Alister McGrath Theology Basics (2018) Chapter 8: Church — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00hello again this is Alister McGrath of
2. 0:02Oxford University introducing you to my
3. 0:05textbook theology the basics and we now
4. 0:08come to the ninth of these introductory
5. 0:10presentations in which we're going to
6. 0:12think about the Christian understanding
7. 0:14of the church and this is an area of
8. 0:16theology as often known as ecclesiology
9. 0:19ecclesiology from the Greek word for
10. 0:21church ecclesia this is the topic of the
11. 0:25eighth chapter of the textbook so how is
12. 0:28a church to be understood and what is
13. 0:31its purpose
14. 0:32now its begin I think by noting that the
15. 0:34New Testament uses the word church in
16. 0:36two rather different ways at many points
17. 0:39the term church is used to designate
18. 0:42individual Christian congregations in
19. 0:45other words local visible gatherings of
20. 0:48believers for example Paul wrote letters
21. 0:50to churches in the city of Corinth and
22. 0:52Philip I but at other points we find the
23. 0:56term church being used in a wider more
24. 1:00general sense meaning something like the
25. 1:03total body of Christian believers so how
26. 1:08can we hold together both the local and
27. 1:10the universal senses of this word church
28. 1:13now many theologians resolve this
29. 1:15tension by arguing that there is one
30. 1:17universal church which exists or is
31. 1:20embodied in local communities on this
32. 1:23approach there is one universal church
33. 1:26and it consists of all Christian
34. 1:28believers and takes the form of
35. 1:31individual local churches in a given
36. 1:35region now one influential way of
37. 1:38conceiving this distinction is due to
38. 1:41the 16th century Protestant theologian
39. 1:43John Calvin and Calvin drew an important
40. 1:46distinction between the visible and the
41. 1:49invisible church at one level the church
42. 1:53is a visible community it's a mixed body
43. 1:57of saints and sinners but at another it
44. 1:59is also the invisible fellowship of
45. 2:03saints the gathered community in heaven
46. 2:06of all Christian believers down the ages
47. 2:10so lots of interesting questions begin
48. 2:13to emerge
49. 2:13for example how can we talk about one
50. 2:16Christian Church when there are so many
51. 2:19different Christian denominations surely
52. 2:21there's a tension between a belief in
53. 2:23one church and the observable reality of
54. 2:26a plurality of churches and anger of
55. 2:29four ways of theologians approach this
56. 2:32question and each of these approaches
57. 2:34has its own distinct strengths and
58. 2:36weaknesses let's just have a look at
59. 2:37them and see where we go
60. 2:39the first view holds that there's only
61. 2:41one empirical or observable church which
62. 2:45deserves to be known and treated as the
63. 2:48true church all other bodies claiming to
64. 2:52be the church are simply making false
65. 2:55claims and that this position was
66. 2:56maintained by the Roman Catholic Church
67. 2:59before the Second Vatican Council in the
68. 3:011960s but this council took the
69. 3:04important I think theologically generous
70. 3:06step of recognizing other Christian
71. 3:09churches are separated Christian
72. 3:12brothers and sisters secondly you could
73. 3:15draw a distinction between the empirical
74. 3:18church that is the church as a visible
75. 3:20historical reality and some kind of
76. 3:23ideal church actually this is found
77. 3:27relatively little support in mainstream
78. 3:29Christian theology though some scholars
79. 3:31have suggested this may lie behind
80. 3:34Calvin's distinction between the visible
81. 3:37and the invisible church thirdly many
82. 3:41theologians I thinking of Augustine of
83. 3:43Hippo in particular adopted what we
84. 3:46might call an eschatological approach
85. 3:48eschatology is all to do with the
86. 3:51Christian hope with the end things and a
87. 3:54scatological approach to the nature of
88. 3:57the church holds that the present
89. 3:59disunity of the church will be abolished
90. 4:02on the last day in other words the
91. 4:05present situation is temporary and it
92. 4:06will be resolved on the day of judgment
93. 4:10and again this understanding probably
94. 4:12lies behind Calvin's distinction between
95. 4:14visible and invisible churches and
96. 4:18fourthly some writers have developed
97. 4:21what we might call a biological approach
98. 4:24which thinks of the historical Eve
99. 4:27Ellucian of the church to the
100. 4:28development of the branches of a tree so
101. 4:31this way of thinking sees different
102. 4:33empirical churches like the Roman
103. 4:35Catholic Church the Orthodox Church the
104. 4:37Lutheran Church Methodist churches the
105. 4:39Anglican churches as possessing an
106. 4:41organic unity they are branches on the
107. 4:44same tree
108. 4:45despite their institutional differences
109. 4:48and of course the key point being made
110. 4:51is that they all possess the same root
111. 4:55they're all rooted in Christ despite
112. 4:58their different historical developments
113. 5:01now one of the most interesting debates
114. 5:03concerning adopt in the church concerns
115. 5:05whether its members are required to be
116. 5:08holy this became a matter of major
117. 5:10debate in the 4th century as a result of
118. 5:14the donators controversy again the
119. 5:16donators controversy should church
120. 5:19leaders be morally pure under the roman
121. 5:22emperor diocletian the christian church
122. 5:24found itself being subjected to various
123. 5:27degrees of persecution and in 303
124. 5:32Diocletian ordered christian books to be
125. 5:35burned and churches demolished now one
126. 5:38of the christian leaders who handed over
127. 5:40their books to be burned was felix of
128. 5:43apt unga now felix was one of the
129. 5:48bishops who consecrated chichi liam as
130. 5:51bishop of the city of Carthage in 311
131. 5:56and many local Christians were outraged
132. 5:59that Felix was involved in this
133. 6:02consecration
134. 6:03he was tainted he was contaminated they
135. 6:07could not accept the authority of the
136. 6:09bishop as a result of Felix being
137. 6:11involved in his consecration done't ism
138. 6:15argued that the church was a community
139. 6:17of saints and it had to be led by people
140. 6:21who led conspicuously holy lives and the
141. 6:25argument was that the new bishop of
142. 6:27carthage his authority was compromised
143. 6:29because Felix who a consecrate him had
144. 6:33elapsed during the period of persecution
145. 6:38so don't us believed that the entire
146. 6:40sacramental system of the church had
147. 6:42been corrupted on account of the lapse
148. 6:45of its leaders in the face of
149. 6:48persecution how they argued could the
150. 6:50sacraments be validly administered by
151. 6:53people who were tainted in this way
152. 6:55surely the purity of the sacraments was
153. 6:59contaminated by the moral failings of
154. 7:01those who had ministered them surely it
155. 7:04was necessary to replace these people
156. 7:06with more acceptable leaders who had
157. 7:09remained firm in their faith under
158. 7:12persecution
159. 7:13now Augustine of Hippo responded to this
160. 7:16challenge by putting forward a theory of
161. 7:18the church which he believed was more
162. 7:21firmly grounded in the New Testament
163. 7:23than the donatus teaching in particular
164. 7:26Augustine emphasized the need to be
165. 7:29realistic and recognize the sinfulness
166. 7:32of Christians the Donatists demanded
167. 7:34holiness Augustine argued that the
168. 7:37sinfulness of Christians meant there
169. 7:39were limits to what be achieved the
170. 7:41church is not meant to be a pure body a
171. 7:44society of saints but a mixed body of
172. 7:47saints and sinners now Agustin found
173. 7:51this idea in two Biblical parables the
174. 7:54parable of the net that catches many
175. 7:57fishes and the parable of the wheat and
176. 8:00the weeds so let's look at the second
177. 8:03parable which tells of a farmer who
178. 8:05sowed seed and then discovered the
179. 8:07resulting crop included both wheat and
180. 8:09weeds the field should have looked like
181. 8:13this instead it was covered with weeds
182. 8:17he was unusable what can he do about it
183. 8:19trying to separate the wheat and the
184. 8:22weeds while both were still growing
185. 8:24would just damage the wheat so he waits
186. 8:28till the harvest when all the plants
187. 8:31will be cut down and then the wheat and
188. 8:34the weeds can be separated without
189. 8:36damaging the wheat for agustin this
190. 8:39parable is about the church in the world
191. 8:41it must expect to find itself including
192. 8:45both saints and sinners to attempt a
193. 8:47separation in this world is premature
194. 8:50and in
195. 8:51that separation will take place in God's
196. 8:54own time at the end of history and no
197. 8:56human being can make that judgment or
198. 8:59separation in God's place so in what
199. 9:04sense then is the church holy for a
200. 9:08Gustin the holiness in question is not
201. 9:10that of its members but that of Christ
202. 9:15the church cannot be a congregation of
203. 9:18saints in this world because its members
204. 9:21are contaminated with regional sin
205. 9:22however the church is sanctified and
206. 9:25made holy by Christ and this holiness
207. 9:29will be perfected and finally realized
208. 9:32at the Last Judgement so sacraments do
209. 9:36not function because of the holiness of
210. 9:38those who administer them but rather
211. 9:41because of the promises of Christ to
212. 9:44work in and through these sacraments now
213. 9:48I hope is very brief overview will help
214. 9:50you as you explore the scene in more
215. 9:51detail let's just look through the
216. 9:54structure of this chapter we begin by
217. 9:57looking at the church this tension
218. 9:59between local and universal approaches
219. 10:02then we look at the idea of the unity of
220. 10:05the church what does that mean followed
221. 10:08by the catholicity of the church what
222. 10:10does that phrase mean and what are its
223. 10:12implications is the church holy or just
224. 10:16human is the next topic on our agenda
225. 10:18then we won't look at the debate in
226. 10:20twentieth-century ecclesiology the
227. 10:22extent to which the church is
228. 10:24constituted by the Word of God then
229. 10:28having talked a little bit about
230. 10:29holiness in the church we asked well
231. 10:32look what difference does a pure or
232. 10:34mixed body Church actually make and then
233. 10:38we look at the Second Vatican councils
234. 10:40ideas on ministry within the church
235. 10:42covering a lot of ground finally of
236. 10:46course we engage with the text
237. 10:47looking at the ecclesiology we find in
238. 10:50the English writer Isaac Watts the text
239. 10:54in questions are him and it opens with
240. 10:56these two lines we are at Garden walled
241. 11:00around chosen and made
242. 11:04your ground so I hope you'll find this
243. 11:06introduction resolute helpful
244. 11:08and obviously it leads natural to next
245. 11:11presentation dealing with a thiol to the
246. 11:13sacraments thank you again for listening
247. 11:16I look forward to speaking to you again
248. 11:17soon
249. 11:26you