(This article first appeared in Firebrand Magazine).
Over the past few weeks I’ve had a recurring conversation with a number of different people, all of which can be boiled down to the question, “What is the church?” This is a harder question than one might imagine. There are, of course, classical answers to this question, such as the New Testament concept of “the called-out ones” or the Church of England’s 39 Articles that describe the church as a “congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance…” But even with these helpful definitions, questions remain.
John Wesley had a lengthy debate about the nature of the church with fellow Evangelical Anglican Samuel Walker in the 1750s. The two were not too far apart in their arguments but Wesley leaned more on the gospel message as the defining quality of the church while Walker leaned more on its structure. Wesley remained the consummate preacher; the faithful are gathered where the gospel is preached. Walker was also a preacher, but he believed that the church is found where the bishops, priests, and their congregations are linked together in a holy fellowship. He was rehashing an ancient relational concept: where the bishop is, there is the church. It may be that both were right.
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