An Introduction to Ecclesiology: Historical, Global, and Interreligious Perspectives

AN INTRODUCTION

TO ECCLESIOLOGY

Revised and Expanded

Historical, Global, and

Interreligious Perspectives

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION Key Issues of Ecclesiology

PART ONE: ECCLESIOLOGICAL TRADITIONS AND KEY THEOLOGIANS

ORIENTATION TO PART ONE

Biblical, Historical, and Theological Roots of the Christian Community

1 The Church as an Icon of the Trinity

Eastern Orthodox Ecclesiology

2 The Church as the People of God

Roman Catholic Ecclesiology

3 The Church Around the Word and Sacraments, Part I

Protestant Reformation Ecclesiologies—Lutheran Tradition

4 The Church Around the Word and Sacraments, Part II

Protestant Reformation Ecclesiologies—Reformed Tradition

5 The Church as the Fellowship of Believers

Free Church Ecclesiologies

6 The Church in the Power of the Spirit

Pentecostal/Charismatic Ecclesiologies

7 Concluding Reflections on Ecclesiological Traditions

PART TWO - CONTEXTUAL AND GLOBAL ECCLESIOLOGIES

ORIENTATION TO PART TWO

The Church Goes Global

8 The Power of Liberation and Base Communities in Latin America

9 The Ecclesiological Context and Conditions in Africa

10 Christian Communities on Asian Soil

11 The Church in Women’s Imagination and Critique

12 The Mosaic of the American Church

An Ecclesiological Laboratory

PART THREE - THE LIFE AND MISSION OF THE CHURCH

ORIENTATION TO PART THREE

The Ministry of the Missional Church

13 The Church as Mission and the Tasks of the Missionary Church

14 The Ministry, Ministers, and Governance of the Church

15 The Worship and Liturgy of the Church

16 The Sacraments and Ordinances of the Church

17 The Unity of the Church and the Promise of the Ecumenical Movement

PART FOUR - THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH AMONG RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

ORIENTATION TO PART FOUR

The Challenge of Religious Diversity

18 The Jewish Synagogue and the Church

19 The Islamic Ummah and the Church

20 Hindu Spiritual Life and Community

21 The Buddhist Sangha and Spiritual Pursuit

EPILOGUE Whither Ecclesiology in the Third Millennium?

Author Index

Subject Index

Notes

Praise for An Introduction to Ecclesiology

About the Author

More Titles from InterVarsity Press

PREFACE

For a number of years it has been on my mind to revise this textbook, which was for the first time published in 2002 and subsequently also translated into Chinese (2010). While I have observed with great interest its wide use in all kinds of theological seminaries and faculties from mainstream Protestant to Roman Catholic to Free Churches and beyond, I have also felt the need to update it in order to incorporate the amazing influx of literature and insights into the doctrine of the church during the past two decades. Indeed, one can hardly find another theological topic as hot and vibrant as ecclesiology.

Since the first version of the textbook was released, I have worked intensely in the area of the doctrine of the church and published a great number of essays and articles. Recently, I finished a bigtime dream and goal of mine, namely, an attempt to present a constructive theology of the Christian community seeking to find new ways of imagining its nature, role, and mission. This I have presented in much detail in my Hope and Community, volume 5 of A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, part two: Community. Therein I expanded the domain of Christian ecclesiology by engaging also the visions and intuitions of the religious community among four sister faiths: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It goes without saying that this project required an enormous amount of research and reflection on issues not usually addressed by theologians. At the same time, my ongoing contact with theology students, not only in the United States (Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California) and Europe (University of Helsinki, Finland) but also in various locations in the Global South, has helped me think about how to best communicate these lessons to students and other interested readers. Long-term and still continuing ecumenical work with the World Council of Churches, with a number of international dialogues, and in other venues in search of Christian unity has also taught me more than I probably grasp at the moment. Nor should I ever fail to acknowledge the importance of pastoral work as a wellspring of ideas and insights in understanding what Christian community is.

My first intuition was to do a careful checking of some inaccuracies and poor formulations in the first edition while attempting a full-scale upgrade of literature and documentation. I hoped that that would suffice. Very soon, however, I realized that the task ahead was far bigger and more demanding. A new edition of the whole work called for no less than a complete rewriting and the addition of significant new topics and themes. Somewhat counterintuitively, I succumbed gladly to this new challenge, seeing it as an opportunity to take stock of the wide and rich field of ecclesiology in the midst of rapid developments and new horizons—with the hope that this text would better serve a new generation of students, ministers, and other interested readers.

As a result, I dare to tell you that you now have in your hands a completely unique primer on the doctrine of the church. Not only does it attempt to do everything that a basic introduction to ecclesiology should do, that is, orient the reader to biblical, historical, and contemporary theologies of the Christian community, but in addition—and this makes the textbook one of a kind—it gives special attention to expanding the domain of traditional theological discussion by treating widely so-called contextual and global perspectives. That is, alongside Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and, say, Wolfhart Pannenberg, the ecclesiological insights of women of various backgrounds (feminist, womanist, mujerista, and others) are included, as well as liberationist, Black, Hispanic, Asian American, African, Asian, and Latin American theologians. Furthermore, not only are older Christian traditions—from Orthodox to Roman Catholic to Lutheran and Reformed—invited to provide their ecclesiological visions; so also are the Free Churches, Pentecostal/charismatic movements, and Emerging churches. But there is even more, and this makes the book absolutely unique among all other introductions to ecclesiology. The text will also take a careful and detailed look at the visions and theologies of the Jewish synagogue, Islamic ummah, Buddhist sangha, and Hindu communities. In other words, it includes a robust interfaith aspect, which can also be called a comparative theological approach.

As will be detailed at the end of the introduction below, the book consists now of four interrelated sections. After a brief biblical orientation, main ecclesiological traditions and leading ecclesiologists’ contributions will be the focus of part one. Part two will widen the conversation into contextual and global views. In part three, core ecclesiological topics such as the mission and ministry of the church, worship and liturgy, and sacraments will be treated, culminating in a quest for the unity of Christ’s community on earth. The final part attempts a careful interfaith comparison between Christian faith and four other traditions.

I am deeply grateful to InterVarsity Press for encouraging me over the years to do the revision and allowing me to do it so thoroughly. As always, I am also deeply indebted to my long-term Fuller in-house editor, the late Susan Carlson Wood, who passed unexpectedly toward the end of the editing process. Her impeccable and persistent editorial skills have again helped translate my European English into proper American academic prose! My doctoral student Jae Yang, at Fuller’s Center for Advanced Theological Studies, completed a most meticulous double-checking of all references and citations. As with many other books, another doctoral student, Viktor Toth, prepared the indexes. Although any mistakes and inaccuracies are to be attributed to no one else but myself, I can only imagine how many more there might have been without these extraordinary helpers’ close attention to details and nuances.

Finally, I am ever grateful to my wife of four decades, Anne-Päivi, who not only supports my continuing writing ministry but also inspires and sweetens it with her gentle and delightful presence. Beginning every new morning with a cup of coffee and devotional together makes life more than worth living—another occasion of joy and anticipation.

ABBREVIATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Key Issues of Ecclesiology

ECCLESIOLOGICAL RENAISSANCE AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES

Ecclesiology, the doctrine of the church, has risen to the center of theological interest in recent decades. Alongside the Holy Spirit (pneumatology) and the Trinity, the nature and function of the church occupy theologians of various persuasions. That said, as the senior Catholic ecclesiologist Hans Küng observes in the opening of his classic The Church, Though there is much talk nowadays about the Church in the secular world, there is not a corresponding awareness of what the Church is. ¹

As important a role as ecclesiology is playing in contemporary theology, we should recall that the doctrine of the church did not emerge as a fully developed separate locus until the time of the Reformation. This is of course not to ignore the many church-related themes discussed already in the patristic and later doctrinal manuals, particularly sacramentology. It is rather to remind us of the polemical setting of the Reformation theology out of which a full-orbed ecclesiology, an understanding of the true church, emerged. ² Not surprisingly, the first full-scale ecclesiologies at the time advanced slowly and had a somewhat haphazard tone due to circumstances. ³ That situation has happily changed. The theologian writing in the first decades of the third millennium is fortunate to be able to tap into unprecedented resources due to the resurgence of and enthusiasm over the doctrine of the church over many decades. ⁴ Indeed, the flow of new publications is overwhelming. A theologian must be selective in order to say something worthwhile.

While there may be a number of reasons for the resurgence of the doctrine of the church, a main catalyst seems to have been the birth and growth of the modern ecumenical movement. No other movement in the whole history of the Christian church, perhaps with the exception of the Reformation, has shaped the thinking and practice of Christianity as much as the movement for Christian unity. Now it is true that the history of formal ecumenism in terms of the formation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948 is quite brief, but its roots go back at least to the end of the nineteenth century.

Any talk about the unity of the church presupposes some tentative understanding of what the church is. You cannot unite entities without knowing what kind of organisms you are trying to unite. The ecumenical movement has also helped open up a fruitful dialogue about the nature and mission of the Christian community. The older controversial approach in which differences and disputes often took center stage has moved aside to make room for an approach in which churches seek to learn from and appreciate each other. The Second Vatican Council of the Roman Catholic Church (1962–1965), without doubt the most significant council of the Christian church, completely changed the horizons of the largest church in the world with regard to efforts for unity. At the same time, the Eastern Orthodox churches, including the influential Russian churches, joined the WCC and significantly broadened the membership.

Two other developments in the global church, partly interrelated but also independent to some extent, have inspired and challenged theological reflection on the church: the rapid growth of Christianity outside the Global North (Europe, North America)—so much so that currently the majority of Christians are in the Global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America)—and the rise of nontraditional forms of the church both in the West and elsewhere. The latter development is in general connected to what are nowadays known as Free Churches. The expression Free Churches involves two primary meanings. It refers to communities with congregationalist polity or church constitution, and it emphasizes a stated separation between church and state. ⁵ New congregational models are emerging, especially in the Majority World but also in the West, and many specialists are of the opinion that the Free Church congregational model will be the major paradigm in the third millennium. Even Pope Benedict XVI, during the time he was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, expressed severe criticism of congregational ecclesiologies but admitted that this is the direction that Christian ecumenism is heading. ⁶

If one is not ready simply to discount the ecclesiality (the churchliness) of Free Churches and other nontraditional church forms, one must determine conditions for being a church that are broad enough to include these. The approach of traditional theology has too often been to impose its own often quite limited definition of churchhood on its younger counterparts. Naturally, those churches that define what ecclesiality means usually fulfill the requirements of their own definitions! But this does not further the discussion ecumenically. For older churches simply to discard the enormous potential and force of nontraditional churches by classifying them as something less than a church is both dangerous and useless. Younger churches have shown their vitality, and now it is left to theology to catch up with these developments. This has always been the main task of theology, to reflect on and make sense of what is happening in Christian life and churches.

The expansive growth of Christian churches outside the traditionally Christian West has posed another challenging question to theology: How do we account culturally for the existence of churches in various contexts? What does it require to be a church amid an animistic culture in Africa or a highly spiritualist Asian culture? ⁷ What from the mainly Western heritage is transferable to the rest of the world, and what has to be revised and corrected? And there are other contextual challenges: What would the church look like if it were to make women and other minorities feel at home and find their potential? Or, what does it mean for a church to be a church for those who struggle for freedom and equality?

Furthermore, today the Christian church also faces the challenge and opportunity of interfaith relations. The Muslim ummah, the Jewish synagogue, the Buddhist sangha, and various Hindu communities—to name the traditions engaged in part four—have their own visions and practices for religious communities. How are we to conceive of the mutual relations between these diverse communities anchored on a particular spiritual-religious tradition?

DO WE REALLY NEED A RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY FOR THE FAITH?

The rise to prominence of the theology of the Christian community is not self-evident in light of the rampant individualism of the post-Enlightenment world, particularly in the Global North. There are voices contesting the necessity of a community, the church: Why not have one’s own religion in the solitude of the heart? Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, famously stated that what distinguishes Protestantism from Roman Catholicism is that the former makes the relation of individuals to the church dependent on their relation to Christ whereas the latter makes the relation of individuals to Christ dependent on their relation to the church. ⁸ Paradoxical as this statement is, it is also both an overstatement and inaccurate historically. Both Protestant and Catholic theologies traditionally have discussed the means of salvation, including the sacraments, prior to the topic of the church, the implication being that salvation is received individually, after which faith is nurtured by the church community. Even the Catholic dogmatic manuals up until our day followed the same route. This is, of course, the rule even in contemporary systematic theologies with few exceptions.

Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, in contrast, discusses the foundational theological issues concerning the church first and then launches into the topic of faith and salvation. ⁹ Doing so challenges the established canons of systematic theologies. Pannenberg rightly contends that the fellowship of individuals with Jesus is always mediated by the church, by its proclamation and its administration of the sacraments. ¹⁰ However, at the same time he acknowledges that even though faith is ecclesially mediated, it is still addressed to individuals for personal appropriation. Jesus addressed individuals directly with his announcement of the coming kingdom, and did not, like other Jewish movements of the time, attempt to achieve a gathered eschatological remnant community or any other form or historical manifestation of the true people of God. ¹¹

THE NATURE AND PLAN OF THIS PRIMER

The present book attempts what is now called comparative ecclesiology, which has become popular especially in ecumenical circles. According to the widely used textbook Models of the Church, by one of the leading Catholic ecclesiologists, Avery Dulles, SJ, the term comparative ecclesiology signifies a systematic reflection on the points of similarity and difference in the ecclesiologies of different denominations. ¹² Comparative ecclesiology usually draws from two kinds of sources: more or less official denominational confessional writings and texts of representative theologians. In principle, this is also the approach in this primer. That said, the present book goes beyond the traditional comparative ecclesiology in that the last part of the book also focuses on what may conveniently be called contextual (sometimes also global) ecclesiologies.

The book consists of four parts. Part one seeks to survey major ecclesiological traditions from the oldest (Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic) to Protestantism to Free Churches and Pentecostals/charismatics. Alongside the description of each community’s distinctive theology and practices, a leading theologian of the doctrine of the church from each particular tradition will be engaged (except for Pentecostals/charismatics, to be explained below).

The focus of part two is contextual and global ecclesiologies, in other words, doctrines of the church stemming from a particular agenda such as feminism or sociopolitical liberation or from a particular area of the world, especially the Global South. Even nowadays, unfortunately, these ecclesiologies are either neglected in theological discussions or only paid lip service. In light of the radical transformation of the global church, with the great majority of Christians now residing in the Global South, as well as the springing forth of new types of ecclesial existence, such an omission can no longer be tolerated.

Part three seeks to analyze and reflect on the life and mission of the church by focusing on such key ecclesiological issues as ministry and ministers, sacraments/ordinances, and liturgy and worship. This discussion, like the rest of the book, attempts to maintain an ecumenical approach, thus not intentionally privileging any particular Christian tradition.

In the spirit of the groundbreaking work of the British Anglican Keith Ward’s Religion and Community, which compares the church with other religious communities, part four represents comparative theology, that is, comparing and contrasting Christian community with Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist communities. At the moment, no other major ecclesiological text is doing that work.

ORIENTATION TO PART ONE

Biblical, Historical, and Theological

Roots of the Christian Community

BIBLICAL SYMBOLS, METAPHORS, AND INTIMATIONS

Numerous metaphors and symbols of the church in the New Testament have deep roots in the Old Testament narrative of the nature, life, and experiences of the people of Israel. ¹ The following three have gained particular importance in Christian parlance: the people of God (1 Pet 2:9; Rev 5:9-10), the body of Christ (Eph 1:22-23; 1 Cor 12:27; Col 1:18), and the temple of the Spirit (Eph 2:19-22; 1 Pet 2:5). Speaking from the later perspective of the fully developed trinitarian doctrine, one can easily see here a triadic pattern. Indeed, ecumenically it is noteworthy that virtually all Christian churches are currently in agreement regarding the trinitarian basis and nature of the church and the anchoring of communion (koinonia) in the shared divine life itself.

Let us take a closer look at the meaning and significance of these three defining biblical metaphors of the Christian community.

Church as the temple of the Spirit. In the Bible, the Spirit not only works in one’s personal life but also has a community-forming role, as is clearly evident on the day of Pentecost, at the founding of the church (Acts 2). This is not to contend that Pentecost in itself is the birthday of the church—which is rather Easter because without the raising of the crucified Messiah, the church would not have emerged—but to highlight the importance of the Spirit, along with the Son, as the dual foundation of the Christian community. Everywhere the Son works, the Spirit is there as well, and vice versa.

The importance to the church of the Spirit of God has been appreciated particularly in the Christian East (the Orthodox tradition). Whereas ecclesiologies of the Christian West (Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Protestant, as well as Free Churches and independent communities) are predominantly built on christological categories, the Eastern doctrine of the church seeks a balance between Christology and pneumatology. Eastern theologians often speak of the church as the body of Christ and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. ²

As the Spirit-ed community, the church is charismatically endowed and empowered to accomplish its mission. ³ The Spirit also guides and shapes the life of the community, themes to be developed in detail below.

Church as the body of Christ. In Pauline theology, the body terminology abounds. Whereas in 1 Corinthians and Romans body refers to the individual community, in Ephesians and Colossians it refers to the whole church. The body metaphor for individual communities has to do with interrelated virtues and qualities of love, unity, and working for the common good (1 Cor 12–14). In relation to the whole church, at the fore is a cosmological Christology working out eternal purposes toward the reconciliation of all peoples and all of creation.

Early in Christian tradition, the body metaphor (in reference to the whole church) began to be developed in primarily institutional and hierarchic terms. This development reached its zenith in medieval Catholic ecclesiology and subsequently. Unfortunately, it led to the implicit identification of the church with Christ, a mistake to be corrected (in the next section).

A proper and balanced ecclesiology is determined by the whole history of Jesus the Christ, beginning from his earthly life with teachings and miraculous acts and works; continuing with the pronouncement of forgiveness and inclusion of even outsiders; all the way to his suffering, cross, and death; and culminating in his glorious resurrection, ascension, the Pentecost pouring out of the Spirit, and finally his current cosmic rule. With this kind of wide and comprehensive grounding, the church’s mission can be framed in a dynamic and multilayered manner.

Church as the people of God. Peoplehood is understandably based on divine election, a concept that has roots of course in the election of the people of Israel in the Old Testament (Gen 12:1-3). Divine election means both particularity and opening to the world. On the one hand, the chosen community has a unique relationship to God, notwithstanding the lack of superiority over other nations (Deut 7:7-9). On the other hand, on account of its election, it has a missionary mandate to help other nations to know God (Is 2:2-4; Mic 4:1-5).

Whereas in the theology of the early church the concept of the people of God played a significant role, it receded into the background subsequently, particularly with the entrance of Christendom and Christianity’s official status as the civic religion. Fortunately, the peoplehood of the church has been rediscovered, first in the Reformation and then more recently in the Catholic Church’s Vatican II theology of the church as the people of God. ⁴ Conceiving the church as the pilgrim people on the way to their destiny, Vatican II’s profound ecclesiological document Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church) further highlights the eschatological, future-driven nature of God’s community. ⁵

People of God is the most comprehensive among the three main metaphors. It not only means everything that the church denotes, but it also highlights the inclusiveness and equality of all Christians and, importantly, includes Israel, the first people of God. The church-Israel relationship will be carefully investigated in part four (chapter eighteen).

CHURCH, COMMUNION, AND THE KINGDOM

Church communion rooted in trinitarian communion. As mentioned, the common threefold, biblically based description of the Christian community as people, body, and temple reflects its trinitarian nature. No wonder then that, beginning from the early centuries, the Christian community has been conceived in trinitarian terms. This is still a living tradition, particularly in the Eastern (Orthodox) Church, and currently has an ecumenical consensus.

Just as each person is made according to the image of the Trinity (Gen 1:26-27), so the church as a whole is God’s image. The triune God is the eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit. The church as communion is anchored in this same God, whom it reflects, albeit incompletely and often in a broken manner.

This understanding is expressed with the help of an important New Testament term: koinōnia. Its many meanings include a number of interrelated, dynamic meanings that make it ideal to describe the relationship between God and the church as well as relationships among the churches:

fellowship with the triune God (1 Cor 1:9; 2 Cor 13:13; 1 Jn 1:3, 6)

sharing in faith and the gospel (Rom 15:27; 1 Cor 9:23; 1 Jn 1:3, 7)

sharing in the Eucharist (Acts 2:42; 1 Cor 10:16)

participation in (co)sufferings (Phil 3:10; Heb 10:33)

partnering in common ministry (2 Cor 8:23; Philem 17)

sharing in and contributing to communal and financial needs (Acts 2:44; Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 12:13; 1 Tim 6:18) ⁶

Church and the kingdom of God. The whole ministry and proclamation of Jesus Christ centered on the coming of the righteous rule of his Father in the power of the Holy Spirit, the kingdom of God (Mk 1:15; cf. Mt 4:17; Lk 4:43-44). It had already arrived in his teaching, healings, exorcisms, and pronouncing of forgiveness, culminating in the glorious resurrection from death on behalf of the world. But the kingdom still awaits its final consummation. Between these two comings of Christ is the era of the church. Therefore, the church is referred to the future of God, the eschatological consummation. In the words of Miroslav Volf, the New Testament authors portray the church, which emerged after Christ’s resurrection and the sending of the Spirit, as the anticipation of the eschatological gathering of the entire people of God. ⁷ Every gathering of the church refers to the final homecoming (Rev 21:1-4).

The coming of the kingdom of God is not only the consummation of men and women, but their salvation. The scope of the church’s anticipation is even wider and more comprehensive. Concurrent with the coming of God’s kingdom will be the consummation of God’s eternal plans regarding the whole cosmos.

Hence, it can be said that the church serves as the sign of the coming reign of God. The church in itself is not to be equated with God’s rule. God’s reign, his kingdom, is much wider than the church or even human society. The church is a preceding sign pointing to the coming righteous rule of God in the eschaton.

The distinction between the sign and the thing sets the church and its function in relation to God’s rule in its proper place: A sign points beyond itself to the thing signified. It is thus essential to the function of the sign that we should distinguish them, ⁸ or else we repeat what happened when Christendom essentially equated the church and God’s kingdom.

Acknowledging the anticipatory nature of the church’s existence helps avoid uncritical alignment with any political or ideological order. As Barth put it succinctly, Christians will always be Christians first, and only then members of a specific culture or state or class or the like. ⁹

ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC: THE MARKS OF THE CHURCH

A cherished ancient way of describing the nature and goal of the church is to speak of the four marks: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. This expression even found its way into the ancient Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (381 CE).

Importantly, unlike too often in later tradition, these four classical marks of the church (also called notes or signs in tradition)—unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity—were not first used in any apologetic sense. The marks were most probably added to the creed somewhat haphazardly. Rather than abstract definitions of the church, the marks were first and foremost objects of faith or statements of hope. Eventually, they have also become statements of action, because they urge us to realize what is believed and hoped for. ¹⁰

It is usual and useful to consider the marks as both gifts and tasks. Indeed, the twofold sense has already been implied above. On the one hand, they are gifts from God. We do not make the church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic; only God can. On the other hand, we see only too clearly that any church in the world, including our own, is far from those markers. Hence, each description is also a matter of hope, which leads to action to more closely attain their realization.

To underline the dynamic and missional orientation of the marks, the leading American Reformed mission theologian Charles Van Engen points in the right direction by calling them adverbs. Rather than static adjectives, the adverbial conception calls for the church to be the unifying, sanctifying, reconciling, and proclaiming presence of Jesus Christ in the world, thereby challenging local congregations to a transformed, purpose-driven life of mission in the world, locally and globally. ¹¹

The church as one. In light of the rampant divisions and splits, it really takes faith to confess that the church of Christ on earth is one. No wonder that the New Testament resounds with numerous exhortations toward fostering unity and seeking to avoid further divisions (Jn 17:20-26; Acts 2:42; Rom 12:3-8; 1 Cor 1:10-30; Eph 4:1-6). Although the unity of the church has been a spiritual and theological conviction from its beginning, we should not idealize the early church. Already in the New Testament, divisions and strife emerged as soon as new communities mushroomed. Importantly, early in patristic theology deep concern for restoring unity emerged as well, as is evident in ecumenical tracts such as the early third-century On the Unity of the Church by Cyprian.

Recalling the gift/task distinction introduced above, the church’s unity is a God-given gift because there is only one head with one body of Christ (1 Cor 12). At the same time, it is a grand task given to all Christians.

The church as catholic. The term catholic here does not denote a particular Christian tradition, the Roman Catholic Church. It is rather a theological expression meaning directed toward the whole (literally in Greek), referring first of all to the whole church in distinction from local communities.