Best church, True church, NT church?

Introduction

Kind of continuing in the vein (vain?) of the past few posts, I offer further reflection this week on what it means to be the church (or, should we better say, "to be church"?), including being "Anglican church", in a world where an amazing and admirable run of public witness form by Pope Leo XIV is exemplifying the Catholic church in a wonderful way. Frankly, more wonderful because potential "rivals" (if we so may speak in ecclesiastical reflections) are contemporaneously attesting to forms of Christianity that at best are deeply unattractive and at worst base heresies relative to the Gospel of Christ the Prince of Peace: American Protestant evangelicalism (which gave rise through the middle of the 20th century onwards to Billy Graham, a dominant and much admired figure, capable of significant media interest) and Russian Orthodoxy (which through much of the 20th century was to be admired for its faithful witness to Christ in the face of continual persecution by the Soviet government).*

True church?

Present debates about church, whether we look at Anglican debates about the NCPs, the respective roles and aspirations of Gafcon and Global South or we look at Catholic debates, especially the allegations by some Catholics that Roman Catholicism has lost its way since Vatican 2 and there hasn't been a "real" Pope since ... [name your last real Pope] or look at Protestant debates in the USA where people seem to be ecclesiastically "cancelled" because ... [name your issue: support women in leadership ... do not unquestionally support President Trump ... etc], or dive into the claims and counter-claims of Eastren Orthodoxy generally (the true church continuous with the apostles) or between versions thereof in particularity, all amount to debates over the "true" church - the church as God has and presently intends it to be, as absolutely and clearly revealed through ... [again, name your preferred measure of "true church"].

It is noble to propose that one's church is the true church. It is impressive in certain cases to make such claim (e.g. it would be an odd God who only got around to revealing the true church in the 16th century (Protestantism) or in the 20th century (Pentecostalism), so, impressive indeed are the claims of churches that they date backwards to Jesus and the apostles with continuity of teaching and of practice.

It is not my present purpose to debate those claims save for observing that "true church" claims are proposed by more than one church, so merely making the claim does not void the need to examine such claims.

But, in principle, it is possible that the true church may yet be agreed on, and when and if so, we should all join up, merge into and gather under its ecclesial umbrella.

Best church?

Given potential to get stuck on "true church" claims, we might opt for "best church" claims. I suggest (at least) two levels of "best church" claims.

One is "best church for me or for my family." I see this working out in many Christians' lives these days which could be described as a "post-denominational" era. John and Mary have grown up Presbyterian, married in the Presbyterian church one of them belonged to, but worshipped in the other Presbyterian church until a shift of jobs takes them to another town. They have two children by now and a thriving children's ministry is sought, which is best found in this town's central Baptist church. Some years later, the children now teenagers, there is a move to another town, and this time it seems natural to join the church where their children's peers are involved in an excellent youth ministry, a relatively new church belonging to a network of independent Pentecostal churches established a few decades ago. Later, when the children are grown up and left home, a move to the leafy suburbs of the town seems a natural progression in life, and, for various reasons, the local Anglican church beckons. In each case John and Mary have belonged to the best church for them and their family, and they have enjoyed the advantageous features of each church, untroubled by any formal ecclesiological assessment of whether the church they were attending was the "true church."

A second way in which "best church" might work (as it does for me!) is a little bit of ecclesiological assessment, either choosing a church de novo or choosing to continue in a church for ecclesiological reasons - this church represents the best church of all possible churches. Pretty much, for example, this is why (having been brought up Anglican and in a vicarage) I choose continually to be Anglican. It is a church in which the best of being Catholic and the best of being Reformed can be and is expressed through judiciously balanced liturgies which themselves ensure that what we pray is what "we" believe and not what "I" as worship leader/priest/minister determine to be our belief. There are other "best" aspects but my point here is not so much to argue that the Anglican church is "the" best church but to make the point that whether or not the Anglican church is the "true church" it is (to my and many adherents' satisfaction) the "best church".

I fully expect there are happy Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, and, of course, Catholics and Eastern Orthodox who see similar satisfaction in their "best church".

Back to the Anglican considerations of the past couple of posts: what the NCPs miss is this sense of what makes the Anglican Communion the "best" global communion of churches, because "best" includes communion with the See of Canterbury (continuing communion with an historical see, a strong and admirable feature of the Roman Catholic Church, of various Eastern Orthodox churches), visible, locatable leadership in the Archbishop of Canterbury rather than in a "duty primate" (I note that "as I write" it is the Archbishop of Canterbury who is being welcomed ecumenically in Rome, even to the consternation of some Catholics on X who are aghast that the Pope should recognise the ABC/a female ABC by praying with her), and "communion" being a drawing together in fellowship of those in common Anglican heritage even when there are differences and disagreements (rather than communion being a means of asserting who belongs to the 'true" Anglican communion/conference and who does not).

New Testament church?

Is there an even better way than "true church" or "best church"? One of my reflections through these weeks of some pretty intense ecclesiological debate - think not only about intra-global-Anglican debates, but also intra-Catholic-debates as (e.g.) the Pope speaking about peace, capital punishment, homosexuality etc occasions carping comments from some and laudatory reTweeting from others, and then, as the ABC visits Rome, all kinds of, frankly, uncharitable and (in my experience of majority Catholicism) unrepresentative criticisms of both the ABC (the usual "not a real bishop" stuff) and of the Pope and other Roman prelates who are welcoming her to Rome - is that the New Testament charts another way ...

The New Testament is not, frankly, much help when it comes to settling "true church" or even "best church" debates. It just doesn't say enough to (say) nail down that the Bishop of Rome is to be the Prime Bishop of All Bishops. It doesn't even say enough to make crystal clear that the church is to be ordered by bishops, priests/presbyters and deacons. On the eucharist, it does set out Jesus' command to 'do this', but, intriguingly, for something we make much of and debate heaps and even divide one from the other over, only one epistle, 1 Corinthians, actually says something about the eucharist as common church practice. (Perhaps most intriguingly, the Pastoral Epistles, which do say a number of things about the ordering of church life, say nothing about the eucharist, and Hebrews, which has a lot to say about the inadequacy of the worship life of Israel (sacrifices, tabernacle, etc) says zilch about the eucharist as a replacement for that particular form of worshipping life.)

But what the New Testament does have a lot to say about is what constitutes authentic Christian life aka being church. That authentic life, whether we focus on, say, Jesus washing the disciples' feet, or Paul talking about the Philippian Christians having the same mind as the Christ who gives up all divine privilege in order to save us, or James' urging congregations to live justly and mercifully, or Matthew charting the way of following Jesus through the Sermon on the Mount, beginning with the Beatitudes, is all about quality of life - quality of the inner person (Be-attitudes), quality of relationships with one another (Love one another), quality of relationship with God through allowing the Spirit of God to fill our lives, gifting us and making us fruitful. 

The church of such people is not best defined in terms of "order" or "office" or "conciliar decision" (though these are part of the NT church). If we think in terms of "judgement", does the NT invite us to think we will be judged by whether we have belonged to the "true church" or the "best church", whether we have approved of women being ordained or resisted the possibility, and the like? No. Not at all. But the NT does provoke us to think that we will be judged on the quality of the lives we have sought to live in response to Jesus calling us to follow him in the light of what has been revealed to us through Scripture.

Turning this around a little, to current debates, what matters is not, say, whether the ABC has "valid orders", is a man rather than a woman, acknowledges the authority of the Bishop of Rome, and so forth, but whether Sarah, baptised child of God, is a true follower of Jesus Christ, the best disciple she can be.

When I engage with you, and you with me, when we engage with another Christian - be they Methodist or Baptist or Coptic Orthodox etc - do we find in each other a true Christian?

Thankfully, on that count, in my experience, there are wonderful people of God spread throughout the world, belonging to many different denominations, carrying all kinds of labels. The truest, bestest church of God in the world today is the church of authentic believers.

*By "Russian Orthodoxy" I mean the Russian Orthodox church in Russia itself, which with a few notable and often defrocked exceptions, is led by warmongering, Putin-supporting prelates and priests. Outside of Russia, Russian Orthodoxy often is, and thankfully so (as locally here in NZ) less bellicose.

POSSIBLE BONUS READ

God is back in fashion – and topping the bestsellers list https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/christianity-back-books-publishing-return/

I say "possible" because the article is behind a paywall though I was able to read it via a "gift article" from a Tweeter on X.