CHURCH AS ARK OF SALVATION: PART ONE, THE

This essay is guided by two undergirding presuppositions.1 The first presupposition is that the right context for Christian theology is the church itself, with its given discourses and practices. It is here that Christian theological reflection has its anchor and defining context. This means that ecclesiology-the doctrine of the church-is itself fundamental to any theological project. I propose the following theological definition of the church as a guide to further reflections in this paper:

The church is that liberative and redemptive

community of persons

called into being

by the Gospel of Jesus Christ

through the Holy Spirit

to witness in word and deed

to the living triune God

for the benefit of the world to the glory of God.2

The second presupposition of this essay is that the church itself, in its discourses and practices, is in wild disarray today in North America concerning what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ. My definition of the church is intended to guide us through the morass of confusion about the church today, and the whole of this essay will hopefully clarify some of the issues surrounding the identity and necessity of the church for the living of the Christian life. It is not uncommon in our American culture these days to say, both from within the church and beyond the church, that a person can be a good Christian - or at least authentically "religious"-without any involvement in the life of the church. That conviction can be quite misleading about the connection between the church and the Christian life, and I intend to critique and dismantle that conviction.

Here, at the outset of this essay, I propose that we should not assume that every group that calls itself the church of Jesus Christ is in actuality the church that is embodied in the definition I have just stated. While admitting that the church itself often lives amidst brokenness and disagreement within itself, I am weary of being called upon to defend-or even interpret-the discourses and practices of some groups that claim to be the church. Some groups are so profoundly antithetical to what I understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ to be and how the church is called into being by that gospel that I am ready to raise the question of their heretical status. I will not directly address the question of how we decide matters of orthodoxy and heresy, but I do contend that any ecclesiology that is incapacitated from discussing these matters is hardly an ecclesiology that could be called "Christian."3

I am more than a little worried that the tradition in which I stand-the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)-is so wishy-washy on issues of heresy that it allows its discourses and practices to be skewed by theological commitments that are deleterious to a faithful and truthful witness to the gospel. Sometimes it seems that the real center of its "theology" is the dogma that we are a church in which anyone can believe anything he or she pleases, and that any diversity is a welcome participant in the church's life and witness. For a church tradition that seems hesitant about "doctrine," that dogma of free belief and diversity is rather paradoxical in its occupation of so central a place in the discourses and practices of Disciples.4

I am proposing, then, that by discussing the topic of the church as ark of salvation we will be plunging into and hopefully clarifying some aspects of what it means to be the church of Jesus Christ and how such a church might talk about human salvation. I will proceed according to this outline. First, I construct a traditional model of the church as the ark of salvation, outside of which there is no salvation. Second, I construct a model of the liberal church, one which thinks of itself as in serious disagreement with the traditional model. Third, I construct a revised model of the church as ark of salvation that critiques some aspects of both the traditional model and the liberal model. It is this revised model that I am proposing to the church as a way of reclaiming its distinctive identity and mission.

A TRADITIONAL MODEL OF THE CHURCH AS ARK OF SALVATION

It was a common conviction of the church in its first centuries that there was no salvation outside the church: extra ecclesiam nulla salus.5 This is vividly expressed in the image of the church as the ark of salvation, harkening back to Noah's ark. Relative to Noah's ark, we find a reference joining the ark to salvation in 1 Peter 3:18-21:

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which he also went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you...through the resurrection of Jesus Christ...

Just as Noah's ark saved the eight persons from drowning and death during the flood, so too baptism by the church saves one from the perils and destiny of sin. Cyprian, a third century bishop, citing this passage in 1 Peter, said, "In saying this, he [viz. Peter] proves with his testimony that the one ark of Noah was a type of the one church."6 This facilitates Cyprian saying later, "there is no salvation outside the Church..." (salus extra ecclesiam non est).7 The clear implication of this interpretation of the church is that only the members of the church are or will be saved. One becomes a member of the church, as the body of Christ, through baptism.