Paul Zahl on "Ecclesiology"
"Ecclesiology is also unimportant for a negative reason. Ecclesiology is an actual ill! By definition it places the human church in some kind of special zone -- somehow distinct from real life -- that appears to be worthy of study and attention. The underlying idea is that the church is in a zone that is free, or at least more free, from original sin and total depravity than the rest of the world, but the facts prove otherwise. The facts of history run counter to ecclesiology. They reveal a grim ersatz thing carrying the image of Christ but projected onto human nature and therefore intrinsically self-deceived. The gospel of grace, based on relational love that is entirely one-way, is at odds with ecclesiology. Whatever 'ecclesiology' comes in the train of grace is variable, secondary, contextual, and contingent...Emil Brunner's little-read book, The Misunderstanding of the Church (1953) is a devastating critique of the idea of church.
Brunner can find almost no evidence in the New Testament for anything like what many Christians consider to be the church. For Brunner, the New Testament describes a fluid and Holy Spirit-filled movement of people gathered together within an experience of God that involves massive individual changes of plan. There is a collective dimension to this: all the early Christians experienced the same thing. Like alien abductees, the first Christians had a shattering experience in common. This brought them together. But this experience was not an institution." - Paul Zahl, Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life.
Now...A century ago...Two millenia in the past...False doctrine and heretical teaching has a "sweetness" more palatable to the "times." In a world more determined by "taste" (over which there can be no contention) than by "truth" (which always must be contended for)... in such a world "sweetness" wins. Those who oppose sweetness--even though it be false--will always be labeled "bitter"--though they be true.
Many things combine to make the present inroad of false doctrine
peculiarly dangerous. There is an undeniable zeal in some of the
teachers of error: their “earnestness” makes many think they must be
right. There is a great appearance of learning and theological
knowledge: many fancy that such clever and intellectual men must surely
be safe guides. There is a general tendency to free thought and free
inquiry in these latter days: many like to prove their independence of
judgment, by believing novelties. There is a wide-spread desire to
appear charitable and liberal-minded: many seem half ashamed of saying
that anybody can be in the wrong. There is a quantity of half-truth
taught by the modern false teachers: they are incessantly using
Scriptural terms and phrases in an unscriptural sense. There is a morbid
craving in the public mind for a more sensuous, ceremonial, sensational,
showy worship: men are impatient of inward, invisible heart-work. There
is a silly readiness in every direction to believe everybody who talks
cleverly, lovingly, and earnestly, and a determination to forget that
Satan often masquerades himself “as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians
11:14). There is a wide-spread “gullibility” among professing
Christians: every heretic who tells his story plausibly is sure to be
believed, and everybody who doubts him is called a persecutor and a
narrow-minded man. All these things are peculiar symptoms of our times.
I defy any observing person to deny them. They tend to make the assaults
of false doctrine in our day peculiarly dangerous. They make it more
than ever needful to cry aloud, “Do not be carried away!”
- J.C. Ryle
1816 – 1900
As St. Paul instructed his student and successor, Timothy...
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3)
Two millenia in the past... a century ago... Now... the "truth" must be contended for over and against a "taste" more palatable to the times.
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