Theologically, “the Church” is often considered to be a synonym for “the body of Christ.” That is, all believers, taken together, are seen to define and maintain the church by the fact of their participation in the mystery (eucharist) of Christ or in Christ consciousness. In one sense, this is a tribal identification. In another sense, it is a statement of mystical communion.
I believe that there are at least three theological problems with this formulation. The body of Christ was Paul’s analogy in which different parts of the “body” perform different functions while all parts were essential to the life of the body. This is a nice thought, but it also invites some rather distasteful implications in how we view each other - after all, there are parts of the body that few would volunteer to embody. This creates the situation where all members consider themselves to be the ‘better’ parts, while relegating some undifferentiated others to the less desirable parts. Even if this is not a conscious function, I believe that it sets up a lack of humility that is implicit and very difficult to discern.
The development of the Western church was intertwined with social and political control. Thus, for seventeen or eighteen hundred years, church and state were combined into the same bodies. Hierarchy was built into the church to such an extent that it is difficult for modern people to conceive of a non-hierarchical church structure. This creates a theological dilemma within the group: all are equal before God, but some are “more equal,” or “more Godly,” due to their political position within the church. This contradiction is almost impossible to overcome in practice.
The third problem I find with the theological formulation of the Church is that it cannot be universal to all humans, by definition. We have the picture that all humans are God’s children, but formulating the Church as the body of Christ or as those who participate somehow in Jesus’ life means that, unless we convince or coerce all humans to accept Jesus, then we cannot create God’s kingdom, as defined by the Church. So, the very structure of the Church’s theology implies that wars and war-making will never end or will end only after massive oppression of non-Christians.
The church’s mission in our times seems to me to be honesty. If church members can honestly assess the theological implications of their belief structures, they will have to look at the Other differently. It is not just a function of viewing non-Christians as brothers. It is a matter of accepting that no belief structure can encompass all of God’s creation, that the divinity of Jesus somehow does not preclude other paths to God, that all of us participate in oppressing others in some ways. This means that (1) syncretism is a good thing when it allows individuals to move closer to God, (2) love of God implies loosening our proprietary hold on what “love of God” means, (3) acknowledgement that we are completely dependent on God at every moment of every day.
What I am saying here is that, as long as the Church defines salvation as a Church function, I believe that it contradicts Jesus' own basic tenets: to love God with all one’s heart, mind, strength, and soul, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.
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