic Church. For instance, the relatively recent work of Collins, based on the exegesis of the term diakonia, argues that the concepts of service and ministry are those which are close to the core of ecclesiology. Significantly, he also argues that the work of the “teachers” of the church referred to in Ephesians, is to equip “the saints for the work of the ministry,” a point which challenges to some extent the exclusive claims of the episcope.

The implications of Collin’s approach were foreshadowed in the discussion paper Baptism Eucharist and Ministry, (BEM) which was published by the World Council of Churches in 1982. This document, developed with the participation of Roman Catholic theologians, suggests that ministry belongs to the “whole people of God,” and that;
“In order to fulfil its mission, the church needs persons who are publicly and continually responsible for pointing to its fundamental dependence on Jesus Christ, and therefore provide, within a multiplicity of gifts, the focus of its unity.”
Apostolic succession is named as the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole. Thus, it is part of the ordering of the church generally, rather than tied to episcopal ministry alone.

Similarly there are a number of different approaches to ordination within protestant churches. Derived from Luther’s suspicion that there was little theological foundation for the ordained ministry, the protestant church rejected the claims of sacramental power associated with ordination. Instead ordination occurs at the intersection of an individual’s self conscious call to ministry, and the church as community acknowledging, affirming and legitimising that call.

Yet the theology behind ordination in protestant churches is diverse. For instance, the Uniting Church in Australia has developed a theology which reflects its own journey, so that women and deacons are ordained into ministry, with no consciousness of a distinction in the status of that ministry.

Finally, in contrast to those churches which maintain an ordained ministry as central to the order of their church, the Quakers do not ordain leaders at all.

Asking the question - Where is the gospel of Jesus Christ in all this?
It is clear that this question has been asked to develop the various approaches to ordination. Where is the gospel of Jesus Christ in the process of identifying and naming leaders within our Christian community?

The Religious Society of Friends answered the question with a theology that ministry was the responsibility of all, and the Holy Spirit can and will use anyone within the community for its purposes.

The World Council of Church has as its raison d’etre a theology of reconciliation. A specific theology of ordination is thus not their intention; instead the theology of reconciliation will drive their answer to the question. This approach allows it to claim that;
“Despite diversities of language and theology, mutual understanding can grow when people are willing to allow each other space to use their own language to describe themselves.”

The Roman Catholic Church has answered the question by naming the Holy Spirit at work in the ordering of the church. Sullivan’s theology is based on the reflection of tradition, so that the writings of Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen are used to confirm that bishops were the rightful successors to the apostles; and on the nature of the Holy Spirit which has guided the Church in the discernment of the biblical canon, and thus provided the written norm for the Christian faith.
Thus,
“While most Catholic scholars agree that the episcopate is the fruit of a post New Testament development, they maintain that this development was so evidently guided by the Holy Spirit that it must be recognized as corresponding to God’s plan for the structure of his Church.”

As a protestant church, the Uniting Church answers the question by saying that those who are called to ordained ministry are seen as responding to the gospel’s unambiguous message of the liberating love of God for all. Thus, determining whether a person is suitable to work in the service of God, on the basis of exclusion because of gender denies the fundamental reality that through Christ, all barriers to God are transcended. This theology is also implicit in the renewed understanding of the diaconate, which constitutes a break from the traditional understandings of the threefold order of ministry. In its document Affirmations on Ordination the concepts of ordination and ministry are framed as responses to the questions “How does God serve us, and how shall we live our lives in service of God?”

Self Interrogation
While it is clear that the question has been asked about the practice of ordination itself, the question as a basis of self interrogation is less distinct in the literature on ordination. However it appears to be there nonetheless.

The most obvious example is found within the World Council of Churches (WCC), whose self consciousness identity is found in the work of reconciliation. However, Monro has critiqued previous WCC documents on the nature and ordering of the church as displaying such a focus on the mission of reconciliation that they are steeped in a metaphorical environment that “does not embrace the contemporary confronting issues of multiplicity, ambiguity and diversity.” She writes that a platonic distinction between the ideal and the real leads to an approach which names the church as beyond ambiguity; while the divisions within the church are assigned to sin and the ambiguity of history. In other words an emphasis on the visible unity of the church may exclude other understandings of reconciliation.

In 2005 the WCC issued another discussion paper on the nature of the church. The document contains an emphasis on the process of self understanding as part of church’s service in God’s work of reconciliation. Self interrogation thus becomes part of the reconciling work of the WCC.

The diversity of opinion within the Roman Catholic approach to ordination is self evident. But self interrogation is also evident within the work of Sullivan in his distress at the distinction between “Church” and “ecclesial communities.” Despite a theological framework which involves authoritative teaching, he cannot reconcile the fact that those who have provided leadership in “ecclesial communities” have for centuries,
“…led numberless Christians to grace and salvation through the effective preaching of the Word of God and a fruitful pastoral ministry. I do not believe we have done full justice to such communities when we simply declare that they are not true churches in the proper sense.”

Within the Uniting Church, it is evident that self interrogation is occurring as a response to a number of voices being heard in relation to ordination and the practice of ministry. The context of the interrogation is the self-created tension between a particular theology of ordination and the church’s inherent commitment to ecumenism. That such a context requires judgements to be made is axiomatic, however as the judgements are made, the process of being made church does not cease.

The continual gathering of different voices is accompanied by the associated questioning of theology and status. One issue for the Uniting Church is the status of those ordained in evangelical or charismatic churches who do not subscribe to protestant practice. Thompson writes that the Uniting Church remains within a tradition which claims the church “does not lie in the continuity of particular forms or structures of church life and order but in the conformity of the whole church to the gospel.” The Uniting Church thus ordains people into the Church of God, the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. The irony is that apparently not every one else does.

Analysis
The practice of ordination illustrates a number of salient points in relation to church practices generally. These are:
• that the identity of “the church” is named by a range of different voices;
• that church practices have been developed which are based on different theological understandings of the identity of “the church” and become representative of “the church”;
• That it is the practices of the church which are held up and questioned in the formation of alternate theological definitions of “the church;” and
• That some entities, which are not named as “church,” actually are.

It is this mixture of self conscious naming of identity, theology and practice which informs the thesis that the church is made via process. This approach is not novel and is inherent in terms such as a pilgrim people ; or that of the journey along a path. Several writers explore the notion of church as being made and remade through the constant questioning of self-identity, theology and practice. Their theses are briefly outlined below.

Healey
The gospel of Jesus Christ is reflected in Healey’s appeal to remember that the nature of the Holy Spirit is not tied exclusively to the practices of the church. It is this theological approach that under girds the assertion that,
“It is not the church that is the Light of the World, except in a very derivative sense…We recall too that the Holy Spirit is itself free, not at all tied to the church. In the simplest terms God is the solution to the problems of the world, not the church. The church, although oriented to, and governed by the solution, still remains part of the problem.”

He names Aquinas as providing a model for the understanding that the church on its way is constantly required to re-examine its commitment to its practice. Healey writes
“All must be brought before the Son of Man to be tested, Thomas says, for
everything – doctrines, practices, we ourselves – all things in heaven and earth – are
to be made obedient to him (ST 3.59.4). The in via church and its members are subject to judgment.”

After drawing from the theology of Aquinas, Healey develops his own argument that the church which claims itself to be in via and passion oriented;
“must expect suffering, loss, confusion and betrayal to be our lot on earth, as it was for Christ and the apostolic community. Obedience requires self-judgement and discernment, but that is never easy since we do not possess a clear and securely established account of how we should follow Christ. To be sure, our guide must be the apostolic witness, and we must read scripture within the church. But while doctrines and practices guide our reading, they cannot issue in a settled interpretation. We must always begin with scripture and must always return to it again as we move along our way.”

Such an approach names significant elements to the creation of self identity, not the least that those who are on the journey are to test and retest the status of their characteristics through the lens of scripture.

Graessle
In a striking work, Graessle calls on the church to re-imagine itself for a moment without boundaries. She argues that maintaining an identity as church on the basis of doctrine, theology or practice leads to two likely outcomes. It can
“…choose to shut itself up in the deceptive cocoon of an identity turned in on itself, with its own frame of reference, code and language (this is the case of the most fundamentalist groups, from whatever church family they may originate). The church can also seek to be close to the surrounding culture in which it lives, while trying to preserve an identity which it thinks of as being radically different (this is the case of the main Christian institutions today).

Instead she argues that the time has for the church to enter into a place of passage. To do this, it might begin by rethinking the marks of the church, particularly the ecclesia notae “one, holy, catholic and apostolic.” Her suggested replacements are designed to alert the church to the oppressive interpretations it has put on the original terms. Thus the paralysing illusion of unity is replaced by plurality; the self absorption of holiness replaced with notions of solidarity with the poor; the burden of catholicity replaced with contextuality; and apostolicity relieved from its official history with the notion of witness.

The novelty of her approach is found in her willingness to question even the most stable images of church. Her point is that maintaining stable images as icons of the church, risks turning those images into idols. Thus for her the images of pesah and Easter are “two inaugural moments the passageway stood open from one to the other,” and become the metaphors for church.

Graessle’s approach is to open out new ways of speaking about church, developed through her journey with other voices and texts. The shock of the new becomes the opportunity to re-engage with the question, “Where is the gospel of Jesus Christ in this?”

Monro
It is new metaphors for church which also informs Anita Monro’s work. The concept of wetlands becomes the basis for naming church, and this together with a poetic reading of documents, and a nomadic attitude to seeking identity are the basis for her thesis.

She suggests that rather than appealing to a church’s origins as the means of gaining a clearer sense of self-identity, source material is regarded as an oasis in the hard slog through multiplicity, ambiguity and diversity. Such an approach acknowledges that “any entity or system is an interaction of forces and movements, a rich, complex, amorphous entity whose boundaries are only created in language.”

Her suggestions are based in a concern that the capacity of a church to hear, understand or acknowledge its reality is compromised by its own self referenced search for identity. As such, her argument is that if church was regarded not as a being with a centre or boundaries but as “but as a threshold, liminal moment, nomadic oasis, journey rather than a continuing city, we might begin to approach the complexity of the reality that is ours.”

Monro’s approach reinforces the notion of process, of the making and remaking of church that is required when walking through unstable wetlands

Grenz
Grenz writes about ecclesiology from a self consciously theological perspective. In a post-modern context his work is representative of a theological resistance to sociology.

While he acknowledges the usefulness of the sociological approach to church, he warns against its deterioration into foundationalism. Instead he argues that “theology, then, and not sociology as a scientific discipline, must emerge as the ultimate basis for speaking of the church community.”

His approach is that the task of theology is to “set forth” the mosaic of beliefs that lie at the heart of Christian community. In contrast to the other writers so far canvassed, his approach is to make judgements about the unique identity of church within a pluralist paradigm.

For him, the foundational claim of church is to be the community which names itself as belonging to God. Churchly self image is bound up in “a theological vision that sees the divine goal for humankind as that of being the bearers of the image of God who is triune.” From this approach he draws down those threads he argues are part of the constitutive narrative of the church community. These are made as a series of orthodox and dogmatic claims about church which are associated with the concept of journey.

Grenz’s approach illustrates the way that the traditional marks of the church are being rediscovered, reclaimed and renewed. While Grenz’s conclusion might be seen as the antithesis of the idea that church is being continually remade, his approach is an example of how voices and texts can be used and reused in the process of self identification.

Conclusion
In this essay I have attempted to explore the thesis that what makes the church - the church, is a process in which events and self identity are examined through the lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The process can be seen as a continuum and in this process the church will encounter even those things that are regarded as fixed, such as doctrine, practice and theology, and will question their very nature.

The practice of ordination read through this process illustrated the multiplicity of voices and texts associated with this church practice. It showed that changes in theological understandings are driven by a questioning in the light of the gospel. It showed that through self interrogation, it is possible to give new meaning to established practices. In this way the forming and reforming of the church’s self-identity occurs.

I have attempted to argue that limiting the understanding of church to any immutable form will in the end undermine church itself. Rather the self-identity of church belongs in the place of metaphor. To this end Monro provides the conclusion when she writes that wetlands theology refrains from seeking landfill to create solid ground – it is an “earthy, muddy, boggy slog.”

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