Who Is the Church?

An Ecclesiology for the Twenty-First Century

Cheryl M. Peterson

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780800698812
• eBook ISBN: 9781451426380
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

3

The Church as Communion

The second paradigm, communion ecclesiology, offers another theological answer to the question of the church’s identity. This paradigm locates the being of the church not in an “event” but in the very divine life of the Triune God. Although communion ecclesiology does not come to the fore as a central ecclesiological concept in Western theology until the twentieth century, it has biblical origins and is associated with the Holy Spirit, as seen in the Pauline greeting: “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion [koinonia] of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:13). Communion ecclesiology draws on the twofold biblical meaning of koinonia: fellowship and a common participation or sharing in something, in this case, salvation in Christ. Theologically, koinonia is defined as a gift of God with vertical and horizontal aspects: believers are drawn into communion with the Triune God and with one another through their incorporation into the body of Christ, which happens through Baptism and Eucharist. The most dominant version grounds the communion of the church in the perichoretic communion of the persons of the Trinity.^[1]

The Emergence of Communion Ecclesiology
in Twentieth-Century Roman Catholicism

Communion ecclesiology emerged in the twentieth century as a response to questions of ecclesial self-understanding in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches. It has been deemed by Josephs Cardinal Ratzinger as “the basic ecclesiology” and is becoming the major paradigm for ecumenical ecclesiology.

Leading up to the Second Vatican Council, theologians, most notably Yves Congar, rediscovered the concept of communion as a fuller way of speaking about the nature of the church that goes beyond the hierarchical and clerical. Before Vatican II, ecclesiology was dominated by neoscholastic theologians who viewed the church primarily in christological terms and defined the church in juridical categories as a hierarchical society.^[2] The 1940s saw a return to the patristic sources and a retrieval of the mystical-body theology as a response to the growing dissatisfaction with neoscholasticism. This paved the way for Pope Pius XII to publish the 1943 encyclical Mystici corporis Christi (“The Mystical Body of Christ”), the most comprehensive official Catholic pronouncement on the church prior to Vatican II. In this encyclical, Pius stresses the necessity of the church’s visibility as the body of Christ and, in its most memorable passage, affirms that “the Mystical Body is identical with the Roman Catholic Church.”^[3]

This same period saw other theological contributions from the “ressourcement [return to the sources] movement,” in particular that of Congar, who is regarded as the most influential ecclesiologist between Mystici corporis and Vatican II. Congar sought to reclaim the experience of the church in its first millennium, before its domination in society and culture, as a resource for contemporary ecclesiology. His work also reflected a shift from a christocentric to a more trinitarian method. Congar’s theological reflection on the central biblical and trinitarian images of the church—people of God, body of Christ, and temple of the Holy Spirit—brought fresh new perspectives to the discussion. For Congar, the central point of Paul’s body-of-Christ motif was not, as many had argued in the decades leading up to Vatican II, an insistence on institutional visibility, but an affirmation of unity in plurality. Congar’s own preference seemed to be for the image “temple of the Spirit,” which, according to Avery Dulles, “suggested the dimensions of interiority and spirituality, giving rise to an ecclesiology of communion. In contrast to . . . [emphasizing] the visible structures of the Church, Congar looked upon the institutional structures as mere means . . . preferring to define the Church essentially as a community in the Spirit, a congregatio fidelium.”^[4] As the people of God, laypersons should not be viewed only as recipients of the ministry of priests and bishops, but as active and responsible subjects called to transform the world with the light of the gospel.^[5] His long-held ecumenical concerns also shaped his ecclesiology, which would in turn influence the council in significant ways. Already in 1939 he spoke of Protestants as separated brethren and posited that, because there are salvific elements in them, one may recognize degrees of communion with other Christians.

The Second Vatican Council

The ecclesiology of Vatican II generally followed the ressourcement theology rather than neoscholasticism, but “made no sharp break with the official teaching of the recent past. The shift was one of emphasis more than substance, of rhetoric more than doctrine.”^[6] The Vatican II documents integrate the concept of the church as the body of Christ and the church as the people of God into what the 1985 Synod of Bishops would declare is “a central and fundamental” idea to emerge from the council: an ecclesiology of koinonia or communion.^[7] The communion concept is seen as involving diversity in unity, the spirit of collegiality, and participation and co-responsibility at every level of the church. Communion ecclesiology draws on and builds on the notion of the church as a people of God, for the church is manifested in “the full and active participation of all God’s holy people” and the church of Christ is really present “in all legitimately organized groups of the faithful.”^[8] Communion ecclesiology also retrieves a biblical and patristic idea of the whole Christ, totus Christus, by which all of humanity are not only joined to the body of Christ through grace in a covenant with Christ the head, but participate in Christ in such manner as to form a single being.^[9] This paradigm avoids the difficulties of the older mystical-body theology—in particular, “naïve identification” between Christ and the church, where the church is seen as a prolongation of the incarnation and can easily become triumphalist—by introducing the mediating category of “sacrament” and giving communion a more explicit trinitarian foundation.^[10]

The primary emphasis in all communion ecclesiologies is on relationship to Christ and sacramental incorporation into the Triune God, rather than organizational structures or community. For Susan Wood and others, “Ecclesial communion is modeled on the communion of perichoresis of the Father, Son, and Spirit in their Trinitarian relationship,” whereby the persons maintain distinctive identities, but through mutual interpenetration (perichoresis), share a unity of being and will. Christians are “actually caught up in the dynamic interrelationship of Father, Son, and Spirit” by virtue of their incorporation into the body of Christ and participation in Christ.^[11] The communion of members in the church is compared to and grounded in the communion of divine persons within the Trinity.^[12] The Eucharist is not only the visible sign of communion in and with Christ; it is constitutive of ecclesial communion, “for in partaking one bread, we become one body.” In other words, “For where the Eucharist is, there is the church.”^[13] Eucharist is the culmination and visible expression of the communion begun by incorporation into the body of Christ through Baptism. According to Wood, the mission of the church in this model is best described as reconciliation, “extending the concept from one of juridical penance and repentance for sin to one of incorporation into the body. The dominant metaphor for sin becomes alienation and isolation from the body of Christ, and the metaphor for grace is communion with the body.”^[14]

Communion ecclesiology gives special attention to the local or particular church without denying the importance of hierarchical communion with the pope. It is important for Protestants to understand that in Catholic (as well as Orthodox) understanding, a “local church” is a diocese, not a congregation. A local or particular church is defined by the presence not only of the Eucharist but also a bishop, who through his office links the church with other eucharistic communities.^[15] The local church is not a subdivision of the universal church but relates to the universal church (and other local churches) through the celebration of the Eucharist by the bishop. The universal church is defined in eucharistic terms as well. “The universal church subsists in, but is not limited to, each particular church in an analogous way to which Christ is entirely present in, but it not limited to, each eucharistic celeb...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table Of Contents
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Asking the Right Question
• Ecclesiology and Context in Protestant America
• The Church as Word-Event
• The Church as Communion
• Ecclesiology Post-Christendom
• Starting with the Spirit
• An Ecclesiology That “Starts with the Spirit”
• Epilogue: A Vision for Revival
• Index of Names and Subjects