What is Church?

What is Church?

For Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the question, “What is Church,” occupied much of his thought and scholarship. The question began to bounce around in his mind during the young man’s trip to Rome, served as the center for his doctoral dissertation, and informed his ecumenical vision.

For Bonhoeffer, the radical nature of this question came in how he understood the church. For most German-Lutherans in the 1920s and 1930s, membership in the church was tied to identities of language, heritage, and even nationalism. To be a member of the church was not to see one’s self as a worldwide “communion of saints” that transcended race and culture, but, to see one’s self as part of a distinictive state institution.

For 21st century people, living in the United States, this connection between church and state may be difficult to completely comprehend. Yet, it is the same thing that Soren Kierkegaard wrote about years before when he declared “Christianity no longer exists.” Kierkegaard’s comment was not a theological assessment on the existence of God, but a commentary on the efficacy of state religion. The gap between the Christ of faith and the practice of religion was so wide that Kierkeegard no longer saw the church as a means of grace.

Bonhoeffer remained more optimistic than Kierkegaard, understanding the church as an institution both created by God and, at the same time, a part of the world. Bonhoeffer understood church as a place of both proclamation and fellowship. But, above all else, he understood the church as centered in Christ. In his travels to the United States, Bonhoeffer was puzzled at churches that he assessed as little more than social clubs or charity institutions—but institutions that offered little gospel.

It is difficult for me to assess whether this remains the case in many churches today. Having responsibilities in the church I serve every Sunday, I don’t have a lot of opportunity to experience churches other than my own—or to hear sermons outside of the one’s I preach. A definite limitation of the job.

Nonetheless, the question, “What is Church,” remains an essential one. What are we doing, what are we about, in the church? Is the church merely a social organization where we throw our arms around the necks of old friends? Surely fellowship is important, but it cannot be the sole function of the church. Is the church merely a humanitarian organization? Surely service is important, but we must be more than another organization trying to make the world a better place. Is the church merely here to validate our existence? Surely we can know that we (and all people) are created in God’s image and surrounded by God’s grace, but church must be about more than us.

For Bonhoeffer, church begins with God. Church is not about who we are or who we are trying to become, it is about God. In 1933, he writes “God, the living Christ, founded the community; it is his people called from the world by his Word, bound to him as the sole Lord in faith, bound to their brothers [and sisters] in love.”

This is church: the community founded by God, in which the people of God are nurtured, equipped, and sent into the world as the people of God--for the transformation of the world.

When we speak of issues of God, faith, and church may we always remember to begin with God.