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26
A Charismatic
Christ Appeal
King: for an
Ecological
Lifestyle
Jean-Jacques
Suurmond*
As
yet,
neither Pentecostalism nor the charismatic renewal has
pro- duced a consistent
theology involving
the whole of life. In this
article,
I hope
to show how the
spiritual gifts (charisms), poured
out on the Church,
entail the
challenge
to manifest the universal
reign
of Christ.
By anticipating
the end of creation in which God will become “all in all,” his
eschatological reign promotes already
in the
present
an
ecological unity
in diversity.
Introduction
.
Ephesians
4:1-16 describes the
significance
of Christ’s Ascension to the throne. In the first section
(vv. 1-6) unity
is emphasized: “one
Lord, one
faith,
one
baptism;
one God and Father
of
all ….” In the second part (vv. 7-11) diversity
is stressed: “But to each
of us grace [i.e. gifts] has been
given
as Christ
apportioned
it….
apostles,
…
prophets,
… evangelists, … pastors
and teachers ….”
Finally,
in verse
16,
this
unity and
diversity
are
brought together
in a creative tension: “From him
[i.e. the one
Christ]
the whole
body [I.c.
the one
Church]
…
grows
and builds
itself up
in love.” How?
“joined
and held
together by every supporting ligament [i.e. gift]
… as each
part
does its work. ”
I
On Ascension
Day,
we celebrate that Christ is King. His
Kingdom
is not a totalitarian state where heated debates are frozen in a Siberian cold. On the
contrary,
differences are not
merely
tolerated but created
by Christ: to each one he
apportions
different
gifts. Thus,
multi-colored diversity,
not
grey uniformity,
is the mark of unity
brought
about
by
the royal reign
of Christ. This is underlined in verses
6,
7 and
8, where the author
subsequently
refers to the Father, Christ and the
(gifts
of
the) Spirit.
The triune God, in whose
image
we have been
created,
knows unity
in diversity within his own
being.
“When he ascended on
high,
he …
gave gifts
to men.” Verse 8 is an interpretation
of Psalm 68:19, which was
part
of the Jewish
lectionary for the
Day
of Pentecost. The Ascension of the Son effects the descen- sion of the
Spirit. Ascending
on
high,
Christ
opens
the heavens and pours
out the
Spirit
of God on his
people. Thus,
Ascension
Day
links Easter with Pentecost: Christ is
risen, “higher
than all the
heavens,” to
.
*Dr. Suurmond, a
van Jean-Jacques pinkstergemeenten at the time
pastor
with the Dutch Broeder- schap
this article was submitted, is now a
pastor
with the Reformed Church in Holland.
lCf. Markus Barth, Ephesians 4-6, The Anchor Bible No. 34A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1982), 425-497.
1
27
‘
reign
in and
through
the
spiritual gifts.
The
reign
of Christ is charis- matic,
the fulfillment of the
reign
of all those Hebrew rulers who bowed their heads under the
anointing
of the
Spirit.
Verses 9 and 10 are a comment on verse 8. The Ascension of Christ is proclaimed
and
experienced
in his descension in the charismatic
Spirit.2 The descension of Christ mentioned in verse 9 does not refer to his becoming flesh,
but to his
becoming Spirit.
In the words of
Paul,
in the resurrection Jesus has become a
“life-giving Spirit” (1
Cor.
15:45). So, “He who descended”
(that is,
he who reveals himself
among
us in the Spirit),
thus demonstrates that he “is the
very
one who ascended,” the one who sits enthroned and
reigns.
The
gifts
here on earth
testify
to the Giver in heaven. As Peter formulates it in his sermon on the
Day
of Pentecost: “Exalted to the
right
hand
of God,
he has
received from
the Father the promised
Holy Spirit
and has
poured
out what
you
now see and
hear. “(Acts 2:33).
What is the
purpose
of the
kingship
of Christ? It is
“fact/!// the whole universe.” Or, as 1 Corinthians 15:28 describes it, “that God
may
be all in all.” The means to
accomplish
that
goal
is
charismatic, marked by unity
in
diversity.
As is mentioned in that
splendid paradox
of Ephesians
3:18:
only “together
with all the
saints,”
together
with all the different
gifts,
will we be able to know the unknowable: the
width, length, height
and
depth
of the love of the one
Christ,
the fullness of God.
Here,
I think, lies the distinctive contribution of the Pentecostal
exper- ience,
i.e. its
appeal
to the churches and the world for an
ecological lifestyle.
The word
“ecology”
is derived from the Greek
oikos, meaning house. It refers to the fact that the whole world is our home and that all things
therein are related to each other. Thus,
ecology points
to the interdependence
of all different
aspects
of life. We
already
saw that unity
in diversity is the mark of the
reign
of Christ,
by
and for whom all things
were created
(Col. 1:16).
His charismatic
reign
in the Church can be seen as an
eschatological
reflection of his rule over the cosmos. The sciences
(from elementary physics
to cosmology) as well as the mass media are
making society
more and more conscious of the mutual relationship
between all
things.
An
increasing ecological
awareness is the
only way
to
keep
our world-wide home habitable. If we refuse to use unleaded
gasoline,
soon we will drive
through
unforested land- scapes.
When interest-rates in the west
go up,
the standard of
living
in third-world countries
goes
down. When in
Chemobyl
radiation is emitted,
the cows in Holland are admitted to the sheds.
I do not hesitate to view this
increasing ecological
awareness as inspired by
the
Spirit
of God,
through
whom Christ extends his
reign
2Cf. G. B. Caird, “The Descent of Christ in Ephesians 4, 7-11,” Studia Evan- gelica, II,
ed. F. L. Cross (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964), 535-545.
‘
2
28
(call
it an instance of
Kuyper’s
common
grace,
if you
wish3). The Spirit
is the
ecological principle
of creation, as he is the
ecological principle
within the
being
of God himself. Did not
already Augustine submit,
that . the
Spirit
forms the bond between the Father and the Son? He makes
unity
in diversity possible: one God who
yet
exists in three
“persons.”
Originating
from the Word, the
Spiritus-Creator
broods the universe
into
being.
He holds all
things together
in a creative,
dynamic
tension
and sees
to
it that this
astounding pluriformity yet
constitutes one
creation.4 In the same vein, he is active
among people
as builder of
relationships, creating
communities out of
separate
individuals. The
Spirit
who is within us, is also
(borrowing
from
Buber)
the
Spirit
who
is between us. So, the
Spirit, issuing
from the inner
being
of
God,
spans
the extremes of creation. He is the
deeply personal presence
in
our life which makes us cry out: “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15),
uniting
us in the
community
called Church. At the same
time,
he hovers over
the immense
deep,
of
empty
and formless
worlds, unifying
them into
one cosmos and thus
creating
the
very
conditions which make our
human existence
possible (cf.
the
anthropic principle).
A charismatic
lifestyle
thus is a life in
harmony,
not
only
with the
ecological
structure of the whole creation, but even with the inner life of
the
triune God.
At this
point
I would like
briefly
to sketch how the
charismatic
reign
of Christ in the Church calls for an ecological
lifestyle
with
implications
for the individual life, the Church and the world.
1. The
Appeal
for a Personal
Ecology
The word “individual” is derived from a term
meaning
“undivided.” The division between
spirit,
soul and
body
is not biblical and runs counter to the
findings of,
for
example,
modem
medicine, which in- creasingly
stresses a psychosomatic
approach
toward illness. All
aspects of our
personality
are
part
of an ecological unity. If one of these
aspects is
emphasized
at the cost of
others,
we become less than an
individual, less than a whole
person.
Yet,
especially
in more traditional
congregations,
we often reduce our body
to a mere vehicle with which to carry our brains to church. All we
allow it to do is shake a few hands,
pick up
a
hymnal and, perhaps, kneel. In all sorts of
ways
it is communicated
to. our
body that,
in fact, it is not welcome. Even the
pews
seem to have been
especially designed
to punish
our bodies for
daring
to be present in the service!
Paul, however,
calls our bodies a kind of oikos, a temple of the
Holy Spirit (1
Cor.
6:19). Quite
a
daring statement, especially
when we
3 Abraham
Kuyper,
Van de Gemeene Gratie, II Het
Leerstellig Gedeelte, (Amsterdam:
Hoveker & Wormser,
1903). Cf. idem, The Work of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 283-292, 634.
4Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine
of Creation. (London: SCM, 1985), 14 and passim.
3
remind ourselves
God.
was a
sign
, us “to
lift up holy
hands
While
expressions
29
from a
of our
century
welcome,
our
to the extent that
unity
that these words were written when the
temple
in
Jerusalem was still in existence! The
apostle implies
no less than that the
Spirit
aims to turn our
bodily
actions into a living liturgy to the
praise
of
In and
through
the
body,
the
reign
of Christ is
expressed
in a
multitude of charisms,5
ranging
from dance to administration,
celibate life to the married state, from social action to glossolalia (which,
by
the
way,
for the first Pentecostals at the
beginning
that God breaks down racial barriers, as
they
heard both
blacks and
whites speak
in
tongues).6
The New Testament
encourages
in prayer”
(
1 Tim. 2:8) and even to ‘
exchange
holy
kisses
(Rom. 16:16, etc.).
in
many
churches our bodies seem
hardly
emotions are
definitely
frowned
upon.
Before
entering church,
we leave
not
only
our car but also our
feelings
in the
parking
lot. The emotional
remain are often formalized
.
degenerates
which is
powerless
to speak to the diver-
sity
of
feelings present.
No wonder that, on
Sunday morning, many
of a warm bed to no experience in a cold church!
with
impunity.
In the
morning
it
may
the sobs and
shouts, the
complaints
and
the
psalms;
in the afternoon trains and
fields are torn
apart
in a volcanic
eruption
of
that
into a uniformity
prefer
the
experience
But
feelings
cannot be
repressed be silent in church, without laughter
so characteristic of stands at European soccer emotions.
again
not to some
degree experienced
Happily,
in this
post-Cartesian
that rational information cannot be
personally meaningful
era,
we are
slowly beginning
to realize
if it is information.7 Without his
experience
Paul would
Without his
on the road to Damascus
(and many experiences following),
never have concerned himself with Christian
theology.
experience
of God,
Augustine
would never have written his treatise on
Luther his
commentary
nor Bonhoeffer his ethics.
yet
is
inseparably
the
trinity,
nor works on holiness, depend
on
experience,
‘
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982),
.
ity ?frankforUBem:
Seymour
on Romans, nor
Wesley
his
Our faith does not
bound
up
with it. Faith
5 An exposition of a theology of the charisms proper falls outside the scope of
this article. For a still challenging exegetical essay, see Ernst Kisemann’s
“Ministry
and
Community
in the New Testament,”
Essays
on New Testament Themes
63-94. See also
my essay “A Charismatic Interpreta-
tion of Faith, Hope and Love,” Pentecostal Research in Europe: Problems, Promises
and People, ed. W. J. Hollenweger. Studies in the Intercultural History of Christian-
Peter Lang Verlag, 1987).
6Douglas J. Nelson, “For Such a Time as This: The Story of Bishop William J.
and the Azusa Street Revival,” unpublished Ph.D dissertation
The
(Birmingham .
University, 1981).
essential black contribution to Pentecostalism is often over-
looked, as recently as in the Article by James Earl Massey, “The Black Contribution
to Evangelicalism,” TSF Bulletin, 10 (November-December 1986) 16-19.
7Cf. Thomas F. Torrance, Reality and Scientific Theology. Theology and Science
at the Frontiers of Knowledge No. 1 (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985),
esp.64-130.
4
30
The Ascension of Christ
(Acts 19:2)
In other reign
of the ascended Lord?
of him in the [i.e.
the
Spirit]
will not come
in
involves the whole
person, including
our emotions.
This is why Pentecostals and charismatics confront believers with the same
question
the
early
Christians asked each other: “Did
you
receive the
Holy Spirit
when
[or: after] you
believed?”
words, do you experience
the charismatic
makes
possible
our
experience
Spirit:
“Unless I go
away,
the Counselor
told his
disciples.
This
personal
encounter
is the
primal experience (Urerfah- rung)
which
that the Lord extends his
reign
over our life, the
Spirit
restores all different
aspects
of our
personality
to a sound,
ecological
balance. Thus
undivided
to you”
(John 16:7),
Jesus the
Spirit
with
Christ,
vere homo,
heals the
fragmentation degree
we become real individuals, who
grow
in their
identity
as temples
2. The
Appeal
Spirit.
Paul also describes
The Church is called
be “all in all.”
equipping
charisms]
in all charismatic
community, the hallmark of the renewed
diversity
of
spirit,
soul and
body.
To the
and
holy (i.e. whole) people of the Holy
Spirit.
‘
of the
as
baptized by
one
Spirit Jews or Greeks, slave
or free” (
for an
Ecclesiological Ecology
Not
only
the individual is called an oikos, a
dwelling-place
the Christian
community
a temple of the Holy Spirit (2
Cor.
6:16).
The Church is Charismatic, the title of a recent
publication
of the World Council of Churches8
rightly proclaims.
to celebrate the
ecological reign
of
Christ,
to be “a kind
of firstfruits” (James
1:18)
of the new creation in which God will
The
Spirit
enables her to answer to this
high calling by
her with
gifts:
“the same God works all
of
them
[i.e.
the
men”
(1
Cor.
12:6).
Thus
God,
in and
through
the
makes
possible
the
unity
in
diversity
which is
creation
(see below).
This
calling
is
expressed
in the
image
of the Church as the one
body of Christ
consisting
in
many
members
(1 Cor. 12:12-31),
embedded in a treatise on the
spiritual gifts.
In the
sacraments,
this
ecological unity
in
is anchored both in the
beginning
and end of the Church. Baptism
marks our entrance in the charismatic
community:
into one
body,”
in all our
diversity:
1 Cor.
12:13).
The Eucharist or Lord’s supper
is, among other things,
an enacted
prophecy
of the end or desti-
which is the
wedding supper
of the Lamb at which
people
will sit from
every nation, tribe, people
and
language
Rev. 7, 19). Paul
puts
it this
way:
“Because there is one loaf, we,
who are
many [and,
we
might add,
who are
different],
are one
nation of the Church,
(Mat. 22:1-10;
“we were all
“whether
body” (1
Cor.
10 : 17). The
problem
prophetic
anticipate
the fiiture of creation.
is, that
the Church
scarcely vocation to be a
community
An
average
seems to live
up
to her of
unity
in
diversity,
and thus
service can
easily give
the
8The Church is Charismatic, ed. Arnold Bittlinger (Geneva: World Council of
Churches, 1981).
I
5
Moreover,
31
rather than inclusive
impression
that God does not strive to become all in all, but all in some.
churches often labor under the kind of wearisome
predict- ability
which is the tasteless fruit of exclusive,
allow all of the
gifts,
all the
aspects
of the
reign
of
Quite arbitrarily
which suits our taste,
turning
our faith into a subculture within Chris-
thinking.
We do not Christ to be manifested.
tendom-sometimes
complete
our
preference
World Christian
Encyclopedia9
we have made a selection
with our own
schools,
newspaper,
which do not have
political party
and even Bible translation. Charisms
are not
tolerated,
which is a major cause of schisms. The
counts about
21,000
kinds of Christians in the world
today.
It is no
exaggeration
ecclesial varieties
represent
charisms which
originally
were shown the
church-door.
for
many centuries, ogy.”
merely
allowed
The charismatic an ecumenical
appeal
ceive that one’s own
of Christ which manifests itself
world-wide
body.
to
state,
that
many
of these
role,
the
Spirit
was
true ecumenism
will
gifts
or members of that one
How is it
possible
that the
lifestyle
of the
Church, contrary to
her
calling,
can
hardly
be described as ecological? The answer must be that,
the
Spirit
was treated as the “Cinderella of theol-
10 Being
confined to a
purely
instrumental
to
sweep
the
way
between Christ and the Church. But
the
Spirit
is more than
just
the means
by
which we can come to know
Christ.
The Spirit
is the
ecological principle
of creation
by
which Christ
manifests his
reign
in the Church in and
through
countless charisms.
for an
ecological
view of the Church leads to
attitude. The terms
ecology
and ecumenism are both
derived from the same word oikos and refer to the inhabited world
which is marked
by unity
in
diversity. Therefore,
always
be
ecological,
an ecumenism of the
Spirit.
One
begins
to
per-
church is the local
expression
of the universal
body
in almost
21,000 varieties. Many of
these we
may
consider to be different
These can enrich our own
.
gifts particular religious
tradition and redeem its
proclamation
from an irrelevant
mumbling
to
accentuate the value of a personal con-
the Latin-American based ecclesial communities show
us the
political-social aspects
of that same
faith;
Roman Catholics teach
of visible
unity;
Pentecostals focus attention on the
Spirit;
Calvinists stress the role of
Scripture.
not cause a church’s
particular identity
to
evaporate.
One
huge compromise-church,
. differences are ironed
out,
can never be our
goal.
On the
contrary,
the
a church to grow into her own
identity,
as indeed we
oneself. For
instance, Baptists fession of
faith;
the
importance
This kind of ecumenism does
Spirit
stimulates
University
under whose
weight
all
9David Barreu, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Comparative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World, A.D…1900-Z000 (Nairobi/I?lew York: Oxford
Press, 1982).
IOG. J. Sirks, “The Cinderella of Theology: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit,” Harvard Theological Review, 50 (April 1957) 77-89.
6
32
.
often see
happen
in the charismatic renewal. Tradition and
liturgy
are confirmed and
purified (in
that
order); worship
comes
alive; community life is
deepened;
social
praxis
becomes a matter of
course,
and a sense of wonder
pervades
the church which makes her
well-nigh irresistibly attractive to an alienated world. God loves
variety
and uses it to form us into one world-wide
body. 1
No
single
church can
span
that whole spectrum
of
gifts. Only together
with all the
saints, all the churches, can we know what for each
separate
church is unknowable: the
love,
the fullness of God which is the end of creation.
The World Council of Churches, therefore,
rightly
dismisses the idea of a “super-church.” Yet, even at this level the
ecological
vision is rather dim. Witness the BEM document,12 which
professes
to
speak
for all churches. Without a doubt, this is an historic
report
as it
represents
a consensus
regarding baptism,
eucharist and
ministry
which the last millennium has not seen before. However, the document carries a distinctly
Greek-Roman, western flavor. When
reading it,
it would never occur to you that there exists
something
like a third-world church which
usually
exhibits
pentecostal/charismatic
traits. These communities are
growing
so fast
that,
within
just
a few more
years, Christianity
will no
longer
be a principally western
religion.
Stories and
songs,
visions and dances,
eating
and
laughing
and weeping, help
to the
poor
and
prayer
for the
sick, laying on of hands and
washing
of feet, exorcism and exaltation; all different
aspects
of life are
integrated
in an
ecological
celebration of the one
King. 13 The
former treasurer of the World Council of Churches
recently
told me how he once was shown a Pentecostal church
building
in Africa. When
seeing
a sand-box,
he
naively presumed
that he found himself in the
nursery. “No,” his host
replied,
“this is our
wrestling-ground.
When
you
come
1 Differences and the resulting conflicts within and between churches are therefore not in themselves
wrong. On the contrary,
conflicts are the precondition for the manifestation of the Spirit’s restorative power. See, for instance, James E. Loder, The Transforming Mormnt: Understanding Convictional
Experiences (San Francisco: Harper& Row, 1982),
98-123 and passim.
For an entirely different
approach, consider the interesting
thesis of Stanford Professor Rene Girard in Le bouc emissaire (Paris: Grasset, 1982). He contends that mimesis (imitation) is the basic drive of
in
people, resulting in conflicts which require a scapegoat (e.g.
Jews or witches) order to
preserve a civilized society. This
and which are the foundation of every civilization,
explains why myths religions,
so often induce persecution. According to Girard, Christianity is the only religion which can help
us control such conflicts stemming from mutual competition. Jesus, the Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the world,
through the Spirit enables
us to imitate him, instead of each other, and so inspires us to identify with the persecuted rather than becoming persecutors
ourselves.
12Baptism, Eucharist,
and Ministry. Faith and Order Paper No. 111 (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982).
‘3See the
appropriate
sections in Walter J.
Hollenweger,
The Pentecostals
1972). Cf. idem, Erfahrungen
der Leibhaftigkeit, Interkul- turelle Theologie I (Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1979).
(Minneapolis: Augsburg,
7
33 back here
tonight, you probably
will see
somebody fighting
with God.” ” The whole
body
thrown into a struggle with God! How
strange
to our western mind and,
yet,
how biblical….
How is it
possible
that the World Council of Churches should over- look an entire world?
By now,
the answer will be clear.
Only
in the perspective
of the Charismatic
reign
of Christ, will we
clearly perceive that the whole world-wide Church,
precisely
in all her different
expres- sions,
is the one oikos, the
temple
of the
Holy Spirit.
3. The
Appeal
for a Universal
Ecology
God will not redeem us
apart
from the world in which we live. Such a thought
would never have entered a Hebrew mind.14 The
ultimate, definite
hallowing (making whole)
of the Church
implies
the
hallowing of the universe. Not
just
our bodies and the
Church, but the whole creation is destined to become the oikos, the
dwelling-place
of the Spirit. 15
In the
end,
Christ will hand over to the Father his charismatic reign,
“that God
may be
all in all”
(1
Cor.
15:23-28).
Then the triune God will inhabit the whole universe.
Paul does not
say
that God will become
everything,
or that God will be
everyone.
God becomes all in all, which means that the traits consti- tuting
us as distinct human
beings
will not be dissolved in a kind of nirvana. On the
contrary,
when God becomes all in us we come to
glory,
we reach our
perfect goal
as the
unique persons
we are. Our uniqueness
will be confirmed and
completed;
our
fragmentation
and brokenness will be healed; our
deepest longings
will be
satisfied;
our sorrow will be endlessly
comforted,
and our
prayers divinely
answered. Then the
ecological reign
of Christ will have
brought everything
to fullness in the creation of a holy and whole universe, with God as the
perfect
One
indwelling
a perfect diversity.
It has
already
been
noted,
that it is the
eschatological calling
of the Church to be a kind of
microcosmos,
a charismatic
anticipation
of that renewed creation. I also observed that
we, time and time
again,
fail to live
up
to that vocation. The Church meets considerable
opposition. Christ “must
reign
until he has
put
all his enemies under his
feet” (1
Cor.
15:25).
If
unity
in
diversity
is God’s
purpose
for
creation,
a purpose
which the Church is called to manifest
today through
the charismatic
reign
of
Christ, enmity
is
exposed
in the
attempt
to thwart
14The idea that human life is bound up with the environment can already be found in the earlier (pre-Stoic) Greek philosophers and, in Judaistic thought, in the inter- testamental literature. However, it does not appear that the latter, in this
influenced
respect, was directly by Stoicism. The Old Testament often witnesses to the idea that the
renewal of humankind involves the renewal of nature. See, for instance, Isa.4:2-6; 32:15-17; 44:3-5;
Ezek. 36:24-38. Cf. A. R. C. Leaney, “‘Conformed to the of His Son’ (Rom. viii. 29),” New Testament Studies 10 (1963-1964) 472ff.
Image
lSHendrikus Berkhof calls this the “pneumatizing of the whole creation.” The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Atlanta: John Knox, 1976), 108.
8
34
this
goal.
In
fact,
evil can
roughly
be divided into two
categories,
i.e. the
enemy
which
attempts
to destroy unity, and the
enemy
which tries to banish
diversity.
In both cases the
ecological
balance is disturbed, the Spirit
is grieved and the
reign
of Christ is frustrated.
Diversity
without
unity brings
chaos. In
Scripture,
this is
signified by the
diabolos,
which
literally
means
“the-one-who-throws-apart,”
or “separates.”
All over the world
today,
deserts advance into fertile
areas, acid rain diminishes our woods, cancerous cell divisions are caused
by dumpings
of nuclear waste and
by
interference with the ozone
layer. The nutritional value of
pork
is one-fifth that of the corn needed to produce it,
an absurd waste of food in front of the
hungry peering
at us from our TV screen. Ex-Nazis become
president;
wine is
poisoned wholesale; unemployment
condemns
youth
to a lost
generation;
addic- tion chains
many
into a modem-day version of slavery.
The diabolos
upsets
the
ecological
balance and causes us to lose all sense of
proportion.
Fear, sickness
and death turn us into less than whole human
beings.
Yet,
out of this chaos the
Spirit
woos a
holy people,
the Church, into
being.
That Church manifests the
reign
of Messiah,
the One anointed
by
the
Spirit
who has
conquered
the ultimate chaos of death.
Through
the charismatic
community
Christ continues to restore the balance
by healing
the
sick, prophesying deliverance,
feeding the
hungry
and
sending
the rich
away empty.
The second
enemy attempts
to establish
unity
at the cost of diversity. This is the most
dangerous
form of evil because we often do not
recog- nize it as such. The biblical
image
here is the Beast which arises out of the
sea, typifying
the Roman
Emperor
as the
bloody symbol
of the totalitarian state
(Rev. 13).
An accumulation of
power always
leads to the
suppression
of
people
who are different. This is true both of
police states with their so-called re-education
camps,
as of those multinationals which fund
profit-friendly
dictators.
From this kind of
evil,
the Church has suffered most. I only need to recall the
Inquisition
which, by
the
way, originally
was instituted to eliminate the charismatic Cathari. In Geneva, bulwark of the Reforma- tion, pious
Servetus was burned because of a difference in
theological opinion.
The
Spirit-inspired
Jesus of Nazareth, the
wholly other,
was executed when the
religious
and
political
bodies of his
day managed
to unite their power against
him. In the resurrection, this
very
same Jesus was
justi- fied
by
God.
Only
the Lamb that is slain
by
the
powers
of this world, is worthy
to receive
power
and to
reign.
From now
on, every form of dominion which tries to
suppress diversity
stands under a
pneumatic criticism,
and will end under the feet of Christ.
The
outpouring
of the
Spirit is
God’s answer both to diabolic chaos and
beastly
totalitarianism. The charismatic
reign
of Christ turns the Church into a
strategic bridge-head
in the
struggle
for a renewed
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35
universe which will consist of a holy ecology of Father, Son,
Spirit
and creation.
According
to
Ephesians,
this is the
grandeur
of the Church and a never-ending
source of
encouragement.
In a time when Christians represented
a
neglected minority
in the ancient
world,
a
fringe group which could harbor no
hope
of ever
becoming significant
for
society
at large,
the author of this
epistle
wrote that the Church is God’s instru- ment for the renewal of the entire cremation. 16 The church is God’s preparation
for the fullness of time. In her he unites “all
things
in heaven and on earth,” that whole cosmic
diversity,
under the charismatic
reign of the “one head, even Christ”-to the
praise
of his
glory (Eph. 1 :3-14).
16Cf. Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord (New York: Crossroad, 1981 ),
217.
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