Avery Dulles, presents 5 Models of the Church in this
week’s readings. As I read through them I couldn’t help but feel like Goldilocks searching for the one that was "just right". In thinking about this, I realized
that I have encountered many of these models in my faith formation.
I was born as Vatican II was being written so my spiritual formation
came in the duality of the pre and post Vatican II doctrine. My aunt, a devout Catholic who helped raised
me, would probably feel most comfortable with The Institutional Model of
Church. She believed without question
what church leaders taught and would never question the authority of the male
clergy. I did learn the importance of God and going to mass from her even
though I found that model to be a bit oppressive.
In junior high school I was introduced to the Model of
Church as a Mystical Communion,or as LumenGentium reaffirms, the Body of Christ. Dulles describes the Church structure as “an instrument serving Christ’s
Spirit, who vivifies it in the building up his Body". (48) Vivify - to give life to, animate, to enliven That is exactly how I
would describe my experience, thanks in part to the Teresian Sisters who
taught me. They introduced me to liturgical dance, they enlivened me in the spirit
of God’s love, they welcomed me into the Body of Christ and made it real for
me. I felt part of the church as Yves Congar described
it, “a fellowship of men with God and with one another in Christ”. This feeling
sustained me for years, yet I wanted more.
In college I was part of the Awakening Community. At this point I more fully experienced Church
as Sacrament. Community and fellowship continued to be important to me but
attending mass and becoming a Eucharistic Minister had renewed importance. “The
Church, then, is the place where it appears most clearly that the love that
reconciles men to God and to one another is a participation in what God communicates
most fully in Christ”. (66)
Having experienced 3 models of church each of which added to
my faith formation, perhaps its not a question of choosing one over the other but
learning from each of them and integrating the positive points.
In reflecting on my experience of Church it seems to
me that a sound model would encompass a living church , a People of God rooted
in tradition, led by sound doctrine and the Word, able to speak to today’s
generation and able to tend to God’s people through service. If we are all a part of the church, do we help shape it through our individual gifts? How do we help shape the Church today?
Through Spiritual
Direction, I have begun to explore some of these same aspects in my life. How do I balance fellowship, prayer, worship, sacraments, theology and service? I am learning
what my gifts are and how God is calling them out (Ekklesia) in service to Him
and His Church. In pursuing an
internship in spiritual direction I hope to help others find their own balance
of communion, sacrament, worship and prayer and to hear and answer God’s call.
iamtheclay,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughts on the various readings of this week. The theological models as presented by Avery Dulles also seemed particularly interesting to me. I personally tend to identify with The Church as Servant and the Church as a Community of Disciples (Rausch, 65-66). When exploring the model of the Church as Servant, I identify with the Church “in” the world, rather than being a refuge “from” the world. In this sense, I view my work within the Church to exist in the midst of the world in which we live. I think it exists within the every day lives of our worldly activities and reject the notion of a pie-in-the-sky God that is separate and removed from our earthly involvement. I believe the Church should be engaged with people’s struggles and fights for justice. It should be a comforter in times of weakness and a vibrant force in the liberation of people from systemic forms of oppression. I also disagree with the fear that Dulles expresses in that “this model might threaten the distinctive mission of the Church and secularize ecclesiology.” (Dulles, 66) I strongly believe that this model would have quite the opposite affect, in that the Church would be strengthen when it becomes more involved in the daily lives of people who are in need of God’s mercy.
The model of the Church as a Community of Disciples offers a positive perspective on amalgamating the many different models as described earlier in the text. This model is described as sort of a combination of all of the models. In my opinion, it is difficult to only identify with one or two models, when in my reality, we are all a part of many models and many models can be used to describe the whole Church. This idea of a culmination of models brings to mind, the references made on page 57 in the description of the Church as the Body of Christ. Here Rausch recounts Paul’s powerful metaphor of the Church as one Body. With the many talents and gifts that we all bring to the Church, this metaphor has always resonated deeply within my thoughts as a realistic model for how the Whole Church should function. Maybe in stead of offering 5 models, as Dulles proposes, we should strive to all find our unique contributes within the model (or metaphor) of the Body of Christ.
As I read through the materials for this week, my mind bounced from idea to idea, much as the images of Church bounced throughout pages. I was reared in the Catholic church, at a time when the Church as an institution was alive and well (Rausch, 63). It was, I believe, because of this ‘institutional model’ that I first felt dissatisfied and even angry at the Catholic ‘institution.’ The leaders of the Catholic church condemned my mother because she was divorced and remarried. They called her an ‘adulteress’ – a term I categorically denied. Years later, when I had the opportunity, I left that ‘model’ and became part of a new community of believers, the Baptist church.
ReplyDeleteMy first experiences with the Baptist church were, ironically, just as ‘institutional’ as the Catholic church I had left! In Dulles’ ‘Models of the Church’, the Bonds of Unity for an Institution are members who profess doctrine, communicate in the sacraments, and are subject to the hierarchy. In the early 1980s, and to this day, this is exactly what the Southern Baptist Convention has become. Once again, I found myself longing for the Body of Christ that Amos referred to in his blog!
Eventually, as I have continued to grow in faith in Christ, I find the metaphors to describe my own personal idea of ‘Church’ to be lacking. In his search for a new image for the Church, Vondey notes that “images are always dynamic, never static (30).” I completely agree with this statement, and disagree with it at the same time! He quotes from Minear, remarking that many of us know very little about sheep, wolves or even grapes, common metaphors used in the Bible. Yet I lived in a society where shepherds still roam the hills, where grapes are a staple crop, and where families live in multi-generational compounds as they did in biblical times. The post-modern world is not valid in all parts of the world today. Perhaps the biblical world was not so different than we are today – Minear records 96 images of the Church in the New Testament alone (15). If I must categorize my current beliefs, Church as the Body of Christ is the most descriptive. I firmly believe we all shape the Church through our individual gifts. God loves us individually, calls us to Himself individually, saved us individually, and grants to each of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In a world that is as new and innovative and yet ancient and traditional, the Body of Christ, for me, encompasses us all!
Thank you all for your commentary about the Models of the Church, as well as for your own personal stories and opinions. Iamtheclay, I especially enjoyed the analogy about Goldilocks searching for something just right, because truthfully, as we grow in our faith, we are constantly striving to find where we truly fit. Fr. Rausch, SJ, summarizes Dulles’s five models of Church on P. 64-67 as Institution, Mystical Communion, Sacrament, Herald, Servant, and Community of Disciples. Which ones of these models fits best for us? Could more than one Model work, or are they a blend? Dulles writes in his book, Models of the Church, that because the Church transcends all earthly analogies as a mystery and because of the richness of the Church, a supermodel cannot do justice to all aspects (197). This reminds me of when I was teaching my students about the mystery of the Church, and we concluded that we would never solve the full mystery because we are always learning more.
ReplyDeleteReflecting on my own faith journey has led me to conclude that this is similar to how I feel about the Models of the Church. I would have viewed the Model as the “Church as Servant” when leading the college groups to Tijuana every month because we saw ourselves as changing the lives of the families we served and liberating them through education and love (Rausch 66). When I am trying to reach out to others to encourage them to serve the Lord and take up opportunities to grow in their faith, whether I am leading youth group, or evangelizing to my own friends, the Church is seen as a Community of Disciples (Dulles 198). However, I could also argue that recruiting my friends and others to serve in Tijuana was taking up the Model of Church as Servants. Which Model fits me? Could I choose more than one, or simply accept that we will never solve the mystery?
As a History scholar and teacher, I always feel it’s important to understand the roots or backstory of any events, models, or movements that occur. In this case, we need to understand how our Church was formed shaped in order to understand the ministries and which one(s) could fit best for us. It is written in the Lumen Gentium that Jesus Christ, our Savior, preached the Gospel – the good news – of the arrival of the Kingdom of God in order to set up the foundation and inaugurate our Church (3). He formed and sustained His holy church, “the community of faith, hope, and charity, as a visible structure” and that we are called to follow the path of justice and carrying out work of redemption of poverty in order to “communicate fruits of salvation to humanity” (Lumen Gentium 9-10). To me, this is important because this community He speaks out is the same as that Community of Disciples and a Church as a Servant. We are called to serve others, and minister to not only the literal poor, but also the poor in spirit, those who are hungry for love. As a community, we become more faithful to one another and to God when we can count one another. Only when we understand the roots of our Church – the purpose of Jesus coming down to save us – can we truly then start to dive into which Model of the Church we feel is right for us. This Model can only feel truly right though, when we are following Jesus’ call and will.
Changes
ReplyDeleteMy oldest son jokes with his best friend that they will “raise their sons to be different and teach them to speak in complete sentences.” Email tends toward being short and succinct in businesslike way. Texting is abbreviated and coded. Even I have to remind myself that I can be more descriptive when I write in longer prose. I think back to being taught the elements of a good personal letter. It harkens back to a time when there was an art to putting thoughts on paper, and the only way to communicate personally across long distances was by sending letters. My studies at LIM encourage me to step beyond my “olden days” school training and push myself to be more technologically savvy. The electronic media which is meant to make things easier is a lot of work to learn. It makes me wonder what community, communication and Church will look like later in this 21st century.
Avery Dulles’s Models of the Church explains something to me. Chapter 1 gives me a description for an important influence on my life. Four of the five Sacraments I have received, Baptism, Penance, Communion, Confirmation, were before Vatican II. The changes from Vatican II came to my Catholic parish and school as I hit junior high school. Yet, the strongest influences in my family life, my parents and grandparents were products of the more institutional model of the church that came before it.
I am a Catholic whose formation was during a time of change. The implementation of Vatican II was in my world, a hit or miss proposition. I remember having teachers from the older model alternate with the enthusiasm of those eager toreplace it with what was new. As I look at Avery Dulles’s church models (institution, mystical communion, herald, servant and community of discipleship) I am not sure which ones fit the Catholic Church I love and the journey I have had with it.
I hope that I can navigate change, faith, technological and otherwise, as well as some people did then. Around me there was a belief in the value of fait and that it superseded old and new. My mother once whisked me away to a Catholic mass after allowing me to attend a Methodist church as if I was unclean. Later, this same woman answered my sister’s disdain at her traditional faith by joining her first of many Bible studies. The New American Bible was published when for most Catholics the family bible was large, decorative, and held the family history. When I asked for one for Christmas, my surprised grandmother looked at my mother who shrugged with a look that said “Why not? Who knew that their momentary exchange would be so important to a girl just 12 or 13.Now the wealth and wisdom I find in Scriptures is often what gets me through a day.
I hope I can answer my grandchild’s questions as well as they did by word and example.
Like you, I have also experienced the Church in various ways in different settings over the course of my life. I can not say that one ecclesiastical model or other is wholly captures the essence of my experience. Truly, there is mystery in the Church and her lived experience.
ReplyDeleteI was first exposed to Dulles, five models when I taught high school theology eight years ago. I presented a summary version not dissimilar to the one found in Thomas Rausch's book, Towards A Truly Catholic Church. Reading Dulles' own presentation from his 1974, Models of the Church, has given me a deeper appreciation of the various intellectual and denominational traditions behind these models. Dulles did not originate these ecclesiologies, but his appreciation of their respective strengths leads to a critical synthesis that illuminates the mystical aspect of Church as Sacrament, Servant, Herald, Institution, and Community.
Dulles' 1987 expansion on the model of Church as community, which in the 1974 edition focused on the "Body of Christ" imagery, is meaningful and particularly resonant with me at this time. One of my primary ministries has been with small (sometimes radical) Christian communities. These have been the primary, but not exclusive, modes of Church for me. I have found that the practice of the Works of Mercy is what moderates the radical practice of discipleship and the radical/anarchist ideologies that permeate these communities. Dulles warned of the tendency toward sect-Christianity of the countercultural "Community of Disciples" model (215 of 1987 edition of Models of the Church). In this section he mentions the broad experience of Latin American base communities as an example of this phase of Church. Unfortunately, he fails to expand upon these experiences with any detail. I believe that these communities and other faith communities such as L'Arche or the Catholic Worker invite Christians to a concrete expression of discipleship and community and articulate a vision for the Church beyond the horizons of their own communities (see Peter Maurin's Easy Essays or Jean Vanier's and Henri Nouwen's writings).
I think that families and communities of believers - within parishes, base communities, religious orders or lay apostolates- can shape the Church through the attractive power of their mutual aid and love of one another. Dulles underlines this when he laments that the Church does not seem to appear as "conspicuously as the community of the disciples" as did in its first three centuries (213). The more we respond to this invitation the greater the missionary life of the Church.