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“Doing Church”
By Bill Marsh | February 1, 2008
Carl Trueman takes on the recent phrase, “doing church” in an article at Ref 21. An excerpt:
Of course, this has implications in many different areas. If church is an act of God’s grace, if God `does church’ and not us, then other parts of the trendy new vocabulary need to be subjected to the searchlight of sovereign gracious action. Is preaching a conversation? If so, with whom is it a conversation? Between humans? So where does God fit in? Well, perhaps between humans and God then? But the church is an act of God’s grace, not a synthesis of the divine and human as such a conversational model would imply. No. Preaching is no more a conversation than the church is a co-operative venture of God and humanity. Preaching is God’s word; it is an act of divine grace, and it calls the church into being, constituting it as a reality. Sure, there is human response; but it is the dialogical response of those who are first addressed and thus compelled to respond in repentance, faith, and gratitude; it is not the chit-chat of autonomous individuals who stand in positions of broad equality with each other.
None of this is to dismiss the many legitimate questions which are often bracketed under the category of `doing church.’ There are many such questions which can and should – indeed, must – be asked. It is, however, a twofold plea. First, let’s try to avoid the proliferation of a trendy, almost Gnostic, vocabulary to express things which, frankly, have been regarded as part and parcel of Christian common sense for generations. Second, we need to ensure that our manner of speaking does not embody within itself theological problems. We must think about what church looks like; but we must not fall into the trap of talking about `doing church’ because to do so carries with it a gravitational pull towards a Pelagianism, a synthesis of divine grace and human action, which is simply not an accurate representation of what the church is.
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