The following chapters on the nature and purpose of the Church, the ministry and the. An even more significant occasion for theological self-examination lies in the temper of the times. Considerable time has been devoted by the staff to the study of the American denominations, their ministries and interests in theological education.
Some of these interviews were conducted by the assistant director, others by members of the faculties. A further book, sponsored by the study but not written by members of the staff, is to be.
DENOMINATION, NATION OR CHURCH?
The community in which they work is the Church; the objectives they pursue are those of the Church. Denominational organization and American life are both conditioning elements in the work of the ministry and of the. This fact of the ecumenical spirit in the denominational school is a tremendous thing with great possibilities for the future.
The courses of study in denominational as well as interdenominational schools are even more indicative of their participation in the common life of the whole Church. Catholic interest in the whole Church does not always lead to radical change of the denominational mind.).
TOWARD A DEFINITION OF THE CHURCH
What the Church is as subject cannot be stated without some description of the Object toward which it is directed. An example of this may be found in Professor Emil Brunner's The Misunderstanding of the Church (Philadelphia, 1953). In part the realization of the Church community in the New World waits on the.
The final polarity to be considered in this adumbration of the form and nature of the Church is that of Church and world. When, in its sense of rejection, it is preoccupied with these temporal matters it is the world of idolatry and becomes foe of the Church.
THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH: THE INCREASE OF THE LOVE OF GOD AND NEIGHBOR
It includes many interchanges on special issues through which, however, the movement toward the definition of the ultimate issue and the final objective proceeds. This is true also of the Church; it loses its character as Church when it concentrates on itself, worships itself and seeks to make love of Church the first commandment. Is not the result of all these debates and the content of the confessions or commandments of all these authorities this: that no substitute can be found for the definition of the goal of the Church as the increase among men of the love of God and neighbor.
But the simple language of Jesus Christ himself furnishes to most Christians the most intelligible key to his own purpose and to that of the community gathered around him. The purpose of the gospel is not simply that we should believe in the love of God; it is that we should love him and neighbor. Historically they are associated in Judaism and Christianity, in the two tables of the Ten.
Commandments, in the double summary of the law offered by Jesus, in apostolic preaching, in the theology and ethics of Catholic and Protestant churches. God's love of self and neighbor, neighbor's love of God and self, self's love of God and neighbor are so closely interrelated that none of the relations exists without the others. What then is love and what do we mean by God and by neighbor when we speak of the ultimate purpose of Church, and so of theological education, as the increase of love of God and neighbor among men.
Love is loyalty; it is the willingness to let the self be destroyed rather than that the other cease to be; it is the commitment of the self by self- binding will to make the other great. What, further, do we mean by the word God when we speak of the love of God. When all is said and done the increase of this love of God and neighbor remains the purpose and the hope of our preaching of the gospel, of all our church organization and activity, of all our ministry, of all our efforts to train men for the ministry, of Christianity itself.
CONFUSING PROXIMATE WITH ULTIMATE GOALS
United States and Canada does not need to be eradicated before theological education can be put on a sounder basis, but a denominationalism that puts loyalty to the branch of the Church above all other loyalties involves theological education in internal self-contradictions that vitiate its work. More significant today than the confusion of a branch of the Church with the whole Church is the confusion of Church, considered as whole or in its essence, with the ultimate context of theological education. Whether the term Church or the term Christianity is used, there is an internal contradiction in a theology and a Christian educational system that regard the work of the Church as the final activity to be considered.
Communism it has become plain what internal contradictions and perversions ensue when the promotion of the party is substituted for the pursuit of the party's cause. It is evident that in dealing with this confusion we are attending to a subject that is important not only to theological education but to all the work of the churches. The confusion of the subject with the subject's object is more than an epistemological fallacy.
A similar confusion to which Protestantism is even more prone ensues when the Bible is so made the center of theological education that the book takes the place of the God who speaks, and love of the book replaces devotion to the One who makes himself known with its aid. The problem of the relation of Scriptures to revelation, of the Word of God spoken through the prophets and incarnate in Jesus Christ to the living Word, is one that has greatly concerned theology especially since the days of the Reformation. To give final devotion to the book is to deny the final claim of God; to look for the mighty deeds of God only in the records of the past is to deny that he is the living God; to love the book as the source of strength and of salvation is to practice an idolatry that can bring only confusion into life.
This confusion of the proximate with the final introduces many internal conflicts into the work of the churches and of theological education. That the confusion has not led to greater spiritual disasters than have been encountered is doubtless due to the fact that Jesus Christ in his nature and witness is a constant corrective of the perversion of his worship. The critique of education requires the critique of theology and the critique of theology involves the critique of the Church.
The Purpose of the Church and its Ministry by H
Richard Niebuhr, Daniel Day Williams, & James M
Gustafson
The Emerging New Conception of the Ministry
- THE PERPLEXED PROFESSION
- PASTORS, PREACHERS AND PRIESTS
- THE PASTORAL DIRECTOR
On the other hand, and partly because of such conflict, the idea of the ministry was vague and. Ministers no less than the schools give evidence of the prevailing mistiness of the conception of the ministry. Similarly the preacher of the churches of the Reformation carried on all the traditional functions of the ministry.
The purpose of the ministry was the renewal of life by evangelical faith in God's love for man. The distinction of the priest-minister from the preacher-minister is relatively easy to make. A definite understanding of the ministerial office also includes a relatively clear-cut conception of what constitutes the call to the ministry.
This also is a kind of teaching authority, but even more the authority of the witness. One may speak of a general weakening of the authority of the ministry in the modern world. When the idea of the ministry is relatively well-defined both of these questions are answered: Is the minister.
The bishops described in the First Letter to Timothy were such men—the heads and overseers of the Household of God. In the contemporary situation the idea of the minister's call is undergoing a change in the. It is questionable whether the prominence of communal authority in the new idea of the ministry has special significance for the development of spiritual authority.
Something has previously been said above about the final point in the emerging new conception of the ministry. We can make far too much of the changing needs of men in changing civilizations.
The Idea of a Theological School
- SEMINARIES IN QUANDARY
- SIGNS OF NEW VITALITY
- THE CHARACTER AND PURPOSE OF A THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL
- THE THEOLOGICAL COMMUNITY
- THEORY AND PRACTICE
During the course of the last two or three generations the theological curriculum has been. This antagonism is akin to another, the one between exponents in theology of the self-. It does mean that the books of the Old Covenant are studied in the context of an intellectual love of God and neighbor, of a faith that seeks understanding.
We begin that effort by defining the theological school as intellectual center of the Church's life. Its purpose is the purpose of the Church—the increase among men of the love of God and companions. It is not even the intellect of the Church; but as an intellectual center it is a member of the body.
The Reformers, to be sure, revolted against the dominance of tradition at the expense of the Bible. The principle of communication applies also to the relations of the theological school to other groups and activities in the contemporary Church. Its relations to the philosophies, sciences and humanities studied in the latter will be as various as are the relations of the Church to its companion, the world.
As intellectual center of the Church's life it is the place where in specific manner faith seeks understanding. Serving these it is served by them in the service of God and neighbor or of the self. Now the proper work of the intellect lies in the accurate, critical discovery, definition and testing of such ideas.
It puts the intellectual love of God and neighbor into the rich context of the present moment. It is important that their studies be set in the context of the Church's work not simply because theology is thereby.
