Strength And Weakness

The Encyclopedia of Protestantism: Volume 2 D–K

The Protestant traditions of ecclesiology are marked by a critical principle: The gospel is more important than the institution, spirit is superior to structure. Catholic ecclesiology, on the other hand, stresses that structure is necessary for the spirit to work and that the institution is the essential vehicle of the gospel. It is Protestant shorthand to say that the gospel—and only the gospel—constitutes the church. What this slogan means is that Christ constitutes the church as his mystical body through the power of the gospel, which is tangibly embodied in word and sacrament. These two concrete expressions of the gospel make Christ present in the community. Thus, Protestant ecclesiology has centered around the twin foci of Word and Sacrament. In this sense, the gospel is the radical critical principle of Protestant ecclesiology and relativizes every institutional structure of ministry and oversight.

The weakness of Protestant ecclesiology has been the tendency to equate the spiritual with the invisible and the worldly with the visible. MARTIN LUTHER and PHILIPP MELANCHTHON had to defend themselves against the charge that they were postulating a purely Platonic church, one removed from concrete reality.

KARL BARTH and FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER played off the unchanging inward essence of the church against the changing outward form. To this extent Protestant ecclesiology veers toward docetism and gnosticism, whereas Catholic ecclesiology is typically in danger of idolizing the institutional expression of the church. However, institutional structures of ministry and oversight are needed in every properly constituted church. The tension between the authenticating power of the Gospel and the structures that are necessary to facilitate its work generates much of the creative energy of ecclesiology.

Of course, anyone, Christian or not, may take up ecclesiology or any other aspect of theology, but it makes a difference if one loves the church as such—and one’s own church, too. Christians often need to be given permission to love the church. Then ecclesiology becomes a joy and a privilege. However, theologians, like other Christians, sometimes have a lovehate relationship with the Church/church, which can result in destructive elements creeping into ecclesiology. Ecclesiology should be constructive and conducted in an irenic, ecumenical spirit as far as possible, but without being bland and the ecclesiastical equivalent of politically correct. Only occasionally, and where necessary to maintain a lively dialogue, should it be fiercely polemical, in the spirit of the Reformers and their antagonists alike.

See also Church