Ecclesiology for a Global Church, Richard Gaillardetz rethinks the four marks
of the Church (One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic) in terms of own understanding
of the Church as “people called and sent”. Summarize his understanding of these
four marks of the Church and contrast them with the classical understanding of
those same marks.
Karl Rahner once famously
wrote that, with the Second Vatican Council, Catholic Christianity was shifting
from a church that functioned globally as little more than a cultural export
firm to a genuinely world church. In the decades since Rahner made that
observation, this shift has born fruit in ways that even he could not imagine.
Christianity has witnessed a startling growth in the churches of the global
South even as it struggles for survival in the so called “older churches.”
Ecclesiology for a Global Church explores a theology of the
church that is built upon traditional affirmations about the church as one,
holy, catholic and apostolic, but considers these anew in the light of
contemporary theological developments, particularly from emerging theologies
and new ecclesial realities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
Gaillardetz begins first
with a survey of the rich diversity of biblical conceptions of community. His
point is that the community called Church is a covenantal community where all
worship God. This entails culture and faith, because faith which does not introduce
culture is faith not received (JP II). His starting points are the issues of
communal belonging, identity, leadership and mission that are still being
grappled with in the church today.
Given the impact of
globalization in our world today, it is appropriate to begin with the church’s
catholicity. This great historic mark or note of
the one true Church is that this Church is Catholic.
"Catholic" means "universal." It refers as much to the
fullness of the faith which it possesses as it does to the undeniable extension
in both time and space which has characterized it virtually from the beginning.
For Gaillardetz, Catholicity
within a global church, must now be considered in the light of the church’s
call to dialogical mission in the world. In a postmodern world, catholicity can
no longer mean merely a geographic expansion of the Christian faith; it now
represents an embrace of the essential reality of the church as a
unity-in-diversity that achieves its catholicity in a series of overlapping
cultural, social and religious dialogues with other Christians, members of the
great world religious traditions, and the dizzying plurality of cultures that
may be encountered in the world today.
The catholicity of the
Church calls to the understanding of Christ’s mission to reconcile the whole
creation with the Father. It is a community with the diversity seeking unity
and that unity is a given thing coming down from Christ. In this line, the
catholicity of the Church is a call for a dialogical mission where the debate
is not a sphere of the “win lose situation”. Dialogue is not only an exchange
of opinion; it is rather an exchange and share of opinion which requires
agreement.
Gaillardetz gives four ways
of catholicity:
·
Catholicity
is a dialogue of shared life with non Christians
·
Catholicity
of action; working with non Christians
·
Catholicity
of discourse among theologians
·
Catholicity
of spirituality talking about experience of God in our life.
The Church of the apostles was definitely one:
"There is one body and one spirit," Paul wrote, "just as you
were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one
baptism, one God and Father of us all" (Eph. 4:4-5). In Gallardetz’s view, the Church’s oneness
manifests itself, not as a stifling uniformity but as a spiritual communion
that embraces a differentiated ecclesial unity. This communion is always an ordered
communion, that is, it is ordered by a variety of gifts and ministries that
contribute to the building up of the church in view of the church’s mission.
Similarly,
the Church of the apostles was holy. When we say that, we mean among
other things that it had the all-holy God himself as author. We do not mean
that all of its members have ceased to be sinners and have themselves become
all-holy. On the contrary, the Church from the beginning, on her human side,
has been composed of sinners: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners" (1 Tim. 1:15). The Church was founded for no other reason than to
continue Christ's redemptive and sanctifying work with them in the world.
One of the things implicit in the
appellation "holy" as applied to the Church, then, is that the Church
from the beginning has been endowed with the sacramental means to help make
holy the sinners who are found in her ranks. The Church has been given the
sacraments along with the word precisely in order to be able to help
make sinners holy.
It was in this sense that Paul was
able to write, "Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her, that
he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the
word, that he might present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or
wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish"
(Eph. 5:25-27). The holiness of the Church, of which the creed properly speaks,
has always had reference to her divine Founder and to what the Church was
founded by him with the power and authority to do, not with the condition of
her members.
The church’s holiness, for Gaillardetz is interpreted within
the framework of Christian discipleship. This leads to a move away from
a pre-conciliar, hierarchical gradation of the possible calls to holiness. As
disciples of Jesus, all are called to holiness, each in a distinctive way. Yet
this does not preclude Christians giving a particular public witness to the
gospel values to which all are called by vocations to professed religious life
and marriage. Gaillardetz puts holiness of the Church to discipleship. This
links holiness to mission. What he brings in as new is that we have to take all
the classes of the society in the discipleship of the Church.
Finally, the Church that issued from
the commission of Christ to the apostles was necessarily apostolic.
Christ founded the Church upon the apostles and in no other way: "Did I
not choose you, the twelve?" he asked them (John 6:70). The apostles of
all people understood perfectly well that they did not set themselves up in
their own little community, as we sometimes today see "gospel
churches" set up in store fronts or in the suburbs. The New Testament
teaches, "One does not take the honor upon himself" (Heb. 5:4). To
ask these questions is to answer them: Any entity or body claiming to be the
Church of Christ would have to be able to demonstrate its apostolicity by
demonstrating an organic link with the original apostles on whom Christ
manifestly established his Church. Nothing less than this could qualify as the
"apostolic" Church which Jesus founded.
We
do confess an apostolic Church. The whole Church is the new people of God,
gathered by the apostles through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The whole Church is the temple of the Spirit, built on the foundation of the
apostles. The whole Church is the body of Christ, unified by the ministry of
the apostles.
Though the
apostolicity was added to the apostolic Creed to agree with the true faith
built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, it has a special mark.
What is the unity, the holiness and the Catholicity we talk about? What can
determine the meaning of these marks?
Then the apostolicity of the Church comes in here. What we talk about is the apostolic unity,
the apostolic catholicity and the apostolic Holiness. This means:
·
Apostolicity
of origin (founded on the apostles),
·
Apostolicity
of doctrine (faithful transmission of the gospel of Christ),
·
Apostolicity
of life (the doctrine is embodied in life),
·
Apostolicity
of succession (the power of the leader is from the apostles).
·
One: The church’s oneness
manifests itself, not as a stifling uniformity but as a spiritual communion that
embraces a differentiated ecclesial unity. This communion is always an ordered communion, that is, it is ordered by a
variety of gifts and ministries that contribute to the building up of the
church in view of the church’s mission.
·
Holy: The church’s holiness is
interpreted within the framework of Christian discipleship. This leads to a move away
from a pre-conciliar, hierarchical gradation of the possible calls to holiness.
As disciples of Jesus, all are called to holiness, each in a distinctive way.
Yet this does not preclude Christians giving a particular public witness to the
gospel values to which all are called by vocations to professed religious life
and marriage.
·
Catholic: Given the impact of
globalization in our world today, it is appropriate to begin with the church’s
catholicity which, within a global church, must now be considered in the light
of the church’s call to dialogical mission in the world. In a postmodern world,
catholicity can no longer mean merely a geographic expansion of the Christian
faith; it now represents an embrace of the essential reality of the church as a
unity-in-diversity that achieves its catholicity in a series of overlapping
cultural, social and religious dialogues with other Christians, members of the
great world religious traditions, and the dizzying plurality of cultures that
may be encountered in the world today.
·
Apostolic: The
church’s apostolicity is
preserved through a sense of communal memory. The
church is bound, in various ways and in varying degrees, by the narratives and
practices that have constituted the church’s identity over time and space. This
sense of ecclesial memory is important as it allows us to highlight not only
what has been handed down but the ways in which each Christian community,
receiving the gospel in its own cultural and historical context, makes that
faith its own and adds to the corporate memory of the church. The Christian
community, bound by a common memory, calls forth ministers whose principal task
it is to preserve the integrity of the church’s apostolic memory and to be
servants of the church’s catholicity in the exercise of apostolic oversight.[1]
According to Gaillardetz,
the church’s apostolicity is preserved through a sense of communal
memory. The church is bound, in various ways and in varying degrees, by the
narratives and practices that have constituted the church’s identity over time
and space. This sense of ecclesial memory is important as it allows us to
highlight not only what has been handed down but the ways in which each
Christian community, receiving the gospel in its own cultural and historical
context, makes that faith its own and adds to the corporate memory of the
church. The Christian community, bound by a common memory, calls forth
ministers whose principal task it is to preserve the integrity of the church’s
apostolic memory and to be servants of the church’s catholicity in the exercise
of episkopē or apostolic oversight.
Gaillardetz offers an
introduction to ecclesiology that wishes to be faithful to the received
Catholic tradition while introducing the reader to contemporary reflections on
the church that have emerged out of ecumenical dialogues. He is fond of a
quote from the Venerable Bede, “every day the church gives birth to the
church.” This work recounts a history of the church’s development of its
understanding of itself even as it proposes that in our globalizing world the
universal church might do well to learn from the recent practices of churches
in developing countries, and to apply more fully the principle of subsidiarity.
There is much more to this book on ecumenism and interfaith dialogues and their
role in the church’s self-knowledge.
[1] Cf. http://www.gaillardetz.com/publications/77-ecclesiology-for-a-global-church (accessed on
April 9, 2011).
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