Marginal Christianity

In his Theology of Mission John Howard Yoder points out that the function of the so-called “marks of the church” is to identify where a church is present in a time of confusion or challenge.   The most widely used set of descriptors of the church come from the Nicene Creed of the 4 th century:   “one, holy, catholic, apostolic.” In our age of unprecedented physical, psychic, spiritual, financial, and emotional violence, it is worth reflecting on the contemporary meaning of these marks of the church.   Yoder also notes that these marks are more often used as goals rather than achieved realities.   Though they are true and ours in Christ, we are still living into them and often fall short.   I’ll use them that way too. These marks address violence in many and mutually interlocking and reinforcing ways.   For instance, if we are one, siblings in Christ and daughters and sons of the Father, violence toward one another is unthinkable.   So also ou...

          In the movie “Remember the Titans” the coaches are preparing the newly-integrated team for their first game.   As they move through their opening exercises, the head coach yells out “Who are we?”   The team replies, “We are the Titans!”   “What are we?” the coach yells back.   “We are mobile, agile, and hostile!” the team cries back.   I would like to borrow this threefold cry and add one further element to it as a way of articulating the “marks” or chief and essential characteristics of the church in our world today.           Mobile, agile, hostile, and I would add, fragile comprise my proposed marks.   “Mobile” indicates the much-needed quality of readiness to move – physically, in service, theologically, and in whatever other ways are needed – that should mark a pilgrim people, those always “on the way” to the kingdom of God.   A mobile ch...

Over at “Jesus Creed” today Scot McKnight revisits the perennial question of the “marks of the church.” Probably the most widely used set of such “marks” is that found in the Nicene Creed: “one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” Unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity – these characteristics make a church “church.” While the church is these things in Christ, it has a long way to go to realize them in practice. Therefore, we confess them in hope, trusting that by God’s mercy and grace, we will be what we already are as Christ’s church. We cannot, therefore, but treat these marks as works in progress in the church. But what might this 4th century language – one, holy, catholic, and apostolic – signify for us today? I think we get a big assist in discerning this significance from the wonderful movie "Remember the Titans." A northern Virginia high school football power is entering its first year of desegregation. It hires a black head coach to replace its popular hea...