“the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.”
-C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity
Comments
This is preceded in the book by a similar comment on the State: “The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his garden—that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.”
It is too easy for an organization to become preoccupied with itself.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Tuesday, August 9, 2005
Before I comment, are you posting Lewis' quote because it represents your viewpoint of the Church's purpose? Certainly this quote will cause controversy (or discussion) since he says, "...exists for nothing else..."
Posted by: David on Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Maybe I should have entitled this as Church Organization for my impression is that Lewis is speaking to that rather than the church as a body of believers. By organization I mean paying people to perform tasks, owning a building, printing literature, belonging to mission organizations or denominations, running camps, etc. Sometimes we get caught up in the organizational side of church.
It is always interesting to put these quotes up and see how people respond to them in different ways. I suppose that some of that comes from the lack of context - both the context of the writing it was extracted from and the context of the thoughts in my mind.
As to the purpose of the church, I think "turn sinners into little Christs" sounds like a good purpose statement - not that I have thought much about it. I am interested in any thoughts that you have to share.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Wednesday, August 10, 2005
As an aside, I used to read lots of Lewis. In fact he was probably my favorite author, both in his theological works and his fiction works. He certainly was a fantastic writer, and I remember staying up late nights in college reading Screwtape Letters and Pilgrim's Regress...But he did have some rather unbiblical views--one surprising one being:
"There are three things that spread the Christ-life to us: baptism, belief, and that mysterious action which different Christians call by different names--Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord's Supper"
In relation to this your posted quote though, where is the Biblical support, do you think, for his claim? Certainly "Christian" means "little Christ" (the disciples were first called such in Acts 11:26), but I am left scratching my head (again) in light of Lewis' statement, "the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs." I would say that the Church's function and purpose extend far beyond Lewis' quote, one of them being to worship and bring spiritual sacrifices to the Lord (e.g. Heb. 13:15).
Posted by: David on Thursday, August 11, 2005
As to your aside, I wouldn't have been surprised if Lewis had converted to Catholicism if he had lived longer. I am also glad that there is not a salvation qualifier exam based on doctrine.
What is the difference in purpose between the church as organization and the church as spiritual reality? I understand Lewis to be speaking to the organization - though maybe I am reading this into his words. I feel very comfortable saying that the purpose of the church (organization) is to assist the church (body of believers) accomplish its mission.
Now Lewis defines the mission as turning people into little Christs. I would guess that he meant that to be inclusive of everything that you might list as a purpose of the church. I think that part of the process of becoming more like Christ is learning to worship God in spirit and in truth. His purpose statement does sound a little too individualistic - there is no explicit notion of corporate functions in his statement.
My paraphrase of this quote: If Christians become distracted by religious activities, building great buildings, attracting large crowds, and the minutiae of church organization, than the church (organization) is not serving its purpose.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Thursday, August 11, 2005
Does Scripture present the church as an organization? I really don't see this...The Bible seems rather to present it as an organism (a living body, 1 Cor. 12), where there is no clergy-laity division (as in the OT economy), for all are priests by new birth (1 Pet. 2:5, 9). What do you think?
I agree though that form and such can just be going through the motions (in a word, "empty") if the Lord isn't in the middle of it all.
Posted by: David on Friday, August 12, 2005
You are correct in saying that the Bible does not portray the church as an organization. I am trying to draw a distinction between the church as a body and the organization that develops to support it. The Bible does not talk about cathedrals, church camps, publishing houses, denominations, and so on. They do exist. They have in some instances become more important than the church (church as in the body of believers). As humans, it can be easy to focus our efforts on building the organization rather than building the church.
As another way to demonstrate the distinction that I see between the church as organization and the church as organism (as you said), consider this - it is possible to have all the organizational structures (buildings, leaders, secretaries, financial people, janitors) and not have an actual church because there are no believers.
Do you see the distinction that I am drawing between the two?
Posted by: CJ Costello on Friday, August 12, 2005
Here is an example for further clarification.
When the Roman Catholic Church was rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica, they had to really push indulgences in order to finance the project. This is a clear case when the church organization took priority over the church as spiritual reality.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Monday, August 15, 2005
True, and maybe this is a tangent to your thought-flow, but I would say the Roman Catholic Church isn't even a part of the true church, but the professing church. The church (ekklesia)in the NT is composed only of those who have truly believed on the Lord Jesus for salvation (Acts 2:41,44,47). The professing church should not be confused with the true church of God, though both coexist today (see the parables in Matt. 13).
Posted by: David on Monday, August 15, 2005
I think I need to pause here to ensure we are using the same terminology. During the Reformation Calvin, Bucer, and others used the terms visible and invisible church. The invisible church only includes those who are saved (in any age). The visible church is made up of all those who profess. It is temporal in nature and consists of members of the invisible church who are alive and those who are false. I believe you are using true and professing as I understand invisible and visible.
Let's define a sect (for lack of a better term) as the group of people who associate themselves with that label and profess Christ. I doubt that any sect (Roman Catholic, United Methodist, Southern Baptist, and so forth) exists with all its members in the invisible church. (I know that the Roman Catholic Church teaches differently on this point.) For the most part, the Roman Catholic Church was the only church in Western Europe from the 4th century to the early 16th century. It had members who are also part of the invisible church though it did not contribute much to their spiritual well-being for many of those years.
In my example of indulgences, I am not referring to the Roman Catholic Church as the visible church but as an organization. By organization I mean the church buildings, officials, teachers, literature, music - those things that are meant to help the visible church. It is possible to focus a lot of our efforts on building a church organization to the detriment of the organization assisting the church invisible meet its purpose - discipleship, worship, caring for poor, etc. The church organization does not belong to either the visible or invisible church - it is all the stuff that develops to help the visible church. The early church had minimal church organization - no church buildings, no retreat centers, simple communication network, no Christian t-shirts, flat organizational structure, etc.
Sorry for the really long response. I'll stop here.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Monday, August 15, 2005
Perhaps even more clear terms can be used from Scripture. Matt. 13 says "the kingdom of God is like..." The kingdom includes anyone and everyone who professes to be under the rule of God (whether a true believer or not). The church is in this period, but does not define the the beginning and ending of the kingdom of God, as it was a mystery until Paul the apostle was given revelation from the Lord.
I understand what Calvin and others are trying to say, but their terms are confusing to me, as there is only "one" church of Christ in Scripture. This is becoming an interesting post!
Posted by: David on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Reformers had the difficult task of developing terminology/theology to explain how there could be individuals in the Roman Catholic Church that were saved but the church itself had a corrupt core. They could not just write it off as a false church because it still contained believers and because they held out hope of reforming it. I don't know this for sure, but I think professing church and true church terminology developed in the 19th century. I think we can make a good case for either having a basis in Scripture even if the actual words are not used (just like "trinity").
I am not sure that "kingdom of God" adds much clarity here. It is used many different ways in the Bible and is a term that has some tension in it. It has both a future and a present sense. It has both a gift and an earned sense. It is also used sometimes to refer to only believers and other times has a wider application. (I will supply references for any of those if desired.)
There have been people who have understood the church and the kingdom of God as being synonymous. The Westminster Confession of Faith states
But of course, here it is talking about the visible church, not the Church. There have been others who have explicitly defined the Church as being different from the kingdom of God. I think Darby is an example of someone who believed this. I would love to get ahold of an English translation of Martin Bucers' The Kingdom of Christ to see what he has to say but have not run across it.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Please, do not take any offense...I think you have listed the major viewpoints out there, but what do you see in the Bible? CJ, you are very knowledgable about the history of the reformers and such, but the Westminster Confession of Faith is not authoritative; neither is Darby; neither is Calvin (in fact all of these men failed in many respects).
I often feel like I don't get to hear how YOU see the Scriptures; rather, I hear what others throughout history believed (whether erroneously or not). I am not trying to be mean or obstinate, but brother, show me Scripture to back up your position, because this is the ground I love to view things from.
Posted by: David on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Actually, the second paragraph in my previous response is my thought and my position - that the phrase "kingdom of God" is used in different ways throughout the New Testament. Jesus tells Nicodemus that man cannot see or enter the kingdom of God without being born again. That would point toward the kingdom of God being the same as the invisible church. You mentioned Matthew 13 - the metaphor of the fish net would indicate a visible church understanding of the kingdom of God (with judgement happening later). I think both can be true - Jesus just rules differently in those cases. All of this even ignores the verses that have a future time frame for the kingdom of God. I do not think that "kingdom of God" is a term with the precision needed and that's why I like visible/invisible church. The fact that people have used "kingdom of God" differently throughout history just confirms this for me. (Oliver Cromwell certainly used it differently!)
Posted by: CJ Costello on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
It seems clear that there are people who are followers of Christ and people who claim to be but are not. "Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name..." Of course Jesus tells them that He never knew them.
I agree that the church is not treated as an organization in scripture, but the organization clearly exists. That is why the apostles in Acts wanted to appoint men to oversee helping those in need.
Posted by: Shannon on Tuesday, August 16, 2005
So far I have only given a macro level example of organization distracting the work of the church. My original thoughts that made me notice this quote by C.S. Lewis were more at the individual or local church level. As an example consider this, it is completely possible for me to spend a significant amount of my time on church organization tasks (church computer network, finances, sound system, various committee meetings). Of course, they all contribute to the church in some way and in many cases need to be done due to the setup of the church, but they can become an end in and of themselves. There are always improvements and upgrades that can be made to the church website or the database that is used to track this or that. Furthermore, there will always tend to be some church members (in any church) who only work on church organizational tasks and do not get involved in teaching or discipleship or visitation. I am still trying to work out the implications of all of this.
Posted by: CJ Costello on Thursday, August 18, 2005