The Christian Church is the Body of Christ

America Magazine, a Jesuit, Roman Catholic publication, has an article entitled, Pursuing the Truth in Love. Something the author put in the article struck me:

“America understands the church as the body of Christ, not as the body politic. Liberal, conservative, moderate are words that describe factions in a polis, not members of a communion.”

(The word ‘polis’ comes from Greek for city and we derive the word ‘politics’ from ‘polis.’)

What is fascinating is that in the comments section several people expressed distress and asked, “How will we know what we agree with or disagree with unless someone tells us if it is a liberal or conservative statement?”

Have we come to this? Have we come to the point of using labels so much, so often, and so freely we cannot determine if an argument is good or bad, valid or bogus, meaningful or worthless unless it has a label attached?

The Christian Church is the Body of Christ.

St. Paul wrote:

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

I played with it and wrote:

There is no longer conservative or liberal or moderate, there is no longer Democrat or Republican, there is no longer Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, or Evangelical, there is no longer male or female. All are one in Christ Jesus.

The words are a variant but the meaning isn’t. The Christian Church is the Body of Christ. We often forget Jesus’ prayer:

"I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me”. John 17:20-21

“That they may all be one.” My denomination, the United Church of Christ, has those words as a motto. They are words that remind us that the Christian Church is the Body of Christ.

Take note of what Jesus doesn’t say: “That they may all be the same.”

Ecumenism, churches working together, does not imply that churches all need to be the same and agree on everything. People come to God in a variety of ways. There are people who find Christ in very liturgical denominations with great structure and hierarchy. God bless them when they do. There are people who find Christ in free church traditions with less liturgy. There are people who find Christ in Sacraments; others find Christ in the Word. Many find Christ in both. Some people find Christ in traditional hymns; others find Christ in praise music. Some people find Christ in holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Others find Christ in Latin liturgies.

Who is right?

Perhaps this question is the very problem and miss’s one little thing; the Christian Church is the Body of Christ.

St. Paul writes in 1^st Corinthians that the church is a body with many parts. We are all gifted spiritually and differently. The sad reality is that we truly don’t like ‘different’ all that much. Often, as much as we like to celebrate diversity, we like diversity more in theory than in practice. Often our idea of diversity is having a lot of people like ourselves with slight variations of opinion. It is rare to find people who truly love great diversity. Lest I sound self-righteous about this I say this about myself as well. I always claim to love diversity, but, down deep, too much diversity gets on my nerves!

Sometimes I read blogs and I read a lot of apologetics that speak mostly to denominational and theological traditions. Very often the premise is why the blogger and his or her church or tradition is right, and why other people who disagree are wrong. I do understand the desire to be right. Most of us who belong to churches tend to mostly agree with many of the premises and styles of our faith tradition. This does not make is right.

The truth of God is far greater and far richer than any one of us can possible know and understand. My sense is there is truth and fallacy in every tradition. There are enough ‘one true churches’ in existence that pretty much assures us that no one has cornered the market on truth and the totality of God’s truth. We simply cannot.

It is a reminder that the Christian Church is the Body of Christ. All of us. We are sisters and brothers in Christ. Our challenge is to embrace our family members as fully as we can.