Emergent Pipeline
What is Church? Over at Pomomusings, Adam is asking this very question. I’ve posted my sound-byte over there: “The community of people, living and dead, who are trying to follow God in the way of Jesus.” In the course of answering, I tried to write RATHER a lot more than a sound-byte, however. Having been Episcopalian for 20+ years and Orthodox for five years, I’ve been exposed to a lot of more-inclusive and more-exclusive ideas of what the Church is. Asking the question raises a lot more for me. I’d like to engage my Emergent Readers, if I could, on this topic of what is church…
According to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, the four points required for Church-reuniong are:
- The Holy Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to salvation;
- The Creeds (specifically, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds), as the sufficient statement of Christian faith;
- The dominical sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion;
- The historic episcopate, locally adapted.
In modern understandings (although, perhaps not in original intent), this is read to include those who reject the Tactile Succession. The last I read of ECUSA ecumenical writing justified how *every* Christian denomination had some form of the office of “Episkope” (oversight). And that’s where I want to point this conversation, especially in the context of Emergent Church: What is the ministry of Episkope?
Although I’d be interested in hearing what role, if any, can you assign to any of these four marks of ecumenism in church? Are they important?
I know some who view the Apostolic Succession as sort of a magic pipeline: we’ve got it, ergo we’re in. These groups usually list “proof” of their Apostolic Succession on their websites. (Our Grand Poohbah was Consecrated by these three bishops… they were consecrated by such and such… and so one back to at least something Anglican, usually something Old Catholic or Roman or Orthodox and thence to the 12 and Jesus.) Back in the days before Pope Leo declared Anglican Orders to be invalid, when there was debate, the Anglicans did this as well. At the Chapel of the Holy Name in upstate NY, where a lot of old material sits in drawers mildewing, I’ve seen some of the material put forth by the Anglo-Catholics on this topic. This is the beginning of Branch Theory thinking. Anglicans (and others) who subscribe to it (or some form of it) often refer to those beyond the branches as “separated brethren” no matter how one draws the branches.
Back in my days around ECUSA’s Ecumenical Office, typing for Fr Bill Norgren, I was told that some Lutherans (such as here in the States) did not believe in what is called the “tactile succession” but rather that maintaining the content of the teaching of the Apostles was the Apostolic Succession. (My Lutheran readers, please correct me - and I know there are varieties of Lutheran teaching.) This view, at least in ecumenical dialogue, is maintained in other churches as well.
Can you follow God in the way of Jesus without any of the above options - Scriptures, Creeds, Sacraments and Episkope?
