In my foray into the Emerging Church world, I just ran across this comment by Evangelical author/scholar Scot McKnight (in a PBS interview, found here), where he says:
We call that fullness, that context, that wider reality, tradition, and it is living and we are a part of it, because it is the tradition, the history, the story, reality, experience, and wisdom, of Christ, lived out in His people, His Body. We also believe that the original community of disciples out of which this arose continues to exist today, and always has, under the guidance of the apostolic succession. The apostolic succession is no more, and no less, than the original disciples chosen by Christ to steward the Church, and the successors they in turn chose, passing on the charism through the laying on of hands.
The Bishops today continue to pass the charism on through the laying on of hands, in a line that is traceable back to Christ himself, in unbroken succession. Their hands today, and the hands of the priests their hands have anointed, act as Christ’s hands, and Christ works through them. Their hands bring us into the Body, the Church, which is the growing original community and is now worldwide, through the sacraments of baptism and confirmation, anointing us with the holy chrism oil; they rise above us in absolution in a cleansing rain of grace from Christ; and they offer us Christ Himself, in the gift of the Holy Eucharist. They anoint us again at the end of our lives, as we prepare at last to see Christ face to face, and sprinkle our bodies after death one last time, as we are taken to our resting place, to await our resurrection. Their hands, chosen by Christ, are Christ’s hands today, the hands Christ uses to do with us today what he did with the disciples long ago.
The last thing John said in his gospel is, “But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (Jn 21:25)
Jesus himself said, “I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.” (Jn 16:12-13, RSV)
For me, the Bible is foundational to Christianity. But I do not believe that the bible is all Jesus intended Christianity to be, because he said as much himself. There is so much more. The bible is like the mustard seed; the Church, and all her teachings and practices and doctrines and sacraments, everything that happened in history and continues to happen today and will happen, in the lives of all her believers, the fullness of her whole life, is the great tree grown from the seed, and is now spread all over the earth. In all the work that we do to spread the kingdom, not just by bringing believers into the Body but also by bringing kingdom values into the world, into politics and society and culture, we grow the Church, and spread the kingdom.
The question for me is not, “Does it appear in scripture?” but “Is it consistent with what is in scripture?” and “Does it in anyway diminish faith in Christ, or does it instead enrich and enhance it?”
We are a people of the Living Word, Jesus Christ, and members of His Body which has been living and growing from the moment of his resurrection. We don’t need to chop it down and start over. We just need to find out what has really been happening, and be a part of it.
