PROTESTANT THOUGHT IN THE LAST GENERATION HAS BECOME INCREASINGLY AWARE OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CHURCH and of the need of a right doctrine of the Church. This does not mean that it is turning back to the Roman identification of Church and Christianity or moving toward a "high church" doctrine. In part this is due to the world crisis of our day, a crisis marked by two world wars and the threat of a third, by the rise of fascism, the influence of whose ideas has not disappeared with the passing of Mussolini and Hitler, by the even greater threat of communism, and by a permeating spirit of secularism. All this has brought the realization that only a Christianity united in witness and action can successfully oppose this tide of false faiths and evil forces.

The new ecumenical movement has been in part motivated by this situation, in part by a deeper appreciation of the significance of the Church in Christian life and history. At the same time it has compelled a rethinking of the doctrine of the Church. For it is the doctrine of the Church, with the related matters of ministry and sacraments, which constitutes the point of widest difference in the effort to get together.

The Nature of the Church

Rightly to understand the nature of the Church and its function we must see it in history and study it in its relation to God's purpose and his way of working. Here again we must keep in mind that Christianity is an organic whole and a living movement, not a composite of Scripture, doctrines, ritual, and ethics, comprehended in an institution. In this divine-human movement the Church is a vital part. It would be wrong to say that Church and Christianity are the same; it is simple fact that Christianity and Church are inseparable in idea as in history.

Christianity is the religion of a fellowship. That is true of individual Christianity. John Wesley put it rightly: "The Bible knows nothing of solitary religion." It is even more clear when we look at Christianity as a whole, in history and in the world. The group aspect, or social nature, of Christianity follows from the fact that it is historical and ethical, and this roots in turn in the nature of God. God works in history. That means that he works with a people and through a people. Only so can his work have continuity and growth; only so can the heritage of truth and life be handed on and the full end reached at last—the redemption of all life, inner and outer, individual and social. The ethical nature of Christianity points the same way. Religion means love, righteousness, service; these can be achieved and expressed only in social relations. As religion rises in the scale, as it becomes more spiritual and ethical and inclusive, the group aspect will undergo corresponding change. The empirical Church will become more ethical and spiritual, more truly one in spirit and form. But its place in Christianity will become more significant, not less.

1. The Church of the New Testament, like the faith of the New Testament, must be understood against the background of the Old. The religion of Israel was the religion of a people. It remained such even when the people were dispersed through the Roman world and the Israel of the Holy Land became simply one of the many peoples included in the empire. At the same time this religion of the people became more and more the religion of the individual as well. Where God is known as personal and ethical, there religion becomes more and more the vital concern of the individual person. The message of the prophets, the religion of the devotional psalms, and the growing hope of personal immortality are witness to this. The development of the synagogue as the center of Jewish religious life meant the furtherance at once of group and individual religion. Its services of Scripture reading, prayer, and teaching fostered both alike. Little regarded but deeply significant was the number of simple, devout souls, die Stillen vm Lande, nurtured by this synagogue worship and a religious home life such as that in which John the Baptist and the child Jesus grew up and in which Timothy was trained (2 Tim. 1:5; 3:15). In the Dispersion the synagogue was the means of winning non-Jews, men who were drawn by its monotheistic faith and ethical teaching. The elements of nationalism, legalism, and ceremonialism still remained; but here was a definite preparation for the Christian Church.

One may approach the question of the beginnings of the Christian Church in one of two ways. Theologians are wont to inquire how the Church was established. But that involves the assumption that the Church came to be by some act of formal institution, presumably by Jesus. The Roman Catholic doctrine is the most thoroughgoing expression of this view. It belongs to Rome's legalistic-institutional conception. A modified form of this viewpoint is found with those who assume that the New Testament presents a common and authoritative form of organization, ministry, and sacraments, and a clearly defined doctrine of the Church.

The other approach is the religious-historical. This does not involve a merely humanistic view. It recognizes the creative fact of Christ as standing back of the Church. It sees the Church as central in God's purpose and plan, and its life as the work of the Spirit of God. But it sees God as working from within, in the life of the Church as of the believer. The directive of that life was given to the Church in Christ, in his word and life. The guidance was given by the Spirit working in the fellowship.

Our Lord himself followed such guidance. He made clear to men the God of forgiving mercy and God's gracious purpose to establish his kingdom of love and righteousness. But the story of his days in the wilderness, of his praying on the mount before he set his face toward Jerusalem on that last journey, as well as of the last struggle in the Garden, these all show how Jesus sought the guidance of God as to the way he should take as well as strength to take it. Did he think of long centuries that would precede the final coming of that kingdom and plan for his Church accordingly? Or did he think of that coming as near at hand, as the Gospel records seem to suggest? We know that he did disclaim knowledge "of that day or that hour" (Mark 13:32). The will of God was clear; the way of God men were to learn in trust and obedience, guided by his Spirit.

All this is illustrated in the beginnings and growth of the Church. There is no indication that Jesus supplied his followers, either before his death or after his resurrection, with any set of directions as to the organization of the Church, its function, or its ministry. What we find at the beginning is not an institution but a fellowship. What we need to do in the study of the Church is, first, to understand the meaning of fellowship in religion and especially the meaning of this fellowship of Christ's followers; second, to consider how this fellowship shaped for itself the needed forms for its life and work.

The essential meaning of fellowship is perhaps best indicated by the word sharing, or having in common (koinonia, communio). The idea belongs to the most common experiences of life. There is, indeed, no life without sharing; and the sharing or, broadly speaking, relatedness increases in significance as we rise in the scale of life. Christian fellowship represents the highest level. Its meaning may be indicated by three terms: the sharers, the shared, and the sharing. All three appear in the picture of the first fellowship given in Acts 2:42-47.

The "shared" comes first, that which the disciples had in common (koinos). It was this that created the fellowship and bound its members together. The Church was not created by people coming together and forming an organization any more than by a divine prescription. Christ created the first fellowship by his presence which drew men to him and which formed a company. He remained the uniting center. We can readily see from Paul and from Acts what these first generations had in common. They knew a living Christ who was for them revealer of the Father, Lord of their life, the incarnate mercy of God. They were joined by a common experience: God's forgiveness and the presence and power of his Spirit. They shared a common hope, that Jesus would return and establish his kingdom and that they would live with him after death. The Church was thus the product of a living process, the work of God in Christ, by the Spirit.

The "sharing" is equally vital. The fellowship is more than a possessing in common, more than a company. It is a dynamic term. There is an active sharing which is essential to its life. Koinonia means fellowshiping, not just a fellowship. ¹ The picture in Acts indicates associated action in worship, teaching, and the sharing of material goods. What they had still to learn was the scope of this sharing, the obligation to carry their message to Gentile and Jew everywhere.

As regards the "sharers" the New Testament uses a variety of terms to express the rich meaning of this new body. These writers link it with the past, calling it "a holy nation, God's own people." It is spoken of as "the household of God," "a holy temple in the Lord," "a dwelling place of God in the Spirit," "the body of Christ" (1 Pet. 2:9; Eph. 2:19-22; 1 Cor. 12:12-27). These are all figures of speech, symbols or pictures used to indicate a spiritual reality. They move in the personal-social-mystical realm.

Necessarily, there entered into the life of the early Church a fourth aspect, that of organization. The Church is more than spiritual entity; it is a social-historical reality. The first three aspects are constitutive; this aspect might be called instrumental. Its need did not appear at first. The concern of those first disciples in Jerusalem was with the rich meaning of their own fellowship and the imminent return of their Lord. They were not looking out upon the world nor forward into history. But even at the beginning they had their leaders, and the growing life of the Church soon made demands for planned and concerted action. Men were required for these needs. Paul speaks of apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, healers, helpers, administrators, and men speaking in various kinds of tongues (1 Cor. 12). Questions of leadership and authority came up—witness the case of Paul and his churches. There was need for securing and expressing the solidarity of the whole Church as well as order and unity in the community. The faith required interpretation and formulation for purposes of teaching and evangelizing as well as excluding error. So there came in due time an ordered ministry, ritual and sacramental observance, and the formulation of the faith, simply and unsystematically in the New Testament, later in formal creeds.

It is not necessary, nor is it possible, to trace this development. It is important to note that this did not come into being all at once, that it was a pattern viewed as divinely prescribed and obligatory. But that does not mean that this was not a vital aspect of the Church. All this belonged to its life. This was God's way of working with the Church and through the Church: not imposing a pattern upon it or compelling action, but giving it life and guiding its growth where it was willing to follow his Spirit.

2. A very different interpretation is represented by the Roman Catholic Church. Here two points are crucial. (1) There is the insistence, not simply that organization and institution are necessary for the Church, but that a particular form of institution has been divinely determined and that only this constitutes the true Church, the form being that of the Roman Church. Here the Church is Christianity, and the only Church is the Roman Church. Papal sovereignty, priestly orders, sacraments, formulations of faith, prescribed rules of conduct are all included. (2) As far as possible all this is read back into the beginnings. It is seen as prescribed by Christ either in his earthly ministry (the primacy of Peter and so, it is assumed, of his successors) or in the days between his resurrection and ascension. Where it cannot be traced back, it is held that the Church, divinely guided, expresses infallibly in its order the will of God. The Church is seen as the total expression of Christianity; it is the kingdom of God which Christ came to establish. God had given to Christ a threefold authority: to teach, to rule, to save. This authority Christ committed to the Church, more specifically to the Twelve, with Peter at their head and the bishops as their successors. These, with the priesthood through which the Church works, constitute the Church. Believers enter the Church, are cared for as children by Mother Church, receive through her the gift of salvation; they do not constitute the Church. The Church is institution, not fellowship.

In its three great functions the Church—that is, the hierarchy-is absolute in power and infallible in decision. (1) That is true of its teaching. It is interesting that the Roman Church of today is encouraging its people to read the Bible and is making this available to them, but it is the Church which interprets the Bible and tells them what to believe. Faith is not the inner conviction wrought by the Spirit and issuing in surrender to God; it is the obedient acceptance of the Church's teaching. (2) The Church has supreme authority to rule. It is not a question here of inculcating Christian principles or of counseling as to practice. It is rather a legal-political power, including nations as well as individuals and prescribing rules of conduct. (3) Most important is the control of the means of salvation. Salvation is viewed in objective, if not external, fashion as a good possessed by the Church which it mediates to men. This goes with the whole priestly-sacramentarian system. The Church is Heilsinsitut. In all this the ethical, personal, and mystical are not excluded; but it is the legal-institutional which is determinative. The likeness to Roman imperialism and the influence of the latter are obvious.

It is easy to see what is lost in this conception of the Church. Instead of a fellowship the Church becomes an institution. Instead of direct personal access to the God of grace found in Christ there is an elaborate priestly-sacramentarian mediation. Worship is not the act of the brotherhood uniting in prayer and praise; it is-primarily the act of the priesthood, alike in the approach to God and in the mediation of God's mercies to the people, as is clearly illustrated in its central action, that of the Mass. ²⁾

3. The Protestant conception of the Church must be viewed against the background of the total Protestant conception of the Christian faith and life. "How can I get me a gracious God?" was the question in which Luther voiced his great concern. He found the answer in the Christian gospel whose simple word had been lost in the legalistic-sacramentarian-priestly system of the Roman Church. Religion was a personal relation, man finding this merciful God who received the sinner. The condition was simple. It rested for Luther, as for Paul, on the grace of God, God's free and undeserved love, forgiving, receiving, enabling. It demanded of man one thing as a condition: faith. And faith meant not just accepting prescribed beliefs, but trust in this God of mercy, surrender to him, and the doing of his will in a life where all was to be sacred, all a divine service.

This was personal as against institutional religion, but it was not individualistic. It was the religion of a fellowship, of a Church. The Church was for Luther first of all a given company of Christians in living fellowship, a Gemeinschaft (communion, fellowship), not merely a Gemeinde (parish). But that did not mean a strict "independentism" or "Congregationalism." Each Christian group was part of the whole body of Christ and all a part of the historic Church reaching back to the beginnings. As regards the heritage of the past Luther himself was essentially conservative in terms alike of doctrine and practice, except where he felt that the gospel was contradicted. He was primarily a preacher of the gospel, not a reformer of Church or theology.

In its task of preaching and teaching, of directing worship and providing pastoral care, the Church required organization and administration. In principle Protestantism was here radical. It rejected the claim of a sacred institution and priesthood as necessary to salvation. Access to the saving grace of God was open to all men. True, there is a mediation which is necessary. The message of grace, the understanding of truth, comfort in sorrow, guidance and help in life's needs must be brought to men. This is the true priestly work. But this belongs to all Christ's followers; it is the priesthood of all believers. ³ In practice the Reformation churches maintained their trained and ordained ministry.

Such is the basic Protestant conception of the Church, but within the Protestant movement there have been wide differences as well as deviations from this general position.

In the Lutheran churches of Germany and Scandinavia, as well as in Anglicanism, the state church remained after the Reformation. The Church was a territorial unit, nationally, locally, and as a parish. People were members of the Church as they were citizens of the state. Here was a marked movement toward the institutional. To speak of such a body of people as believers was to empty that word of personal and vital significance. "Fellowship" (koinonia) became less an active religious term, more a formal belonging, often without contact with the church except on the occasion of baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial. The idea of communion (Gemeinschaft) retreats behind that of community or parish (Gemeinde).

The second Protestant group has been variously named independents, separatists, the fellowship type, or, disparagingly, sects. The differences are so marked in these bodies that it would seem impossible to find here any common conception of the Church. The emphasis on unity as found in a free fellowship and not in an authoritarian institution with the insistence on freedom in the religious life and its expression led naturally to such differences. For a right understanding we need to go back beyond the Reformation and note the recurrent appearance of groups or societies seeking to find religious satisfaction which the Church itself did not provide, while still remaining in the Church, the later Protestant parallel being the pietist groups found more especially in Lutheran-ism. Such widely varying bodies as the Waldenses, Anabaptists and Baptists, Moravians, Quakers, Congregationalists, and Methodists are examples of the general movement. Some of these were closely allied to the mother church—Lutheran, Reformed, or Anglican; others were entirely independent.

The source of these movements was not primarily doctrinal. Various influences entered in. There was a revolt against the authoritarian-institutional church, of which too much, it was felt, remained in Protestantism. The positive emphasis was upon the Church as a practicing communion, a fellowship of the followers of Christ. Sometimes, as in Congregationalism, the freedom of the independent local congregation was stressed. As against clericalism the fellowship idea gave a larger place to the laity in the direction of the Church, in free participation and expression in its religious life, as witnesses and workers, and in preaching. With the idea of a communion of practicing Christians there went nhe demand that membership should require individual decision. Stressed by many was the thought of the contrast of this fellowship with the world about it; that meant such matters as insistence on personal religious experience, higher ethical standards, or "puritanism," sometimes the "plain life" in garb and speech and manner as against "worldly" ways.

Summarizing, one may point to the desire for satisfaction of personal religious needs, the emphasis on Christian fellowship as actualized in a given group and as contrasted with the idea of the ecclesiastical institution, and the stress on the difference of such a group of Christ's followers from the world about it.

Methodism calls for special comment here, not because it offered a new doctrine but because of the way in which it united elements from three of the points of view noted above. Wesley considered himself a good Anglican all his life. The Methodists were not separatists; Wesley did not plan to found a new church. Methodism became an independent church because the Anglican Church could not, or would not, find place for the movement. Leaving his earlier high church position, Wesley ordained a bishop for the Methodist Church in America. This church has its bishops today, but they are men specially appointed to this ministry, not holding a higher order. A study of its official Discipline shows the strong Anglican influence in doctrine, ritual, and ministry. The influence of the Reformation, however, is even clearer and goes deeper. It was during the reading of Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans that Wesley came to the turning point in his religious experience, and the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith remained basic for Methodist preaching. Equally clear is the influence of the "fellowship" churches, especially of the pietistic order. That influence appears in the stress on the group as seen in Methodist "classes" and prayer meetings, on lay activity and lay leadership, on religious experience and the work of the Spirit, and on the idea that salvation meant not simply forgiveness, or justification, but the making over of men in a new life (sanctification, or holiness). Here was a recovery of features that marked the primitive Church: religion as individual decision and personal experience, the Church as a fellowship of disciples rather than a clerical institution, a witnessing and working laity, a Christianity with an ethical demand which set it in contrast with the world about it.

Equally apparent in this second Protestant group are certain limitations and dangers, though again varying widely in different movements. Sometimes the ethical emphasis led to a new legalism. Often the revolt from ecclesiastical authority led to a literalistic biblicism. More important was the way in which the stress on the aspect of fellowship in the local group and the reaction against the institutionalism of the large established churches led, on the one hand, to a one-sided stress on the individual congregation, on the other, to a loss of the great heritage of the past and of oneness with the Church of the ages. Here Congregationalism in government and denominationalism in the group have alike worked against the catholic spirit and the ecumenical outlook.

The hopeful aspect of Protestantism has been its capacity for growth and the way in which each group has contributed to the others for the enrichment of the concept of the Church and of its life. Our task is to bring these gains into unity. There is the growth of the ecumenical movement. The Church to which our individual groups belong is more and more seen as the Church of the ages and the world Church. Christian unity, interdenominational co-operation, and organic Church union are attendant movements.

The Function of the Church

The function of the Church has already been indicated in our study of the purpose of God and the nature of the Church. The purpose of God is the establishment of his kingdom, the creation of a new humanity, the family of the children of God. The Church is at once a central element in that goal and the chief instrument through which God works for its achievement. Hence its double task; first, to be the Church, to achieve the full life of the fellowship of God's children and to minister to its people; second, as the instrument of God to serve the world, ministering to its needs, witnessing to God's will for its life, bringing his saving gospel. The two tasks, clearly, are not separable.

1. "Let the Church be the Church." Here is its first task. There is nothing narrow or self-centered in this conception. Rightly understood, the whole task of the Church is here included; for it cannot be Christ's Church without being the servant of all the world. More specifically, however, we may consider here its calling to be the fellowship of God's children and to minister to them.

This means (1) the Church as the place of worship, bringing God to men, bringing men into the presence of God, uniting the people in a fellowship of adoration and praise, of confession and repentance, of faith and devotion. (2) Its work will involve teaching and training—education in the full sense of that term. That includes childhood and youth and age. That means knowledge: the history of God's redemptive work in Israel and the Church and the world, the great truths of the Christian faith, the Bible and its message, the ethics of the Christian way. The Church must train its people to think and know. But it means nurture as well as knowledge. It must lead its childhood into a conscious, personal religious life and further that life with old and young year after year* ( 3) As a family or fellowship the Church has a pastoral obligation, that of shepherd, the caring for all its people in all their needs; and not merely its ministers but all its people share in this duty. Comfort, counsel, material aid when needed, friendly interest, spiritual sharing, all these and more are included. (4) Finally, the Church should provide its people with opportunity for service and should guide them and organize them for such service.

2. The Church is here to serve the world. The world is its parish. All the tasks suggested above have a relevancy to this larger field of service.

(1) The work of evangelism and missions comes first. The Church has been entrusted with the gospel. With clear purpose and plan and the use of its resources of men and means it must carry this message to the unchurched all about it and in all lands. It is not enough to proclaim it to those who come within its walls.

(2) The Church has a moral witness to bear, not simply in relation to individual life but as regards the whole social life of man. Government, industry, race and class relations, the work of the state in education, international relations, problems of war and peace, all these enter in. It must proclaim a God of righteousness whose authority is over nations and industry as well as the individual. It must point out the will of this God and his way for the life of society: the way of justice and freedom; the way of reverence and regard for man as man transcending all differences of race and class and country; the spirit of good will and concern for others, both individuals and nations; the expression of this good will in unselfish and creative co-operation aiming at justice and peace and equal access to the goods of life.

(3) The Church must face the social evils of its day: the fact of war and the reliance upon force; the selfishness of a purely nationalist policy; the exaltation of the state above human freedom and welfare, making men property and vassals and tools of work and war; the conception of an economic order in which individual advantage is viewed as the dominant and sufficient motive. It must assert God's ultimate ownership of all the wealth of earth, and the obligation of men and nations to see their possessions of wealth and power as a trust from God in the service of man.

The Church must educate its people in these matters. It is not enough to have pronouncements from its leaders or from church assemblies. It must help its people through its press, its pulpit, and its schools to know the evils that obtain, the progress that is made, the Christian principles which apply, the goals which a Christian society should seek, the ways that make for peace. That does not mean presenting political or economic programs or identifying itself with any particular system or party. But it does not exclude judgment in a concrete situation where the required course becomes clear for meeting a given evil or attaining a good which is plainly God's will. The fullest opportunity comes to the Church in democratic lands. Here it can train men in right ideals, make them see their citizen obligations, and inspire them to give service to society and the state. A democracy which exists simply as organization and constitution and laws is like a machine without power, a body without guiding intelligence and controlling spirit. The Church is not a superstate controlling governments, but the state needs the Christian Church alike to serve it and to hold before it God's way for its life, the way of freedom, justice, service, and peace.

(4) In the ethical field as in the religious field the first task of the Church is to be the Church: not an institution set to rule, nor concerned simply with ritual and doctrine, organization and promotion, but as the expression in its own life of God's purpose of a redeemed humanity. Church and kingdom of God are not the same, but the Church so far as it is Christ's Church will be manifestation and expression of the kingdom. Its life should be more eloquent than its word. The life should be that of a fellowship whose members are ruled by God's Spirit, a life which shows the meaning of faith and love and truth as incarnated in human society. In such a society good will and service will dominate instead of greed and self-concern; faith will give courage and strength; the pride and fear, the selfishness and hate, which divide men will give place to an active and creative brotherhood where all men are equal as children of God and where love rules their life. True, the empirical Church is far from this, but this is its goal, this is its true life, and in realizing that life it will render its greatest service to man.

The Church Divine and Human

The world with which religion has to do is marked everywhere by a certain duality. It is seen in man, who knows the pull of the earthly and evil as well as that hunger which God alone can still. We see it in the Scriptures which bring to us the Word of God and yet come in the words of men with the limitations of the human and historical. Man knows it in the double pull of the individual and the social and in his nature as free and yet bound. It appears in the world about us, the world that comes from God and is under his rule, yet is full of pain, discord, and evil of every kind. And this duality appears in the Church. We speak of the Church as one, holy, catholic, apostolic. But the Church that we see is divided, limited in vision, imperfect in life.

Various ways have been used in the attempt to meet this problem. For Roman Catholicism the Church is not a fellowship of imperfect saints but a holy institution, constituted by the hierarchy, to which God has committed truth, authority, and the means of salvation. In its official life and action this institution has direct divine guidance and control, so that it is holy, infallible, and indefectible.

In Protestantism recourse has frequently been had to the distinction between the visible and the invisible Church. The visible Church, it is said, is constituted by the human fellowship and the organized institution. The imperfections lie in this historical-empirical Church. It includes those who are not truly Christian, and there are true children of God outside its fold. The invisible Church is constituted by the true followers of Christ, and God alone can know these.

There is a truth which this distinction seeks to express, but it is better set forth in other terms. The New Testament knows nothing of an invisible Church. It knows only a visible Church, composed of the followers of Christ joined in actual fellowship. This is the Church which God is redeeming, in which his Spirit dwells, in which his children are joined in communion, the body of Christ carrying on his work, the Church of history. We shall better understand the problem of the dual nature of the Church if we consider it as divine and human*

The Church is divine because it came from God through Christ, not by a formal act of founding or a prescription of organization, but as the fruit of the fellowship which Christ established and as the instrument of his continuing work. It is divine because God's Spirit dwells in it and works through it. To it God has committed the gospel message. Through it he seeks to win men to himself. In it he nurtures his children and builds up a fellowship of faith and love. The Church is the continuing incarnation of God in human life.

The Church is human. To say this is not to rule out its divine character; it is simply to recognize how God gives himself and how he works. The Church in its life and work is part of God's total work of salvation. Salvation is not something inserted from above, separate from the human, whether conceived as infallible institution, irresistible grace, or in any other form of action that is not personal and ethical. Salvation is God's transforming presence in human life found wherever man responds to his word and will in the insight and obedience of faith. And this applies to the Church as the fellowship that itself is being saved and that is the instrument in God's saving work.

Thus the Church is human as well as divine. It is God coming into human life, man in saving fellowship with God. But it no more means perfection and infallibility than is the case in the individual who is being saved and used. The Church has a divine Lord and a divine message of salvation, but it has varied widely in interpretation and proclamation. There are no infallible creeds. Its leaders—popes, priests, ministers, scholars, saints—have none of them been infallible in teaching or impeccable in life. Dante, loyal churchman, found more than one pope in hell. In its various parts it has often been divisive, intolerant, given to persecution. Its members are not always easily distinguishable from the world about them. But it is a Church that is being saved and being used, as it has been through the centuries.

From this standpoint we interpret such words as one, holy, catholic, apostolic, as applied to the Church. Here the duality of the Church is clearly illustrated, not a dualism in which we find somewhere a core of the absolute and perfect contrasted with a body that is human and imperfect, but a duality in which the divine dwells with the human and works in it. The Church is one so far as Christ really rules it—one in the gospel proclaimed, one in its faith and allegiance, one in the Spirit from which its life comes, Yet we recognize clearly the human limitations and defects here. The Church is divided. The oneness is something which in its fullness still awaits achievement.

The Church is holy, but here, too, in a limited sense. It is holy so far as it is truly dedicated to God (consecrated); it is holy so far as it has been transformed in life and made like to God by his Spirit (sanctified). The goal is plain; "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, . . . that she might be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:25-27). The Church is being made holy. The Church that we know in history is not perfect and without blemish, but it belongs to the holy God and the Holy Spirit is its life.

The Church is catholic. Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Evangelical churches unite in the common confession: "I believe in the holy catholic Church." The word "catholic" means universal. The Christian Church is the one Church of all mankind. Where Christ is all and in all, there "there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man" (Col. 3:11). We "are all one in Christ Jesus." Unfortunately the word "catholic" has been commonly linked to one church group and, indeed, claimed by that communion in exclusive manner. But the very denial that other communions are true churches, belonging to the body of Christ, reveals in itself a sectarian rather than a catholic spirit, a fact that is not altered by the size or antiquity of the Roman Church. Of late, using another term, derived like catholic from the Greek and meaning literally the whole inhabited world, we have come to speak of the Ecumenical Church. The ecumenical movement involves the conception of the one catholic Church, the desire to regain its unity in mutual understanding, in active co-operation, and, so far as possible, in visible and organic form.

As the words catholic and ecumenical call us to include the whole world in our thought of the Church, so the word apostolic calls us to see the one Church of history. It does not necessarily involve an identity in organization or an "apostolic succession" in clerical orders. It does point to the Church as one body, living through the ages, holding the faith and continuing the work that began with the apostles.

But we have not adequately characterized the Church when we say one, holy, catholic, apostolic. The decisive word remains: it is the Church of Christ. He is the ground of our unity, today and through the ages. We are a Christian Church only as we remain in living relation with him: as we worship the one God and Father of us all revealed to us in the Son, as we proclaim the one gospel of salvation through the mercy of God brought to us in Christ the Redeemer, as we find in him the will of God for our lives and acknowledge him as Lord. No continuity with the past, no world outreach in fellowship, can take the place of this living and continuing relation with the God whom we know in Christ.

1) See H. Cremer, Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek, koinonia.

2) Here reference should be made to those who use the word "Catholic'* in its special sense while standing apart from the Roman Church, the Orthodox churches of the East and the high church Anglicans being leading representatives. These stress the sacraments, a priesthood ordained by bishops in the apostolic succession, with the Church as the divinely ordained instrument for man's salvation and the embodiment of the kingdom of God on earth. Here, too, is a certain exclusiveness in the claim to be the true Church.

3) "Catholics also believe in a universal priesthood," we are told, but hold to the need of a special, or "real," priesthood which alone can offer the needed sacrifice of the Mass. See The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol XII, "Priesthood."