Thursday, May 28, 2009

the church and the kingdom

Earlier this year I wrote this about what God has been teaching me: "I'm understanding in the smallest way the Kingdom of God. God wants to enter into, redeem and reign over every person, every culture, every community, and all creation. Come thy Kingdom in my life." Personally, I don't want to reduce God to just the church, and sadly that happens all too often. While he is (and should be) greatly involved in the church, there is a larger domain - one that includes every domain/area of society, including the church. And as the body of Christ, we have been released, mandated, and commanded to carry Christ and His Kingdom into the world.

Reposting this from Alan Hirsch today.
In my writing I came across this quote today by theologian Richard Neuhaus (who died earlier this year). It is worth considering because of the implied association of the Church with the Kingdom of God.

"Alfred Loisy the 19th century historian was right in saying that Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom of God but what appeared was the Church. The disappointment was and continues to be severe. But the great irony is that today we alleviate our disappointment with the contemporary Church by pointing back to the New Testament Church --which was the great disappointment to begin with! Our restless discontent should not be over the distance between ourselves and the first century Church but over the distance between ourselves and the Kingdom of God to which the Church then and now is the witness.(my emphasis added)" - -- R.J. Neuhaus, Freedom for Ministry, 33.

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