Yet where is the hope of the Good News if it does not demonstrate visible results which are distinct from that of everyday humanity? As is often pointed out by skeptics, there are atheists who demonstrate better morals and quality of life than do some members of the church and the institutional church often demonstrates the worst rather than the best of corporate values in its behavior. In the fifth century, Augustine, in viewing this desparity between promise and reality, proposed the idea that there was both a visible and an invisible church. Within the visible, and often sinful, church there existed the true and invisible church made up of those who truly believed and were faithful. In one sense this was but a development of the Scriptural idea of the faithful remnant which God preserves even when the whole people are disobedient. There is an appeal to this idea since it provides us reason to have hope even when the outward appearances are offensive.
Such reformers as Zwingli and Calvin built on this idea and accepted the challenge of reforming the visible church in accordance with the characteristics which they saw in the New Testament church. There are two problems with this solution. First, as I have pointed out , the New Testament church had its share of problems as well. Second, the decision of what to reform still depends upon the finite understanding of the reformers who cannot escape being trapped by their own cultural understandings, fears and desires. One only has to read the work of the reformers to see how, despite some brilliant insights, they were still encapsulated in their own time and culture. Luther gave vent to anti-Semitic ideas, Calvin approved the burning of Servitus, almost none of the reformers recognized the church’s oppressive attitude towards women, etc.
