Did he plan to "found" a church? Or is the church a thoroughly human movement that can only be associated with Jesus post facto? ...The Internet Monk begins by wondering how he became identified as being with the emergent church (which I still do not understand) and, in the process, proceeds to give us cogent reasoning that Jesus founded the church and intended us to be a part of it.
Explanations of the origins of the church that assume Jesus himself had no intentions of founding a church are simply implausible.
I start out here to make a very basic point: Jesus followers who wish to eliminate, reinterpret or reduce the church face the problem that nothing in the New Testament is on their side. Seeing Jesus as the guru of individual Christians, or the church as some kind of accidental fan club that institutionalized a spontaneous spiritual experience, simply cannot be done without doing radical surgery on Jesus himself. A church-less Christianity requires such an edited, reworked Jesus, that the New Testament could no longer be read with any kind of integrity. This needs to be faced squarely and honestly.
I conclude that Jesus, from the outset, intended to found a continuing movement, and that movement is the church as we see and experience it, imperfectly and often far removed from Jesus, in history.
Thank you! Recently I have come across an odd trend among a few people that ask questions such as do we follow Jesus or do we follow the church that Paul founded? Or to say that Jesus worshipped as a Jew so the only way to really follow him is to follow Jewish customs ... or perhaps to become Jewish. Then we have people who say that they don't need to go to church ... they can worship God without any church. I have seen these sorts of ideas raised in more than one blog.
Talk about bewildering ... to me, anyway. Paul was the first to point the way to Jesus whenever anyone tried to do otherwise, to say that he was simply living and teaching what Jesus taught and revealed. Yes, his writings and teachings helped explain what Jesus revealed but we are "Christians" not "Paulists."
As for the idea of worshiping as Jews, Jesus was the Messiah, which they deny. Yes he worshiped as an observant Jew but He completed and fulfilled the law ... which to me at least necessarily indicates that he moved it along into something new. Baptism. The apostolic leadership. The Eucharist. Knowing that Jesus is the Son of God ... both fully human and fully God. Jesus gave us these things.
Probably the most commonly heard of these three ideas is that people don't need to go to church to worship God. That is both true and false. You can worship God from anywhere you are, at any time of day or night. On the other hand, it is meeting in communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ that keeps us centered, keeps us focused, keeps our eyes and heart on God. I need the Eucharist. I need the support and advice and admonitions and reminders of my priest and my fellow worshippers. It feeds my soul in a totally different way than solitary prayer and worship. That is how we are made. Jesus knew it and provided for it.
I thoroughly realize that I am not saying any of this very well and certainly am being sketchy in supporting my thinking. There is much that I am leaving unsaid. That is why I am pointing people toward the Internet Monk. He has doctrinal issues with Catholicism but at the base he has more solid understanding of Christian theology than many Catholics I know.
Go. Read. Jesus founded the church for us to worship and serve in together ... as Christians.
No comments:
Post a Comment