Theology in Community

I think I’ve finally found an interpretation of Matthew 18:18 that makes sense (the “”I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” verse). I don’t think Jesus is giving some sort of super-authority to condemn people here. I think he’s establishing the church as a thologizing community. What is appropriate in a given context is a matter of the church’s consensus. For example, Jesus did not decree that Christians should cover certain parts of their bodies. He didn’t have to, since every culture has standards of decency that it holds its members to. We are responsible for acting appropriately, and if we don’t that isn’t just a matter of rudeness. It really is wrong?”bound in heaven.”

Dan Allender of Mars Hill Seminary here in Seattle said something I remember well on the Soularize CD (I’m not completely sure it was Dan who said it, but I remember the statement): “I am a communitarian theologian.” He meant that theology is not worked out individualistically, by each Christian, but by all Christians everywhere, throughout history. We are not simply free to discard what everyone else thinks. I have a tendency to do this, especially in the past year and a half. But my reading of Robert Webber’s Ancient-Future Faith changed a lot of that. He showed how many of the excesses of the modern era were not common to church history as a whole, and how we can be unified by looking to the first five centuries of Christianity as our common ground (this is wise because we can’t agree on interpretations of scripture, but we can agree on how the early church interpreted it).

The collective body of Christ has authority. The church speaks, though not in papal bulls. What is bound on earth is bound in heaven.