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Commentary
[What do you think? Write to pthorp.ed@votf.org]
“Hans
Kung and the Church We Want to Be”
Richard Cross
I
was touched by your editorial in the current issue of In
the Vineyard, with its beautiful concluding words from
Rilke. As to the question of what kind of Church ours should
be, it would be hard to improve on Hans Küng's formulation
in a 1981 talk, “The Church from Above and the Church from
Below.” Here is the relevant passage:
"The
first thing we have to tell ourselves again and again is
that we are the People of God. And the Church at its origin
for all its weaknesses and defects regards itself essentially
as God's community, God's people. The Church therefore
can never be merely a particular class or caste, or a clique
within the community of believers. And we have to abolish
this use of the word 'Church' just for some people in the
Church.
The
Church can only be the whole People of God, the whole ecclesia,
assembly, community of believers. According to the New
Testament, all are called by God, all are justified by
Christ, all are sanctified in the Spirit, we are all invited
to faith and active love. Consequently, we are all the
chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy people. And
in this sense, in principle, we are all equal in the Church.
And this basic equality is infinitely more important than
all differences which obviously exist and have existed.
There
are a lot of differences but all of this must not be made
a system of domination. The Church from Below is also not
merely the application of modern, enlightened understanding
of democracy to the structures of the Church. I have nothing
against democracy, and, as a matter of fact, if anything
would be nearer to the New Testament constitution of the
churches, then certainly it will be democracy, not monarchy.
But that is not the main point.
The
main point is that the Church from Below is rooted in the
New Testament origin of the Church itself. It is a very
primitive and Christian requirement. In as far as the Church
is essentially God's people, charismatic community, fellowship
of believers in Christ, it is essentially a Church from
Below. The Church from Below therefore does not usurp power
but exists on its legitimate right before the present rulers
of the Church from Above."
I
think of Küng's remarks when I hear Acts being read to
us from the pulpit, as it is each Sunday at this season
of the year. The kind of Church we emphatically don't want
is the sort that tries to silence people like Küng or Leonardo
Boff or, for that matter, Tom Reese or Roger Haight. It
doesn't matter whether one agrees with their views or not.
That's for each of us, in the freedom of his or her own
mind and conscience, to determine. What matters is that
we have the kind of conversation they seek to initiate.
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