The statement that the church is an organization is not and has never been a simple one. On the one hand amongst the reformed theologians there is still a certain doubt and even suspicion in accepting the applicability of the concept of 'organization' to the church.1 In this tradition 'organization' seems to contradict the presence of the Holy Spirit and appears like an audacious human effort to take the fate of the church into one's own hands. While on the other hand for many sociologists there should be nothing too problematic in applying the concept of 'organization' to the church.2
In spite of different approaches as well as bases of typologies being employed, most sociologists distinguish the church on the one side as a type of social phenomenon called organization (e.g. formal organization, normative organization, etc.), and on the other side as an organization, which has its own distinctiveness, that can not be found in other types of organizations. In her effort to establish what kind of organization the missionary church is, Thung has phrased it accurately,
...an organization which is focusing on deep-seated orientations, which have farreaching consequences for the lives of its members... yet the normative orientations to which it is geared are more fundamental and reach farther than occurs in any other normative organization... they encompass the whole of life...3
Yet it still is an organization, a social system, which --with the help of other disciplines than theology/ecclesiology-- is liable to be explored and developed in order to optimize its effort in realizing its ends.
The other approach is that of the theologians, of whom in general it can be said that they defend the uniqueness of the church. To them it is on the one side 'the brotherhood of believers gathered by the Lord' (koinonia - ecclesia), while on the other side the church is a group of ordinary people living in the community and taking part in society.4 It is an entity which finds itself in the tension between pretension and actuality, between normative and empirical reality.5
It is remarkable that in their own significances and rights, those two different looks on the church unequivocally delineate the two-edged characteristic of the church, namely in being an ordinary social system or organization, and at the same time in being incomparable with other normative organizations, or in being an empirical reality and a normative reality as well. This means that in this light the attempt to understand the church should be placed between two focuses, namely the question of the origin and nature of the church (the source of being), and the question of the function and role of the church (the reason for being). In other words they are the questions of its relation with God --who reveals Himself in Christ and who continues to act through the Holy Spirit,-- by whom the church is gathered and guided (the normative reality), and its relation with the world, which is the realm where the church fulfils its existence (the empirical reality).6
1. The Church in its Relation with God
The existence of the church could only be comprehended in the framework of God's saving act towards his whole creation, which is revealed and fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and continued through the works of the Holy Spirit.7 This comprises two aspects, namely the church in being the one which has its origin in Christ, and the church in being the one which is guided by the living Christ through the Spirit. Or in other words the key words here are christological, i.e. the church in its relation with Christ, and pneumatological, i.e. the church in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Firstly, the church is christological because it is not created by man but given by God, in the sense that it is created by its relationship to Christ.8 For Christ did not found a church, rather He called men (the circle of the disciples, the nation Israel, and eventually all men and creatures) to follow Him personally and to live as children of God, because the reign of God is at hand.9 Thus the source of being of the church is neither the world nor itself but Christ, in the sense that its origins do not lie solely in the intention and the message of Jesus, but in the historical event of Christ, i.e. his whole life and ministry. By his life, his sayings and deeds, his death and his resurrection, Jesus has opened up a new relationship of human beings to God, and in so doing has established a new relationship of one human being to another in the world which they live.10 Therefore in the wider sense that is the entire saving action of God in Jesus Christ's whole life and ministry, and the action of God in resurrecting the crucified Christ and in pouring out the Holy Spirit, turned the group of those who believed communally in the risen Jesus into a community of those who, in contrast to the unbelieving ancient people of God (Israel), could claim to be the new eschatological people of God.11 Hence it is the act of God in the person of Jesus as the Messiah and the risen Christ, which constitutes the roots of the church. And on this fundament the wider circle of Jesus' disciples i.e. the apostles and the prophets founded the church.12 Yet the existence of the church is not an end in itself. As Barth puts it, the goal in the direction of which the church proceeds and moves is the revelation of the sanctification of all humanity and human life as it has already taken place de iure in Jesus Christ. Furthermore, in this interim era --i.e. between the 'already' and 'not yet' of salvation,-- the church is the representation of that sanctification albeit a provisional one, for it can only attest to it. The church is thus savingly necessary.13 Consequently this means that if the church is to be called the true church of Christ, and a trustworthy provisional representation of His sanctification, then it must abidingly strive to maintain its relationship with Christ and to live and act in the footsteps of Jesus Christ.
Secondly, the church is pneumatological because the relationship it has with Jesus is not merely an abstract and an emotional one, in the sense that it has already occurred in the past, and that what is to be experienced is simply a nostalgic albeit an inspirational recollection of that relationship. It is rather a real and an actual relationship because therein Jesus is the living Christ. He is the living Christ who makes possible that the provisional representation of the church takes place, by way of the quickening power of His Holy Spirit.14 The Holy Spirit is thus the source of life of the church, and by its power the presence of the living Christ is realized and concretely experienced by the church. Hence the church is an event --i.e. "the living community of the living Lord Jesus Christ in the fulfilment of its existence,"-- in which the living Christ through the power and the works of the Holy Spirit is present in order to maintain, to grow and to guide the church.15 And notwithstanding the church is a human, earthly-historical construct which always involves human action, God in Christ by the Holy Spirit is the one who is at work in the church.16 Consequently this means that as 'the body of Christ',17 the church must always acknowledge its source of life, and must ceaselessly live and act accordingly.
2. The Church in its Relation with the World
The church which is 'the body of Christ' and 'the people of God', i.e. 'the living community of the living Lord Jesus Christ' does not exist without definite functions or without allocation of specific tasks, just like any other community or organization. It is clear that the church does not exist in this interim time for itself, rather it is created in order to carry on God's mission which is already 'fulfilled' in Christ, yet has not reached its 'fullness' until the time when the Kingdom of God will be fully and absolutely revealed.18 This conveys two aspects, namely the church which bears the mission for the world, and the fact that the church is eschatological, i.e. it is awaiting the eschaton.
Firstly, mission is always concerned with the world, for it does not take place in a vacuum. It is an encounter between God and the world, the world that originated in God, and God in Christ who wishes to sanctify it.19 In order to carry on that mission in and for the world, the church manifests itself with two different facets which can not be separated from each other, namely as community and as institute.20 It is thus on the one hand a community, a network of personal relationships between God and the believers as well as among the believers themselves. For the world it must be plain to see that the church is a community created by the Spirit of the living Lord Jesus Christ, gathered into the 'fullness of God'. In such a community man should be able to encounter God and his fellowmen and to experience fellowship with God and with his fellow human beings.21 On the other hand and at the same time it is an institute, with its right to existence based on the interpersonal activities it brings about and maintains. Yet the uniqueness of a church lies in the nature of those activities. According to Berkhof those activities --he calls them 'the institutional elements',-- aim at the renewal of people by means of that history, by bringing them into a relationship with God and Christ and so into a new relationship with each other, to life, and to the world.22 For the world it must be clear that the concern of the church as an institute is participation in the works of the Holy Spirit in and for the world. Therefore the church needs to be organized and structured as such that the ideals of the church and reality are linked and related, because the existence of the church in Christ should correspond with its existence in and for the world.23 Hence since for this there are (too) many models of 'being a church' available --which actually are fruits of certain times, conditions and contexts, none of which could claim to be the the truest or the best,-- it is crucial to look for 'constancies', i.e. certain characteristics which may not be missing from 'being a church'.24 The most accepted ones by most churches in Indonesia25 are the triad provided by Hoekendijk, fellowship/unity (koinonia), witness (kerygma), and service (diakonia),26 which nowadays is supplemented with one more constancy, namely learning.27 Thence for the sake of the world the church should look like a two-coloured medallion with two faces. It is essentially a community and an institute, which at the same time manifests itself on one side in witness and on the other side in service.
Secondly, in its relation with the world the church is eschatological, because the church anticipates the imminent coming of the parousia of Christ.28 This signifies at least two things. First, the church is not an end in itself. Like Jesus who points beyond the church to the Kingdom of God, the church must regard the Kingdom as the future of the world as its central concern, that is if the church is to remain faithful to the message of Jesus.29 Hence the church is to relate and to feature its being as an eschatological community. On this point the function of the church as 'the provisional representation of God's sanctification' literally obtains its meaning.30 Second, the church must consistently realize its temporariness, that is in being in the interim era. That is to say that the church must not become an institution concerned only with the religious needs of its members. On the contrary it must demonstrate openness to the world in the anticipation of the eschaton, which concerns the whole creation.31 That means that in order to do that the church must become 'worldly', while at the same time it strives to be loyal to its source and its reason for being.32
1 A lively example of the long-standing tradition of anti-institutionalism is from the beginning of the 19th century, --which up to the moment up to a certain measure still has influence in some churches-- is Hoedemaker, who in defending his theocratic line of thinking had condemned the administrative organization of the church --even the synod-- as unjustified in origin, not-biblical in nature, and corrupt in character, (Balke, W., Hoedemaker, Gunning, Kraemer en Van Ruler, in Spijker, Prof. Dr. W. van't, et al, [eds.], De Kerk - Wezen, weg en werk van de kerk naar reformatorische opvatting, Kampen, 1990, pp 202-211).
2 The so-called 'defenders' of sociology in association with theology as well as ecclesiology, are e.g. Dekker, dr. G., op cit, Haas, P. de, op cit, Thung, Mady A., op cit, and Tidball, Derek, op cit.
3 Thung, Mady A., op cit, p 57. In this spirit, Dekker --in his attempt to clarify that in regarding the church theology and sociology should be working together and complementing each other,-- conveys the task division between those two disciplines, namely theology as a normative science and sociology as an empirical one. This is to say that each of them has its own way of looking at the reality of the church, and at the same time acknowledges its own limitations as well as the other's capacities, (Dekker, dr. G., op cit, pp 20-34.
4 Bons-Storm, dr. Riet, op cit, pp 7-11; comp. Berkhof, Hendrikus, op cit, pp 397-404; in which he summarizes this somewhat delicate yet complex point. See also Dulles, Avery, Models of the Church, New York, 1987 (expanded edition), pp 123-138.
5 Barth characterizes the church as an event i.e. 'the living community of the living Lord Jesus Christ in the fulfilment of its existence' (Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics IV/2, [translation by G.W. Bromiley], Edinburgh, 19672, pp 614-726). While another variation is of Küng's in which the church is perceived as having both 'essence' and 'historical form', in the sense that 'the essence is to be found in its historical form, and the historical form must be understood in the light of and with reference to the essence' (Küng, Hans, op cit, pp 3-6).
6 On this point it should speak for itself, that what this is all about is not the ecclesiology an sich, for there is no such thing (Schippers, K.A., Er zijn..., p 74). There are only certain and/or applied ecclesiologies, which are determined and conditioned by the needs and challenges of the context and by the people involved. This also applies to the 'ecclesiologies' of the New Testament which were 'products' of their time (see Schweizer, Eduard, Church Order in the New Testament, [translation by Frank Clarke], London, 19632, pp 13-19; comp. Küng, op cit, pp 3-24). As to this study I realize that on the one hand as Schippers (Ibid) puts it, this should be a practical-theology applied ecclesiology, and yet on the other hand this is nothing more than a modest attempt to proceed in that direction, with the exception that the accent is more on the essence of the church --as Küng puts it (Küng, H., loc cit),-- rather than on the form which is in general accordingly presumed.
7 See Barth, K., op cit, p 615; Schillebeeckx, Edward, The Church with a Human Face - A New and Expanded Theology of Ministry, (translation by John Bowden), London, 1985, pp 34-39. Comp. Berkhof, H., op cit, pp 343-426.
8 See Hanson, A.T. & Hanson, R.P.C., The Identity of the Church - A Guide to Recognizing the Contemporary Church, London, 1987, pp 41-68.
9 Küng, H., op cit, pp 70-79. Comp. Moltmann, Jürgen, The Church in the Power of the Spirit - A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, (translation by Margaret Kohl), London, 1977, pp 66-75. As to Schillebeeckx, the question whether Christ did found the church is a misunderstanding, because fundamentally the church does not mean the institute church but the eschatological people of God, (Schillebeeckx, Edward, Mensen als verhaal van God, Baarn, 1989, pp 177-178.
13 Barth, K., op cit, pp 620-626. Surely this does not mean that the church here is to be understood in the connotation of the famous principle "extra ecclesiam nulla salus". Rather this is just the way Barth puts it. That is to say that although he could be considered as the one who still holds the sequence 'God - church - world', he is very critical in concentrating on the function of the church in the world, which is usually absent in that sequence, (Schippers, K.A., Syllabus, pp 49-55). Hence the church is savingly necessary only within the sequence 'God - world - church' because of the principle that the church is christological as well as pneumatological.
14 Barth, K., op cit, p 623; comp. Moltmann, as he puts it lucidly, "..the living remembrance of Christ which directs the church's hope towards the kingdom, and living hope in the kingdom leads back to the inexhaustible remembrance of Christ. The present power of this remembrance and this hope is called 'the power of the Holy Spirit'..." (op cit, p 197).
16 Ibid, p 616. See also Barth, K., Church Dogmatics IV/1, (translation by G.W. Bromiley), Edinburgh, 1974, pp 643-739. This does not necessarily mean that 'the human effort' is not important. The correlation between the role of human effort and the works of the Spirit is to be depicted neither as instrumentalism (man is merely an instrument without any initiative), nor as synergism (in the limited meaning of 'cooperation between two equal parties'). Rather, because on the one side man is able in virtue of his natural potential, yet on the other side God is the one who really acts, the Spirit's way of working is by authorizing and empowering people as human beings to serve God in his coming, (Firet, Jacob, Dynamics in Pastoring, [translation by John Vriend], Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, pp 116-134). See also Anderson, Ray S., Living in the Spirit, in: Anderson, Ray S. (eds.), Theological Foundations for Ministry - Selected Readings for a Theology of the Church in Ministry, Edinburgh - Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1979, pp 302-329.
17 See Ridderbos, H., Paul - An Outline of His Theology, (translation by J.R. de Witt), Grand Rapids, Michigan, 19872, pp 362-395.
18 See Baarlink, H., Vervulling en voleinding volgens de synoptische evangeliën, in: Baarlink, H. et al (eds.), Vervulling en Voleinding, Kampen, 1984, pp 95-220.
19 See Müller, Karl, Mission Theology - An Introduction, (with contributions by Hans-Werner Gensichen and Horst Rzepkowski), Nettetal, 1987, pp 30-71.
20 On this point Berkhof (op cit, pp 343-426), curiously adopts another idea. He regards those two facets in chronological sequence as he puts it, "...the fact of being church is thus not something static; it is a perpetual movement, a bridge-event. Therefore as it moves along it is itself continually changing. First it is an institution, a totality of activities and agreements. Next it is a community, a totality of personal relationship..."(p 415). It seems to me that he applies more accent and importance on the institution-aspect of the church or perhaps even on the office, which according to him along with church order is indispensable to make the so-called salvation-mediating institutional elements operational, than on the community-aspect. I am of opinion that those two facets of the church appeal to and need each other.
21 See Moltmann, J., op cit, pp 314-336; Barth, K., IV/2, p 635 ff; Schillebeeckx, E., op cit, 1985, pp 13-39.
24 Ibid. On this point I share the opinion of Schippers as he cites Dulles: "...by a kind of mental juggling act, we have to keep several models in the air at once..." (Dulles, A., op cit, p 10).
25 One of the 'Five Documents of Church Unity' of the Indonesian Community of Churches, namely "Pemahaman Tugas Panggilan Gereja" ('The Perception of the Calling of the Church') contains those three constancies and is structured accordingly, (Persekutuan Gereja-gereja di Indonesia, Dalam Kemantapan Kebersamaan Menapaki Dekade Penuh Harapan - Lima Dokumen Keesaan Gereja, Jakarta, 1990, pp 45-46).
26 Hoekendijk, J.C., De kerk binnenste buiten, edited by L.A. Hoedemaker and P. Tijmes, Amsterdam, 1964, pp 11-31. On the application of this triad or any model of 'being the church' the suggestion of Schippers is important, namely that those three constancies should be determined by a function principle (originated from Baümler), namely 'in being vigilantly in fellowship with Jesus' or (according to Hoekendijk himself) 'the shalom' (Schippers, K.A., Er zijn..., pp 77-83).
27 Ibid; see also Goedhart, dr. G.L., op cit, 1984, pp 80-110. The necessity of this so-called fourth constancy is beyond doubt, but I am of the opinion that this should merely be a component (e.g. the pastoral work, catechism etc.) in the processes initiated in the enterprise of church upbuilding. Otherwise every thinkable necessary ministry of the church should be classified as a constancy as well.
28 Ridderbos formulates it as, "...the parousia of Christ with the accompanying resurrection of the dead and execution of the judgment at the same time forms the transition to the consummation of all things and the eternal state..." (Ridderbos, H., op cit, p 556).
29 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Theology and the Kingdom of God, edited by R.J. Neuhaus, Philadelphia, no date, pp 72-101.
32 This is the 'apostolicity', that is the church in being in harmony with the church which is founded on the foundations of the apostles and the prophets as the 'eye-witnesses' of the Christ event in accordance with His will, which according to Barth is the one and only nota ecclesiae (Barth, K., IV/1, p 714-715; see also Schillebeeckx, E., op cit, 1985, pp 115-117).
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