Evangelical Catholicity - Simon Chan

I heard Simon Chan on the radio a few weeks ago. He is Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Theological College in Singapore, and has written a new book called Liturgical Theology: The Church as Worshiping Community. There is an intriguing article in Christianity Today, Stopping Cultural Drift, with and accompanying interview with Chan, More Than Saving Souls

His key points, that Evangelicals have no overaching ecclesiology, rather a view of the church as a utilitarian and voluntary association of people who unite to pursue a purpose, such as evangelism, and that as a result, evangelical worship and practice are too easily accommodated to the trends of culture. On the one hand these are not new observations, but Chan's foundational assumptions are different from most, very "paleo-orthodox".

The article and interview by Mark Galli points out Chan's view that "...the church cannot be understood as the creation of the devout, something that is merely the most efficient and effective way to organize ourselves to do mission."

Galli notes, "Recent examples of such thinking abound. George Barna in Revolution (Tyndale, 2005) proclaims, 'We should keep in mind that what we call 'church' is just one interpretation of how to develop and live a faith-centered life. We made it up.' And later, 'Growing numbers of young adults, teenagers, and even adolescents are piecing together spiritual elements they deem worthwhile, constituting millions of personalized 'church' models."

And: "In The Shaping of Things to Come (Hendrickson, 2003), they argue that we need to 'reinvent the church' in 'revolutionary' ways so that we can 'incarnate the gospel within a specific cultural context.'"

Chan insists that such a view of the church is inadequate, that the church is much bigger, something that God had in mind from eternity, and is related very much to the Trinity itself. The church is not an organization invented by men to be reinvented with each change in culture. This is refreshing to hear. Reinventing Christianity from the ground up every generation or so gets tiresome and causes us to lose our distinctiveness. It obscures the universality of the faith, a faith that should transcend all cultures and eras.

"'The people of God are a 'peculiar people,' chosen by God from eternity and distinguished by their 'core practices,' or what is traditionally called 'the marks of the church'"—practices and marks that are not so much invented as given to the church by the Spirit. While these marks are variously described, most Christians over time and over cultures have included two crucial ones (usually among others): the preaching of the Word and administration of the sacraments—baptism and the Lord's Supper."

Chan has an interesting take on sacrament, which he finds to not be at odds with evangelicalism.

"Our doctrine of the ascension tells us that Jesus is not present as an individual since he ascended bodily. It is the Holy Spirit, the "other Paraclete," who indwells the church and joins the church to Jesus as his body. Thus we speak of the Eucharistic presence or the "spiritual presence" of Jesus (Calvin) in the church as a defining characteristic of the church after Pentecost and before the Parousia. We are not free to conceptualize his presence in other ways, since it is determined by the very nature of the Trinitarian economy. Jesus in his farewell discourse makes this quite clear: Unless I go away, the Paraclete will not come. Evangelical's weak ecclesiology has meant that the church is often viewed in isolation from her ontological link to Jesus Christ and ultimately to the Trinitarian economy."
He takes on the drift that occurred post-Reformation, that implies that everything "traditional" is a false "tradition of men".

"Historically, it is not true to say that the liturgy of word and sacrament is a post-Constantinian invention. We see the pattern in Acts 2:42 and in Justin Martyr (2nd century). But the more compelling evidence is the number of incidental details that suggest that by the time of the writing of the New Testament, the Lord's Supper was not only a well-established practice, but quite entrenched in the early disciples' collective memory. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians the Lord's Supper was already "tradition." Why was Jesus recognized by the two disciples precisely when he broke bread (Luke 24:30, 31; cf. John 21:12)? Most evangelical churches do observe word and sacrament in their worship, but they do so haphazardly especially with regard to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, because they lack theological reasons for observing word and sacrament consistently."

Viewpoints like Chan's seem to be much more common these days. I think this is evidence that a trend continues to gain steam. My hope is that there will be more thinking like this, to see Christianity through a longer historical lens, to begin to reconstruct among all believers a concept of "catholicity". I hope to fit Chan's book into my reading list at some point soon. I suspect I will like his urgings to see the Church as a mystical body that was part of God's plan before the foundation of the world and worship as not a mere program or order of events, but a sacred and covenental entry into God's presence through both word and table.