Even as we pursue this thesis, it is important to state that to recognize the church as the Body of Christ is not to confuse the church with Christ. “Bonhoeffer notes that there is unity between Christ and the church as his Body, but there can be no mystic fusion of the two because Christ is still the head of the Body — a metaphor which speaks of his Lordship over the church.” (Dietrick Bonhoeffer, by Dallas Roark, p.88)
To say that Christ is head of his body is to say that the criteria by which the Body decides its behavior is what the head declares. It does not make the Body any less the Body when it ignores the head. It just makes it sick and disconnected from itself. In some cases the church can be schizophrenic and needs to be healed but just like the human body, it still continues to function as a body at some level.
The question for members of the Christian community is not whether the history of the church and even that of the local church is filled with soiled spots of disobedience. The question is whether we believe that the Christ who meets us there is capable of redeeming all of us in our sinfulness. If we believe that, then we have experienced the redeeming power of God’s forgiveness and therefore have a powerful, live message to proclaim to the world. If we believe that, then we can invite Believers but Not Belongers and even nonbelievers to encounter Christ at church. It is no longer just something someone else has told us. It is what we have experienced in our own lives.
