The Misunderstanding of the Church

Written in 1952 by Emil Brunner, The Misunderstanding of the Church is a deep read. You can get a flavor of the book by reading the excerpt below. If you’re like me, you might have to read it a couple of times, intentionally. Blessings.

The Word of God is truly and effectively in the Church as the word of the Holy Ghost, implying therefore a unity of “logos” and dynamic energy which lies beyond all comprehension. From this unity, which later ceased to exist or to be understood, flows the hidden life of the primitive community. It forms the secret both of the fellowship and of its moral power; for upon the inspiration of the Holy Ghost rests the Koinonia, the communion of men with each other, the fact that they are knit together in an organism which includes both equality and difference, the fundamental equality of all and their mutual subordination each to other. The significant mark and the essential being of this communion consists in the quality of agape-the new ethos of the fellowship and its members. It is understandable that a later time, when this original power and unity no longer existed in the same abundance, should seek to find a substitute for what was lacking and to secure the presence of what was fast disappearing. This attempt at security and replacement assumes three different forms: the living Word of God is secured-and at the same time replaced-by theology and dogma; the fellowship is secured and replaced-by the institution; faith, which proves its reality by love, is secured-and replaced-by a creed and a moral code.

It is so much easier to discuss from an intellectual and theological standpoint the ideas implied in the revealed Word of God and to analyse them conceptually than it is to allow oneself to be transformed at the centre of one’s life by the action of the Holy Ghost: and further, theological ideas can be handled and arranged as one desires at any time-not so the Word of God.

It is so much easier to secure the life of the fellowship, its coherence and its indispensable hierarchy by means of solid legal forms, by organization and offices, than it is to allow the life of communion to be continually poured out upon one, to allow oneself to be rooted in it by the action of the Holy Ghost. You can handle and shape as you please such things as law and organization, but you cannot act thus towards the Holy Ghost.

And finally: it is so much easier to assent to a creed, a dogma, a firm body of teaching than it is to believe in such a way that belief is inseparable from love. Above all: one can mould as one will creeds and moral codes, handle them, teach them, learn them, but one cannot thus control that faith which is active in love.

The order intrinsic to the fellowship springing from the Holy Spirit was diakonia-service-the same therefore as flowed from true faith and revealed itself in a new relationship to one’s brother. But the organized hierarchy presupposing the office had neither the character of brotherly communion nor had it a unity wherein equality was consistent with differentiation-a unity characterized by reciprocal subordination. The delicate structure of the fellowship founded by Jesus, and anchored in the Holy Spirit, could not be replaced by an institutional organization without the whole character of the Ecclesia being fundamentally changed: the fellowship of Jesus Christ became the church. The apparent similarity between the official organization and the New Testament order of the Spirit shows upon closer inspection that at every point there has taken place a change in essential character. The paradoxical unity of things which everywhere else exist in disparity was no longer present as the decisive factor. Now there was dogma- without the dynamism of the Spirit-filled Word of God. Now there was faith, in the sense of correct, orthodox belief, but separated from love. Now there was a community in the sense of a Church with offices, but no longer the solidarity of reciprocal service.

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