© 1992 Merlyn Cox
© 1992 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
“Dearly beloved, the church is of God, and will be preserved to the end of time… All, of every age and station, stand in need of the means of grace which it alone supplies.” So begins the order for Confirmation and Reception into one of our major protestant churches. It rings with authority and it echoes the fundamental conviction that God has called a covenant people to share the Good News with all the earth.
With the trend toward the privatization of religion, and the suspicion of institutional religion, one can either take solace in the perspective that the church is timeless and will survive our human frailties, or one can question our too-easy identification of the institutional church with the church universal and invisible-even with the Kingdom of God itself.
I think it is possible and even necessary to do both: I draw strength from the transcendent view of the church as the universal and invisible fellowship of believers; and I am at times dismayed by the facile and commonplace identification of the institutional church with the Kingdom of God.
Protestants may wish to withhold the keys to the spiritual kingdom from the outward and visible church, but in their structures, doctrines, and common beliefs, the deviation maybe less than we claim. The clergy often act as if evangelism, the making of disciples, were the same thing as getting people to “join the church,” despite their theoretical disclaimer to the contrary. Laypersons, on the other hand, are often not aware of the need for such a disclaimer.
Protestants may wish to withhold the keys to the spiritual kingdom from the outward and visible church, but in its structure, doctrine and common belief, the deviation maybe less than we claim.
Such an identification is reinforced by an abundance of sermons addressing the need to become more active and dedicated to the church, as if this were the final measure of discipleship. Stirring addresses and hymns concerning the church triumphant sound hollow in an age where the church is still shamefully divided and desperately seeking an institutional fix for its woes. And despite all the helpful aspects of the church growth movement, the increasing passion for statistical analysis and head counting sound much like the institutional equivalent of whistling in the dark. The proclamation of the glories of the church is a poor substitute for the Good News.
The early church helped to paved the way to such an identification of church and kingdom when the expected parousia was long delayed. The church became the here and now substitute for the delayed kingdom — realized eschatology within the bounds of its control. And for all its strengths, Paul’s image of the church as the body of Christ can easily lead to such a misunderstanding in practice, if not in theory.
The church and the Kingdom of God are hardly the same. Even the heathen can tell that the church is not the same as the kingdom of God, and no doubt that is why more than a few have not entered therein. We need to make clear that, even at its best, the church is but pale reflection of the eternal Kingdom.
The church need not take itself so seriously in order to take it’s mandate seriously. The church need not pretend to be so glorious in order to have a glorious task. If the church has any glory, it is not a glory of its own, but a reflected glory — one that comes from humbly losing itself in self-forgetful service and worship.
We seem not to appreciate Karl Barth’s affirmation that faith “has to do with the Kingdom and nothing at all to do with the church.” Until we do, our defensive and self-justifying posture will only obscure all the more the Good News to which we are called to bear witness.
We seem not to appreciate Karl Barth’s affirmation that faith “has to do with the Kingdom and nothing at all to do with the church.” Until we do, our defensive and self- justifying posture will only obscure the Good News to which we are called to bear witness.
The Urantia Book makes it clear that, while the church has been the best exponent of Jesus’ lifework on earth, it has fallen far short of the living spiritual fellowship Jesus envisioned for his followers. In fact, “the Christian churches of the twentieth century stand as great, but wholly unconscious, obstacles to the immediate advance of the real Gospel — the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.” (UB 195:10.8)
The survival of the church as we know it is a secondary issue compared to the certain triumph of the Kingdom of God. As John said to the Israelites who prided themselves on their heritage, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestors’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” The Urantia Book holds out the great hope that the church will grow out of its “larval stage” and will be transformed by, and proclaim more clearly, the true Gospel to the whole earth: the Gospel of Jesus rather than the Gospel about Jesus. If it fails to do so, God will, no doubt, raise up new prophets and a people who will.