Sunday 30 October 2005

More from Pannenberg

Here’s another highlight from the aforementioned interview with Wolfhart Pannenberg. Pannenberg is asked: “What is your greatest concern for the church as it moves into the next 25 years?”

He replies: “My greatest concern for the church is that it continue to preach the Gospel and not adapt to secular standards and concerns. Some churches and many church ministers think they have to adapt to the secular concerns of people in order to reach them. I think that the opposite is true. If people were to hear in church only what they also get on television and read in the papers, there would be no need for going to church. The church has to proclaim a different thing: the hope for eternal life. It must proclaim participation with the crucified Christ through baptism by faith.”

6 Comments:

Jim said...

Pannenberg is right on the money with this one. The Church's damnable lust for acceptance in the world means that it has abandoned its purpose and mission. That the Church, in many of its manifestations, wants "a king like all the other lands" has been its undoing.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Pannenberg. No doubt.

PS. But, you know Jim, God did give them that king and eventually, after one misfire, found a man after his own heart to lead his people and that king became a paradigm of messianism, eventually fulfilled in Jesus Christ himself. The Church will not be undone, EVER, no matter its failings or mistakes. She is the bride of Christ and Christ will present her blameless, having completely fulfilled her mission, before the Father.

Ben Myers said...

"The Church will not be undone, EVER, no matter its failings or mistakes." But if this is true, it's only by a sheer miracle of grace, not because of any ecclesial triumphalism. To affirm that "the church will never be undone" is exactly like saying that "God raises the dead."

"Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? ... By the law of faith!"

Anonymous said...

I completely agree Ben. My boasting is rooted in the work of Christ as I pointed out. The church will never be undone because she is the bride of Christ and he will succeed in his mission to present her before the Father.

Ken said...

I agree with Pannenberg. No doubt.

PS. But, you know Jim, God did give them that king and eventually, after one misfire, found a man after his own heart to lead his people and that king became a paradigm of messianism, eventually fulfilled in Jesus Christ himself. The Church will not be undone, EVER, no matter its failings or mistakes. She is the bride of Christ and Christ will present her blameless, having completely fulfilled her mission, before the Father.

Ben Myers said...

"The Church will not be undone, EVER, no matter its failings or mistakes." But if this is true, it's only by a sheer miracle of grace, not because of any ecclesial triumphalism. To affirm that "the church will never be undone" is exactly like saying that "God raises the dead."

"Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what law? ... By the law of faith!"

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