Wednesday, May 09, 2007

My Church Symposium Paper

If anyone is interested in seeing the paper I submitted for the Wesleyan Ecclesiology Conference, here is the link:

http://www.kenschenck.com/churchspirit.html
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5 comments:

Angie Van De Merwe said...

Thanks, Ken. I guess the question as always, is what is "eternally true" and what changes as far as our understanding of Scripture within the historical context.

Before people had the Scriptures available, the Church was their "means to salvation". Now, the conservative evangelical believes that the Scriptures imparted by the Holy Spirit "converts" a person.

You have stated in you paper that the Holy Spirit has not changed in "corporately saving us". My question is twofold; I understand that there were sects in the 1300's that went "away from the Church's teachings" and who were labeled as heretics. Some died during the Inquisition. But, some of these "heretics" sound an awful lot like today's conservative (Gnostics?). Is the Protestant Reformation, then, an "aberration from orthodoxy" or a progressive impartation within history of "truth from the Holy Spirit"?

Martin Luther, as an individual was not allowed to question the Church's institutions. And yet, the abuses of the Church, as in Jesus day at the cleansing of the Temple was a needed "reformation!

Is the Spirit still revealing aspects of truth within history? If so, then wouldn't the individual's role be just as important to maintain as the Biblical "plural language"? It was because the individual was not acknowedged as a rightful "person" apart from "group identity" that individualistic language was not used. That was their culture at that time. And just because this is so, does not prove to me that individuality is not just as important as corporaility. The individual himself is made in God's image, not only the Church.

There are many errors/dangers that can occur with "group mentality", as was seen in WWII, or any "cult".

We are personal, as well as social "animals". The personal distinction, which is individual is what makes us "human" and different from the animal.

11:37 PM
Ken Schenck said...

Angie, the point to attack my paper is to turn it on itself and ask whether the corporate nature of early Christianity applied only to their time and not to our time. Don't tell anyone... ;-)

For the record, I believe in the possibility of prophetic movements that shift the consensus of the Church in ways that go against the previous consensus. This is a little different from Bounds' celebrated Vincent of Larens. I consider the Protestant Reformation one such prophetic movement that has stood the test of time in several key respects.

12:02 AM
Angie Van De Merwe said...

If you say that the corporallity does not apply to our time then there is no "Christian" organization, as such. The only way that an organization can function is to "sell" its "vision" to the parts (individuals), so that everyone is "on board" and "in place" and "VIOLA" a successful "business" model!

I think I remember reading in the paper a few years back a quote from Life Calling and Leadership about "Top Dogs" and "underdogs". this attitude is one of "survival of the fittest" and not the character of Christ (In this model, Christ was the underdog, I guess)..I was so angry I wrote a letter to the editor, but my husband didn't want me to send it. I did send it to Pastor Steve. I don't consider myself an animal and refuse to be treated as one, or looked upon as one. Nor do I think other human beings are to labeled in that way. I don't believe this is pride, but human dignity! Corporality doesn't view the individual but its purposes, just as a "deterministic God"....!

There are MANY dangers (social, moral, political, material,etc.) of corporare mentality that I shared with Keith concerning his book on "There is no I in Church".

There needs to be addressed how the "political machine" (the institution) is to function spiritually. Can it?

7:45 AM
David Drury said...

Thanks for posting this.
Since I'll be there at the symposium I think I'll wait to hear it live.

It'll be my first chance to hear Schenck Thoughts from the "horse's mouth", as it were. And I can't wait.

8:15 PM
Ken Schenck said...

... some part of the horse's anatomy, I'm sure...

10:13 PM

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