Thursday, February 19, 2009

ecclesiology in action

My ecclesiology course at Catholic U. was an eye-opener; it was strange to realize, early in the semester, that I had never really asked myself a basic question: "What does 'church' mean?" The course was taught by the always-excellent Father Joseph Komonchak, a man who can crack open a Latin text and sight-read it into full-speed spoken English, translating as he talks (he's also pretty fluent in French, and I'm fairly sure he's got at least some Italian background, given his time at the Gregorianum).

My paper for Fr. Komonchak's class was on Presbyterian polity, which is similar to Catholic polity in some ways, and very different in others. Anglican polity is apparently a complex matter, which brings me to this interesting blog post over at Get Religion. It reads in part:

When discussing the Anglican wars, one of GetReligion’s mantras is that reporters must struggle — even in short stories — to place these events in the context of church structures at the local, regional-diocesan, national and global levels.

That’s the bad news.

The problem for reporters is that things are going to get even more complex in the very near future. The structures are all changing and are, frankly, becoming even more confusing and harder for outsiders to understand (and cover in mainstream media).

Why is that? It helps to note that the U.S. Episcopal hierarchy tends to be very liberal when it comes to traditions about doctrine, but almost fundamentalist when it comes to traditions about power and ecclesiastical structure. Meanwhile, the people running the emerging conservative structures are very strict about ancient doctrines, but many of them lean to more open, congregational, even megachurch approaches to church life.

Give the post a read. And if you feel moved to give your own definition of "church" in the comments here, I look forward to reading your insights. (Personally, I have more trouble defining "church" than I do defining "religion."


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