Most professing
Christians do not realize that the central concepts and practices
associated with what we call 'church' are not rooted in the New
Testament, but in patterns established in the post-apostolic age.
While there are a legion of disagreements among serious students
of church history concerning various issues and details during
the period of 50 A.D. to 325 A.D., they all speak as one voice in
affirming the four undeniable shifts that will be examined in
this article. Church historians of all theological and
ecclesiastical backgrounds observe in their writings the
following four shifts:
1. The church portrayed in the New Testament was a dynamic
organism, a living body with many parts. The church from around
180 A.D. onwards became an increasingly hardened institution with
a fixed and complex hierarchy.
2. The early church was marked by; the manifestation of a
polyform ministry by which edification and the meeting of needs
were accomplished through the gifts of all the brethren. The
post-apostolic church moved more and more toward a uniform
conception of church offices which separated ministry from the
'laity' and limited significant ministry to the 'clergy'.
3. The church of the first and most of the second centuries was
characterized by cycles of intense difficulty and persecution -
it was a suffering body. With the advent of Constantine the
church became protected, favored and ultimately sanctioned as the
state religion by the Roman state, and thus became an institution
at ease.
4. In the New Testament the church, with no small measure of
vulnerability, depended on the Holy Spirit to hold the brethren
together and to lead them in ministry. Later, the church trusted
in itself as a very powerful institution, along with its many
rules, rites and offices to secure visible unity among its
adherents.
These four shifts are indisputable. They did not come about in a
day. They were the result of many factors working together as
time elapsed. There are many implications to ponder in light of
these significant changes that occurred. I would like to explore
each of these shifts in order to highlight certain key issues
that each of us needs to face.
We claim to take Christ's revelation about the church in the New
Testament seriously, yet the reality is that too often we are
more attached to the 'received order' which is based on human
traditions. What does it mean to be faithful to the New
Testament's teaching about the church? In what sense are the
examples of the church life 'binding' on us?
For instance, some assert that since the early church met
primarily in homes, we are obliged to emulate this example. I
think the primary theological point of the New Testament in this
regard is that under the New Covenant there are no holy places.
Contemporary Christianity has almost no grasp of this significant
point. Taking the cue from the Old Covenant, people are still led
to believe that a church building is 'the house of God'.
Believers are free to meet, anywhere in which they can foster,
cultivate and attain the goals set before them by Christ. The
problem today is that many church structures neither promote nor
accomplish Christ's desires for His body. Homes are a natural
place for believers to meet, and the early church flourished well
into the first and second centuries without erecting any
temple-like edifices. In places around the world where
persecution reigns, house-church movements have flourished.
Someday in America, if our religious infrastructure falls as a
result of economic and political turmoil, true believers will be
forced to meet outside of traditional church buildings. But the
issue still is not what type of place believers gather, but what
shape their committed life together takes as they wrestle with
the many duties and privileges flowing out of the priesthood of
all believers.
I believe that it is far more important to capture the spirit of
church life as we see it unfolded in the New Testament, than it
is to try and woodenly replicate cultural particulars of the
first century. We do not live in the first century, but the
concepts and principles in the New Testament endure and will come
to expression in any culture. The four tragic shifts about to be
examined will give us all plenty to reflect and act upon as we
seek to take our discipleship earnestly. Christians must take
their stand and devote their precious energies to building up the
body of Christ in ways that return to the original patterns of
the New Testament.
1 The Shift From the Body of Christ as a Dynamic Organism to a
Settled Institution
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul goes into some detail concerning the
implications of the church being a living organism, a body with
many parts. In the early chapters of Acts we see a vibrant,
caring, sharing and witnessing body of believers created by the
power of the Spirit who was poured out by the risen Christ. This
corporate 'new man' created by Jesus was not without leadership
and organization, but there is no evidence of desire by the
leaders to create a tightly-knit religious institution, with an
elaborate hierarchy and intricate chain-of-command. The leaders
above all were to be servants to feed and build up the flock; the
organization that came to expression was for the purpose of
meeting people's needs, not to create a religious
bureaucracy.
The church Christ purposed to build is always described in terms
of 'koinonia', a common sharing of life together in the bonds of
Jesus Christ. However, the reality is that as time went on after
the apostles' death, the church gravitated increasingly toward
finding its essential definition, not in a dynamic organism, but
in a visible institution with a hierarchy of officers. The church
came to be no longer identified as a body of believers bonded by
love as members one of another, but as a religious organization
whose officers gave it significance. Ultimately it was asserted
that without the officers, there was no church. Organization
usurped vital life as the hallmark of the church.
This legacy still remains with us today. The needs of people are
subordinated to the maintenance of religious bureaucracy.
Patterns of church government often have nothing to do with the
ethos of the New Testament. Many define the 'true' church in
terms of outward marks such as "the proper preaching of the Word,
administration of the sacraments, and practice of discipline".
But these characteristics have been outwardly present in dead
churches. The New Testament defines the church dynamically in
terms of functioning together as a body. If church was defined,
for example, in the organic terminology of Acts 2:42-47, how many
churches would you find? Why is it that even today when somebody
asks "What church do you attend?:, the next query after you tell
them is usually, "Who is the pastor there?" We still tend to
define church in terms of leadership instead of by loving
relationships among the brethren.
2 The Shift From Polyform Ministry to Uniform Ministry
In the early church ministry was conceived of in terms of
Ephesians 4:16, "From Him the whole body, joined and held
together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up
in love, as each part does its work." Ministry was seen as
committed to the whole body by Christ its Lord. As Paul put it,
"Now the body is not made up of one part but of many ... As it
is, there are many parts, but one body" (1 Cor. 12:14,20). To
every person in the body of Christ is given a manifestation of
the Spirit for the benefit of all (1 Cor. 12:7). Universal
giftedness in the church, which is secured by the resurrected
Christ leading captivity captive (Eph. 4:7-8), included such
important leadership gifts as apostles and administration.
The great tragedy is that from about 180 A. D. onwards the
increasingly institutionalized church began to assign ministry
more and more to the officers (the "clergy"), and less and less
to the common people (the "laity"). George W. Forell astutely
summarizes the shift from body-ministry to bishop-ministry:
Ethical guidance for people recently converted to Christianity
and likely to bring a pervasive pagan attitude to his new life
was offered at first by a polyform ministry of grace, reflected
in the New Testament. But, as time went by, moral authority was
increasingly focused on an ordered ministry of bishops and
deacons ...The institution most effective in containing the
threats to the unity of the nascent Christian movement was the
gradually evolving office of the bishop ...Through the office of
the bishop the shape of the Christian life is determined and the
masses recently brought into the Christian movement are conformed
to Christ.1
No emphasis on one person who occupies the office of bishop
(pastor) can be found in the New Testament. While it certainly
contemplates a plurality of leaders as part of life in Christ's
body, the overwhelming emphasis falls upon exhortations that
involve all the members of the body. At least 58 times in the New
Testament believers are commanded to fulfill responsibilities
relating to "one another". We have turned the tables and viewed
ministry as essentially resting upon "the minister", and
forgotten that ministry as unfolded in the New Testament is
spread around to everyone.
If ministry is not seen as focused in one office in the New
Testament, where was precedent for a separate caste found? It was
found in the exclusive priesthood under the Old Covenant. William
Bausch observes:
Our survey has shown us that no cultic priesthood is to be found
in the New Testament. Yet we wound up importing Old Testament
Levitical forms and imposing them on Christian ministry.2
The negative implications that arose from the shift from polyform
to uniform ministry are myriad. The mutual care so basic to the
fabric of early church life was virtually lost. Why? Because
mutuality - "you are all brethren" - was buried underneath the
superstructure of institutionalized officers. William Bausch
crystallizes this point by saying,
Nevertheless in practice there is no denying that there has
historically been a gathering into one person and his office what
were formerly the gifts of many. ...[This practice] goes astray,
of course, when it translates to mean that only ordination gives
competence, authority, and the right of professional governance.
It goes further astray when eventually all jurisdictional and
administrative powers in the church come to be seen as an
extension of the sacramental powers conferred at ordination. In
short, there is a movement here away from the more pristine
collaborative and mutual ministries of the New Testament.3
We must face the fact that the traditions regarding church
government and order which we have inherited are cast in very
suspicious garb. They are clergy-centered and generally stifle
and suppress the "one another" perspectives of the New Testament.
Servant leadership should be a natural part of body-life by which
the people of God are encouraged toward, facilitated in and
equipped for various ministries. Unfortunately, however, the
shift from polyform to uniform ministry has created the
deplorable situation in which the church forever remains as a
dependent, helpless, non-maturing infant for the sake of the
officers who watch over the crib. We have inherited traditions in
which the tail wags the dog. It is my conviction that because of
the deep-seated nature of this awful shift in perspective, the
greatest practical need facing the church today is the
reincarnation of "a polyform ministry of grace".
3 The Shift from a Suffering Church to an Institution of
Ease
The early church grew and prospered incredibly without having
church buildings or being protected by the state. In fact, from
apostolic times to the ascension of Constantine the church went
through cycles of intense persecution spearheaded by the ruling
powers. These times of persecution are well documented in such
books as Persecution in the Early Church by H. B. Workman and
Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church by W. H. C.
Friend.5
However, the advent of the emperor Constantine in 312 A.D.
brought great changes, most of them for the worse. Money from
state funds was used to erect Christian church buildings and
support Christian clergy. Ultimately, Christianity was declared
to be the state religion. From Constantine onwards the visible
church became enmeshed in political intrigue, and the state
mingled in the determination of church affairs. As Louis Berkhof
notes regarding the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. [which
Constantine convened and presided over]:
A settlement forced upon the Church by the strong hand of the
emperor could not satisfy and was also of uncertain duration. It
made the determination of the Christian faith dependent on
imperial caprice and even on court intrigues. ...The sequel
clearly probed that, as it was, a change in emperor, and altered
mood, or even a bribe, might alter the whole aspect of the
controversy. This is exactly what happened repeatedly in
subsequent history.6
Constantine set in motion the ideal of a territorial state
religion with Christianity at the helm. This ideal was the death
knell of all that the Gospel stood for. It signaled the end of
believers gathering separately from the pagan culture as a
counter-culture where the way of Christ was displayed in
simplicity. Now the church was conceived of as all the people in
a nation who were born as citizens of the state and constituted
as part of the visible church by infant baptism. Church and
politics were fused together, creating immense confusion. Ron
VanOverloop notes this phenomenon operation from the
post-apostolic church to the Reformation:
As was the case in the early church when emperors called the
great ecumenical councils together, so was the progress of the
Reformation to a great extent determined by the political
maneuvering taking place in each country.7
In the early church the disciples banded together in homes and
other places as communities "called out" from the world; but
Constantinianism erased this distinction and defined "church" as
all citizens in a given territory. This had the practical effect
of watering down true discipleship and creating a worthless
nominal Christianity. Werner Elert contrasts the early days with
the rise of Constantinianism:
[In the early church] the strength of their ties with one another
is matched by the strength of the boundary they draw to the
outside. In business dealings with one another they do not choose
an unbeliever to arbitrate; they transact their business "before
the saints" and between "brother and brother" (1 Cor. 6:1.5). One
is to throw in one's lot with those who fear the Lord, consider
their common good, and daily visit the saints face to face
...After Constantine things changed radically with the influx of
the masses. This did not prosper the Christian brotherhood. If we
can believe only half of what Salvian says, there was not much
left of it a hundred years later in many parts of western
Christendom.8
The shift from a suffering church to an institution sanctioned
and promoted by the state forces us to face a crucial question:
Was the Constantinian change the rise or fall of the church? How
you answer that question will greatly define your whole view of
the church and its mission. In light of New Testament revelation
about the church Christ purposed to build, I submit that
Constantinianism was a wretched stone thrown into the sea of
church history, the ripples of which still lap on our shores
today.
We must make a choice. Are we going to cast our lot in with the
New Testament vision for the body of Christ [simplicity,
suffering, servanthood], or in with the Constantinian model
[powerful institution, clergy dominance, rule by political
maneuvering]? Are we going to devote the energies of our short
life-span to perpetuating the post-apostolic shifts that moved
away from the simplicity of Christ, or to restoring the spirit of
the New Testament vision?
4 The Shift from a Spirit-Dependent Church to a Letter-Dependent
Institution
Twice in his epistles Paul refers to the fact that the church
serves Christ "in [the] newness of the Spirit and not in [the]
oldness of the letter" (Rom. 7:6; 2 Cor. 3:6). The church was a
community of the Spirit from the Day of Pentecost. In light of
this reality the early church did not trust in fixed forms to
maintain and guard her existence. There was an openness of the
body to be led by the Spirit in light of Christ's
Gospel-word.
This can be seen, for example, in the glimpse of an early church
service revealed in 1 Cor. 14. Edification was the goal which was
to be reached by the Spirit-led participation of the body. The
balance Paul desired can perhaps be summed up like this: no form
of order in the service must be allowed to stifle the free
expression of edifying gifts in the body; no expression of
spontaneity in the body must be allowed to blossom into
unprofitable disorder. William Barclay isolates these important
points from 1 Cor. 14:
[Paul] is determined that anyone who possesses a gift should
receive every chance to exercise that gift, but he is equally
determined that the services of the Church should not thereby
become a kind of competitive disorder. ...There must be liberty
but there must be no disorder. ...There was obviously a freedom
and an informality about [this service] which is completely
strange to our ideas. ...Clearly the church had no professional
ministry. ...It was open to anyone who had a gift to use that
gift. ...There was obviously a flexibility about the order of
service in the early church which is now totally lacking. There
was clearly no settled order at all. Everything was informal
enough to allow any man who felt that he had a message ...to give
it. ...The really notable thing about an early Church service
must have been that almost everyone came feeling that he had both
the privilege and the obligation of contribution something to
it.9
Unfortunately, as time went on this Spirit-dependence gave way to
more and more fixed forms of worship, which phased out body
participation and committed ministry only to an ever-growing web
of ecclesiastical hierarchy. By 250 A.D. church order was set in
concrete with one bishop ruling over various territories. The
momentum of this church bureaucracy was accelerated when
Constantine and his successors sanctioned the church and
contributed moneys and resources to this increasingly powerful
institution. What began as a Spirit-led organism ended up as a
letter-dependent institution. The leaders no longer trusted in
the Spirit to hold the body together; instead they leaned on
intricate human contrivances and rules to feign outward
unity.
One of the saddest features of this shift to letter-dependence,
combined with the church's new collusion with the state, was the
employment of coercion both to gain and maintain adherents.
Simply trusting in the Spirit would have resulted in a spiritual
reality too vulnerable to be controlled by human contrivances;
the use of raw power backed by the weapons of the state seemed to
promise greater stability. Eric Hoffer makes this tragic
observation which church history, unfortunately, verifies:
There is hardly an example of a mass movement achieving vast
proportions and a durable organization solely by persuasion ...It
was the temporal sword that made Christianity a world religion.
Conquest and conversion went hand in hand. ...Where Christianity
failed to gain or retain the backing of state power, it achieved
neither a wide nor permanent hold. ...It also seems that, where a
mass movement can either persuade or coerce, it usually chooses
the letter. Persuasion is clumsy and its results
uncertain.10
Again we must ask ourselves, "Are we going to be a part of
perpetuating this shift to trusting in outward carnal hedges to
hold the church together, or are we going to purpose to
contribute to a return of child-like trust in the Spirit of
Christ to build and sustain His body?'
Concluding Remarks...
We have examined four clear shifts in early church history. These
shifts are acknowledged by church historians of all theological
persuasions. James D. G. Dunn, one of the foremost New Testament
scholars of our time, summarizes the essence of these four shifts
like this:
Increasing institutionalism is the clearest mark of early
Catholicism - when church becomes increasingly identified with
institution, when authority becomes increasingly coterminous with
office, when a basic distinction between clergy and laity becomes
increasingly self-evident, when grace becomes increasingly
narrowed to well-defined ritual acts. We saw above that such
features were absent from first generation Christianity, though
in the second generation the picture was beginning to
change.11
'Such features were absent from first generation Christianity,'
that is, they are not found in the New Testament. Does this
concern you? Is your heart burdened by the chasm between the
original work of the Spirit and the hardened institution that
quickly emerged in the post-apostolic days? Does it bother you
that most of what we associate with 'church' has little to do
with the New Testament, and more to do with patterns that reflect
a drift away from it?
Further, and this is the key question, were the shifts we have
studied a faithful extension of New Testament ideals, or a tacit
denial of all that they stand for? If the answer is the latter,
then it is incumbent upon believers to work for the recovery of
Christ's ways and to stop contributing to the perpetuation of
non-edifying ecclesiastical patterns.
The following articles contain excerpts from various sources
relating to early church history. I commend my thoughts on the
four shifts and the upcoming collaborating materials to your
discerning conscience. May the Lord guide you into appropriate
responses as 'the worthy walk' is set before us in the
Gospel.
1. History of Christian Ethics, Vol. 1, Augsburg Pub. House,
1979, pp. 39-40
2. Traditions, Tensions, Transitions in Ministry, Twenty-Third
Publications, 1982, p. 54j
3. Traditions, Tensions, Transitions in Ministry, p.30
4. Cincinnati: Jenning & Graham, 1906, 382pp.
5. New York: Anchor Doubleday, 1967, 577pp.
6. The History of Christian Doctrines, Banner of Truth, 1978,
p.87
7. 'The Westminster Confession of Faith', The Standard Bearer,
Oct. 1, 1979, p.17
8. Eucharist and Church Fellowship in the First Four Centuries,
Concordia Pub. House, 1966, pp. 66-67
9. The Letters to the Corinthians, Revised Edition, Westminster
Press, 1975, pp. 133-134
10. The True Believer, Mentor Books, 1964, pp.100-101
11. Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, Westminster Press,
1977, p.351
This article was lovingly typed and
proofread by Micheal & Marci Blubaugh, Deland, FL.
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Prairie/6778
This superb article comes from SEARCHING TOGETHER and is
reproduced here with Jon Zens' kind permission.
WITNESS
TO THE WORD