Theology and Church

 

Introduction

Theology is one of those scholarly departments that an average Christian believer feels so puzzling yet fascinating. However, Christian theology has been evolving as one of the mainstream scholarly departments as it has its roots in ancient scholasticism. At this beginning phase of theological learning, an attempt is made in this work to understand the Christian Theology and the Ministry of the Church, by exploring the thoughts of various eminent scholars of theology and Mission. 

Theology

The word ‘Theology’ is derived from Greek language ‘theos’ meaning god and ‘logos’ meaning word. It can be therefore described as ‘words about god’ or ‘god-talk’. The word ‘logos’ can be understood as not just the word but the innate meaning of the word thus the meaning of ‘Theology’ can be ‘speaking and thinking about god’ which is sometimes referred to  as the science of theology.[1]

“Theology may be defined as the study which, through participation in and reflection upon a religious faith, seeks to express the content of this faith in the clearest and most coherent language available.”[2] This definition includes the core elements of theology: participation, reflection and expression, which in turn address to a religion, inferring that every religion has its own theology and is concerned to establish and assert the truth of that religion.[3] However, Christian theology is the topic for consideration in this work. A working definition of Christian theology can be stated as:

“Christian theology is a systematic and critical interpretation on the meaning of human life in general from the perspective of Revelation in Jesus Christ on the one hand, and a reinterpretation of Christian Faith on the other, in the light of the new experience and context of changing realities of the world, in and by the believing community.”[4]

Paul Tillich defines Christian theology stating:

“Theology, as a function of the Christian Church, must serve the needs of the Church. A theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs: the statement of truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth for every new generation. Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.”[5]

“Theology is the continuing service to God’s revelation, performed by specific men (people), in the form of conceptual thinking in a specific here and now.”[6] According to the definition of Gogarten, “Theology is the critical, methodological thinking of the theologian which he does when he (one) does when he (one) speaks on the basis of the revelation of God.”[7] Bultmann defines theology as “the conceptual presentation of the existence of man (person) as an existence determined by God.”[8]

Theology can seldom satisfy the natural requirement and expectations of human thought for a comprehensive completeness. Dogmatics, as a theological discipline is the Church’s scientific self-examination of its affirmations about God. The Church thus constructs theology in its own typical sense by undergoing itself to self-examination.[9]

Church

The word Church is derived from Greek word kyriake meaning ‘belonging to the Lord’ and ekklesia ‘assembly’. Therefore Church can be defined as ‘the worshipping assembly called forth by God’.[10] The word ekklesia is a compound word kaleo meaning “to call” and ek meaning “out from” which means “to call out from”. The meaning of the noun form of this word is “the called-out ones”.[11] However this word refers to a local body of believers, the symbolic expression of the Church is understood as the universal Church, the Church at large.[12]  Further the meaning of the Church can be elaborated as the community of a baptized, ordered and united body of believers, and a disciplined, witnessing, proclaiming, serving and worshiping fellowship of believers.[13]

“The Church is summoning forth of God’s people, the community of men (people) of faith, created through Christ on the foundation of the Covenant between God and man (human), awakened by the Holy Spirit.”[14] “The Church is the place and the instrument of the grace of God. There faith is, in the Church and through the Church. There the reality of the Word become flesh and of God’s Holy Spirit speaks and is heard.”[15] “Church is a communion called by the Spirit, informed by the Word, and marked by the proclamation of Gospel.”[16] The fundamental activities of Church are worship, prayer, preaching and teaching, celebrating the sacraments, ministry, mission and unity.[17] “Baptism and Eucharist are the two universally observed sacraments of the Church.”[18] The function of a Church is determined by certain factors like its faith experience, contextual demands and the understanding of the gospel.[19]

The Church over the past two millennia has emerged through certain historical boundaries of culture, language and identity influencing and being influenced by these factors. Therefore understanding Church from a single or combined standpoint of historical, theological, missiological, sociological, phenomenological or other would be an unfinished task.[20] The Church has been undergoing transition from the time of its origin, from martyr Church to the present day modern Church transition took place resulting in the Empirical Church, the rise of denominations as a result of reformation and the modern Church of today.[21] “Though ecclesia has undergone a number of trajectories in its worldwide journey, the essential inner constitution of the Church hinges on the communion of the believers with God and with fellow believers.”[22]

With reference to the Kingdom of God, scholars believe that Church and Kingdom of God are not the same and term the Kingdom of God as a key theological theme in the context of social injustice. However the Church certainly represents the Kingdom of God.[23] “The presence of the kingdom in the Church is the presence of its foretaste, its firstfruit, its pledge in the spirit. It is the power which leads us to speak.”[24]

Ecclesiology

Ecclesiology is the theological study of the Church.[25] According to the insight of faith, dogmatics define the Church variously as the mystical body of Christ, a divine human organism, a sacramental fellowship, a fellowship of faith, a fellowship of experience and communicating, a fellowship of discipleship of Christ.[26] Certain dogmatic norms like unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity are followed by the traditional ecclesiologies.[27] “Ecclesiology represents certain conscious variations in accordance with the historical forms that the Church had taken.”[28]

Historical Retrospection of Theology

Theology of the Church has gone through different phases of change from the time of its origin. The philosophical, theological, historical factors that influenced the Church over the last two millennia are Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, Renaissance, Humanism, Mysticism, Nominalism, Reformation and so on.[29] The early Church was dominated by the Platonism and was concerned above all with cognition, insight, and wisdom. Augustine’s (354-430 CE) theology offered Christian faith as the most satisfactory doctrine of the true God. Origen (185-254 CE), an early theologian, developed hermeneutical rules for his engagement in the studying the text in a critical, exegetical, hermeneutical, and dogmatic way. The early Church fathers contributed to the orthodox faith, the traditions and the teaching. The works of the scholars in the early tenth and eleven centuries like Anslem of Canterbury (1033-1109 CE) and Peter Abelard (1079-1142 CE) helped to understand establish the faith with debate. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74 CE) integrated Aristotelian philosophy into religion by coordinating between the natural and supernatural, thus derived the theology comprising the knowledge of God and all the related things to God. However this was disputed by John Duns Scotus (1265-1308 CE) who argued for a univocal concept for a comparison of natural and supernatural. Martin Luther (1483-1546 CE) proposed the ‘sola scriptura’, Word of God alone concept in his theology, thus emerging from Aristotelian thought.[30]

The modern period is the period of enlightenment as the theology asserted the faith in God and its relation to the various factors of human life. Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1767-1834 CE) introduced theology as a ‘positive science’ explaining the expression of faith and self awareness, as which makes human beings aware of the reality and of an absolute dependence on God.[31]

In the twentieth century Karl Barth (1886-1968) states that theology has to identify itself with Jesus Christ as the revealed word of God. He emphasizes on the relationship of human beings and God with respect to the salvation act of Jesus Christ. Paul Tillich (1886-1965) related theology to a methodological interpretation of the Christian faith which requires a correlation method of question and answer between “human existence” and divine “self-revelation”. David Tracy explains the “human experience” and the “Christian texts” as the two poles of human existence. Wolfhart Pennerberg defines theology as the science of God. [32]

The Systematic Theology has historical-critical method as a dominant factor but it has not made it concrete enough to withstand criticism but the questions about the historical inquiry and hermeneutics, hermeneutics and reality still need to be answered. Therefore a proposal arises that theology should understand itself as wisdom that develops out of experience, rather than a science.[33]

Theology and Church

“The intellectual task of theology is never far removed from the practical life of a believing community.”[34] Theology is influential in various dimensions of Church and ministry. It acknowledges and commits itself to God in the confession of faith. Its work is tested in preaching and doxology as the interpreter is answerable to God and the congregation. The test for its openness to the contextual realities, interpretation of the message of salvation, pastoral care activities, inter faith dialogue, struggle for economic and social justice determines the authenticity of a theology.[35] The contextual theologies emerged out of human experiences, and theology has to adapt pluralistic attitude. This has also demanded theology, in response to the non-christian religions and trends, to enter into dialogue with other faiths. Theology has to also meet the challenges of other sciences and account for its claims and statements with a satisfactory reasoning.[36]

Thus theology is a constant process of meaning making addressing the contemporary social issues and deriving the possible answers in light of God. It should develop new methods to integrate two divergent positions, enter in to dialogue with other scholastic disciplines, should analyze the context, thus address the current social problems and understand the culture and ethos of its community.[37]

Theology and Church in the Contemporary Context

 “Church has entered the twenty-first century and witnesses the mind-boggling metamorphoses in all facets of human existences. The new global configuration of money, power and (scientific) reason has, to an extent, slackened the erstwhile grip of religion over societies, communities and cultures.”[38] Church has been and is existing as a community which gave the believers strength and vigor required for the proclamation of gospel and also to care for each other.[39] The understanding of the Church as the body of Christ and communion of believers is possible only when the Church sets its priorities in to a proper perspective.[40]

“Church is universal with particular local expression which has an escatological vision of making the will of God real, i.e., proclaiming God’s plan for the new humanity and/or the new heaven and the new earth in Jesus Christ.”[41] “The Church’s realities lies in her engaging in certain activities ordered to a certain end. The activities are many and diverse: preaching, sacramental acts, liturgy, pastoral care, teaching and the like.”[42] The reason or the purpose of these activities is to: “Conversion of all people to the faith through preaching (kerygma), creation of a genuine community of the reconciled (koinonia), service to the world (diakonia), or some combination of the three.[43] This is also the mission of the Church. “The mission/ministry of the Church is necessarily and essentially an outcome of its nature and structure and an understanding of the nature of ecclesia is communion inspired by and patterned after the tri-unity of God.”[44]

Faith communities respond either positively or negatively to the contemporary social and cultural influences as a process of change.[45] “Pointing to the importance of moral communities in fashioning and sustaining values in our society need not become an excuse for irrationality. It is rather a claim that individual, isolated rationality is quite simply, in itself, an insufficient resource for a profound morality.”[46]

The Church’s understanding of suffering was a result of its hostile situations in history, as it underwent suffering and subjected to violence for its convictions and witness in the early centuries of its origin and in the centuries throughout.[47] This enabled the Church to respond to the social issues and unjust structures across the world. It contributed in various ways to the wellbeing of the society by helping those who were deprived of their privileges, to live decent lives by giving education, providing medical health care, empowering the oppressed and vulnerable, and so on.[48] Different sociological, political and cultural aspects influence the transition of the Church. As the process of responding, reacting and reforming according to the situations, the Church has evolved in to the present day form and this is an ongoing process. Theology has contributed a major part in such approach of the Church by reinterpreting the scripture according to the contextual issues.

Critical Reflection:

Theology and Church go hand in hand. Every theology has emerged as a response to the contemporary cultural, economical and socio-political conditions that prevailed. Theology has in a way contributed to the Christian community by its thought evoking and meaning making nature, thus enhancing the ability of the Church in its mission and ministry. As a ‘faith seeking understanding’ theology helped its explorers by enlightening their thoughts, broadening the horizon of their perception and strengthening the faith. However, at times when a theologian deliberately or unintentionally attempts a radical proposition which seems against the fundamental dogma, the reaction of the Church is not always encouraging provided the theory sustains the test of time.

As a critical and methodological study of the divine being, the attempts of theology to explain the ultimate is never complete. It is a continuous process of interpreting and re-interpreting, de-constructing and re-constructing of the Word of God and one’s own perception. In this process theology moved on to the liberation perspective of its meaning making and as a result embraced the pathos and pain of the oppressed, vulnerable and deprived of the society, which in fact is the real motive of God’s revelation as human in Jesus Christ.

The concern now is that how far the Church could and the clergy are willing to incorporate this attitude in their ministry and mission. It is very encouraging to hear those narratives about the incorporation of theological perception with the Church addressing the gender, caste, class, corruption and other socio-political issues but these are only a few. With the retrospection of history of theology and its interwoven nature with Church arises a hope for an egalitarian society. Theology, as it is obvious, is in its best stature ever, shedding the fundamentalist attitude and transforming in to a liberal perception, and evokes a thrust towards the ideal Church, a model of Kingdom of God

 

Bibliography

Stacy, John, Groundwork of Theology, London: Epworth Press, 1977.

Pathil, Kuncheria and Dominic Veliath, An Introduction to Theology, Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2007.

Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963.

Gollwitzer, Hellmut, Karl Barth Church Dogmatics, A Selection with Introduction, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1961.

Richardson, Alan and John Bowden, eds. A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, London: SCM press Ltd., 1983.

Peters, George W., A Biblical Theology of Missions, Chicago: Moody Press, 1984.

Barth, Karl, Theology and Church, London: SCM Press Ltd, 1962.

Sahayadhas, R., “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology”, D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009.

Chandran, Russell, “I Believe…” Christian Faith Re-articulated, Bangalore: Student Christian Movement of India, 1998.

Fahlbusch, Erwin, Jan Milic Lochman, et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 1, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Brill, 1999.

Newbegin, Lesslie, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989.

Richardson, Alan and John Bowden, eds., A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, London: SCM press Ltd., 1983.

Long, Edward LeRoy, Jr and Robert T. Handy, eds., Theology and Church in Times of Change, Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970.

Kelsey, David H., The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theologies, USA: SCM Press Ltd., 1975.

Gill, Robin, ed., Readings in modern Theology, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1995.

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[1] John Stacy, Groundwork of Theology, (London: Epworth Press, 1977), p. 37.

[2] Ibid., p.38.

[3] Ibid., p.38.

[4] Kuncheria Pathil and Dominic Veliath, An Introduction to Theology, (Bangalore: Theological Publications in India, 2007), p. 20.

[5] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963), p. 3.

[6] Karl Barth, Theology and Church, (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1962), p. 289.

[7] Ibid., p. 286.

[8] Ibid., p. 289.

[9] Hellmut Gollwitzer, Karl Barth Church Dogmatics, A Selection with Introduction, (Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1961), P.82-84.

[10]Alan Richardson and John Bowden, eds. A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, (London: SCM press Ltd.,1983), p. 108.

[11] George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), p. 200.

[12]Ibid., p. 20.

[13]Ibid., p.202-203.

[14]Karl Barth, Theology and Church, (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1962), p. 274-275.

[15]Ibid., p. 280.

[16] R. Sahayadhas, “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of  Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology” (D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009), p. 142.

[17] John Stacy, Groundwork of Theology, (London: Epworth Press, 1977), p. 325-351.

[18] Russell Chandran, “I Believe…” Christian Faith Re-articulated, (Bangalore: Student Christian Movement of India, 1998), p. 81.

[19]Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 1, (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Brill, 1999), p. 501.

[20] R. Sahayadhas, “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of  Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology” (D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009), p. 92.

[21] Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of  Christianity, vol. 1, (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Brill, 1999), p. 498.

[22] R. Sahayadhas, “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of  Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology” (D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009), p. 139.

[23] Ibid., p. 116.

[24] Lesslie Newbegin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing company, 1989), p. 119-120.

[25] Alan Richardson and John Bowden, eds., A New Dictionary of Christian Theology, (London: SCM press Ltd., 1983),108.

[26] Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 1, (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Brill, 1999), p. 478.

[27] Ibid., p. 500.

[28] R. Sahayadhas, “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of  Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology” (D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009), p. 92.

[29] Ibid., p. 145-160.

[30] Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 5, (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Brill, 2008), p. 364-365.

[31] Ibid., p. 366.

[32] Ibid., p. 366-367.

[33] Ibid., p. 367-368.

[34] Edward LeRoy Long, Jr and Robert T. Handy, eds.,  Theology and Church in Times of Change, (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1970),  p. 93.

[35] Erwin Fahlbusch, Jan Milic Lochman, et al., eds. The Encyclopedia of Christianity, vol. 5, (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Brill, 2008), p. 363.

[36]Ibid., p. 364.

[37]Ibid., p. 368-369.

[38] R. Sahayadhas, “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of  Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology” (D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009), p. 304.

[39] Ibid., p. 114.

[40] Ibid., p. 358.

[41] Ibid., p. 142.

[42] David H. Kelsey, The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theologies, (USA: SCM Press Ltd., 1975), p. 93.

[43] Ibid., p. 93.

[44] R. Sahayadhas, “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of  Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology” (D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009), p. 373.

[45] Robin Gill, ed., Readings in modern Theology, (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge , 1995), p. 358.

[46] Ibid., p. 358.

[47] R. Sahayadhas, “Towards an Ecclesiology in the Contemporary Indian context of  Hindu Nationalism in Critical Interaction with Martin Luther’s Ecclesiology” (D. Th. Dissertation, Senate of  Serampore College, 2009), p. 107-108.

[48] Ibid., p.  94.