Is it possible to sustain a Christian confession or walk with the Lord outside the church? You are and I are not the first to ask this question, nor are we the first to answer it. The Nones come at this question from a variety of angles, not all of them unjustified.
It was a question being asked in W. Germany following the tumults of National Socialism, the Holocaust, and the German church capitulation to the “German Christians.” Ernst Käsemann answered this question in a typically bold way but also with a nuance that shattered many of the assumptions many were using to support the church. His bold statement comes in an essay from 1982 called “Aspects of the Church,” in his book Church Conflicts: The Cross, Apocalyptic, and Political Resistance (2021).
The question becomes “What is the church?” and “Where is the church?” and “Who is the church?”
He said, “When one is under the lordship of Christ, one arrives at solidarity with all, at fellowship in the church” (5). But his “fellowship in the church” radicalizes church and at times tosses dust in the eyes of institution and ecclesiastic authorities, the ordained, and hierarchies. The “body of Christ” for him is rooted in Christology and is an embodied reality for those who follow the Crucified One. The body is more than individual human autonomy (disagreeing with his teacher Bultmann) but is the entire person engaged in that discipleship. The context for that discipleship is cosmic and involves resistance against the powers and Satan and evil.
Thus, the church is the people who are following the Crucified One, the Nazarene, the Lord Jesus, who breaks the powers and principalities to heal and redeem.
Thus, “the body of Christ is the world under the sign of grace… the new creation… [broken free from] the power of the demons, and in the earthly present represents the inbreaking of the kingdom of the resurrection from the dead” (6).
At the heart of Käsemann’s theology was the priesthood of all believers and the centrality of each with a charism, or spiritual gift. WW2 made hierarchical structures problematic. All Christians are office holders for him. All are laity, all are priests. “The Spirit is thus not a power who awards privileges to persons, but rather the active presence of Christ on earth and his grace that blesses all disciples” (9).
Yes, women too. He participated in the German battle about women and spoke for their full participation. Rooted in Christology and the smashing of the Powers in the death and resurrection and ascension of Christ.
His study of Hebrews, called The Wandering People of God, was a laity-shaped vision for a church on pilgrimage, never settled, never satisfied, never perfected. A wandering people following the “Pioneer and Perfecter of faith” (12). They are the people “who are only allowed to wear the cross on their chests [as German pastors had been doing] if they have previously carried it on their backs” (13).
He has a long section on post WW2 church disputes that I will avoid discussing here except to say that it led him into the ecumenical movement that showed (at that time) a promise for a universal church. For him it was to be a unity in Christology but a profound diversity in embodied realities. He saw great promise in the Confessing Church. But he found the best movement in those who saw the gospel for the poor and the marginalized, and here he enters into his own version of liberation.
His development led to seeing that the “Christian life is never a private affair. Our mission leads into the world just as into everyday life” (30).
It is difficult to think of the church "biblically", i.e., as the "body of Christ" in the context of a reality of denominations bent on their survival, etc. But it strikes me that (however else we describe the church) its description as "the body of Christ" centers the church as being somewhat literally the BODY of the HEAD (Christ), carrying out the will of the Head. Whatever else the "church" is, it seems to me that it must constantly align all of its parts with the will and purpose of Jesus. Any embracing of other purposes (however "nice") will move the church away from what it should be. Okay, that sounds like just religious talk, but behind it lies the reality that all of the structures for efficiency and effectiveness as institutions in the world that sidestep that primordial reality for the church will miss the point. Kasemann is onto something important....
So good. So important.