Well, I'm up early again today, since I'll be on the road most of the day. Heading to Lincoln, Illinois, with my wife for an appointment. As a bonus, it looks like we'll get to meet with my friend and an important mentor, Fr. Jim Cravens, priest at Trinity Episcopal Church there in Lincoln, for lunch as well.
As I've been reading over Tripp's ruminations, and many of the responses, it seemed to me this morning that our understandings of the Church are tied inextricably to our understandings of Jesus. Tripp made a reply to my blog yesterday, that "Time has no stake in us." That is to say, we are the Church is the same way the first century Church is/was the Church. (To which I want to now reply, "Why Tripp! Welcome home. We hardly knew ye!" But then, I don't think he may have meant it quite the way I take him to.) My reply was a bit off the mark, taking his "Time has no stake in us" to mean "Time has no stake for us." I replied, to the contrary, we are saved in time, by an Incarnation that took place in space and time, at just the right time.
In any case, that mistaken understanding, as well as further ruminations on the Church as the Body of Christ, got me to wondering about the impact of one's ecclesiology on one's "huiology" (Greek "huios" Son). I made the point in one of my replies on Tripp's blog that to deny the incarnational aspect of the Church would appear to ultimately end in the result of denying the Incarnation of the Son.
Make no mistake, I'm not equating the Church with the second Person of the Trinity. But while evangelical Protestants rightly assert that one's view of Jesus affects one's view of salvation, I wonder if it is also to be asserted, that one's view of the Church affects one's view of Jesus. Which is then a step away from one's view of the Church affecting one's view of salvation. That is to say, if one views the Church as only tangentially incarnational--well, we happen to be embodied souls, so it just sort of happens that our interactions as Christians take place bodily--then doesn't that by implication make salvation only tangentially incarnational? The Incarnation itself being less important as a result? Then the bodily Resurrection is also something one can perhaps dispense with as a wonderfully motivating metaphor, but not something that's important in a primary sense.
But if the incarnational aspects of salvation history and personal salvation can be set aside minimally as of lesser importance, if not altogether, salvation and Church have much different views. Salvation then is merely about belief, a belief not connected ultimately to bodily reality. There go the soup kitchens, and the AIDS ministries. There goes the sacramental understanding of marriage and procreation. And really when you get right down to it, isn't it then, here comes Gnosticism?
I'm not accusing Tripp of any sort of heresy. (Though my dear brother often wants to appear to be a radical heretic! It is, after all, so much more chic.) Rather, I'm tracing what I think to be the implications of Tripp's position on the Church, or what I take to be his position. (Tripp, please correct me where I'm wrong in understanding your views here.)
On the other hand, if one must, by force of Gospel argument, assume some sort of incarnational aspect to salvation, then, working our way backward through the chain of implications, doesn't that lead to an incarnational Church, which leads inexorably to the one, undivided and visible Church? I would certainly take it to be so. In any event, Incarnation, in all its primary and correlary instances, is one of the important factors of Christian belief. Not just about Jesus, but about salvation, and, yes, about the Church. This is the vaunted seamlessness of the Christian faith. Take out one thread and it ultimately all goes.
And with that, it's time for morning prayers, followed by a little Plato. Then off to central Illinois. I'll check back in later and see if I need my firesuit. (Now, Tripp, I'm still invited to your bash on Sunday, right?!)
Posted by Clifton at January 22, 2003 12:41 PM | TrackBack