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W hen Catholics debate evangelicals, the most common question they have is, Do evangelicals have a doctrine of the church? If so, what is it? Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University and a senior adviser for CHRISTIANITY TODAY, found himself answering just those questions last year before a group of Catholic theologians, including representatives from the Vatican. His talk at this meeting of Evangelicals and Catholics Together addressed what many consider an oxymoron—evangelical ecclesiology. Here is a radically condensed version of that talk, which shows that evangelicals have good answers to these questions.

On July 29, 1928, a young evangelical pastor began his sermon on Paul's teaching on the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians with these words: "There is a word that, when a Catholic hears it, kindles all his feeling of love and bliss; that stirs all the depths of his religious sensibility, from dread and awe of the Last Judgment to the sweetness of God's presence; and that certainly awakens in him the feeling of home; the feeling that only a child has in relation to its mother, made up of gratitude, reverence, and devoted love . …

"And there is a word that to Protestants has the sound of something infinitely commonplace, more or less indifferent and superfluous, that does not make their heart beat faster; something with which a sense of boredom is so often associated. … And yet our fate is sealed, if we are unable again to attach a new, or perhaps a very old, meaning to it. Woe to us if that word does not become important to us soon again. … Yes, the word to which I am referring is Church."

So spoke Dietrich Bonhoeffer to a small German congregation in Barcelona. These words present both a diagnosis and a challenge for evangelicals today who are called to set forth a clear, compelling doctrine of the church in their new conversations with their Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, and who need it to help them sort out their loyalties in a bewildering bazaar of denominations, parachurch ministries, and independent congregations.

As a global, transdenominational fellowship of one-half billion believers, evangelicalism is an amazing ecumenical fact. As a theological movement, however, evangelicalism has been slow to develop a distinctive understanding of the church. There are several reasons for this:

First, evangelical scholars have been preoccupied with other theological themes such as biblical revelation, religious epistemology, and apologetics. For example, Carl F. H. Henry's six-volume magnum opus, God, Revelation and Authority, extends to more than 3,000 pages with little ink spent on the doctrine of the church.

Second, as an activist movement committed to evangelism and missions, evangelicalism has not made reflective ecclesiology a high priority. As some might say, "We are too busy winning people to Christ to engage in navel gazing." This objection should not be quickly dismissed, for as missiologist J. C. Hoekendijk observed, "In history a keen ecclesiological interest has, almost without exception, been a sign of spiritual decadence."

Third, evangelicalism is a splintering movement representing a bewildering diversity of congregations, denominations, and parachurch movements. Their shared identity is not tied to a particular view of church polity or ministerial orders.

Amidst such variety, is it even possible to describe one single, or even central, evangelical ecclesiology? The evangelical witness emerged not only as a protest against abuses in the church but also as a testimony for the truth of the gospel (we are protestants). How evangelicalism maintains the centrality of gospel truth within ostensibly weak structures of church authority is perhaps its greatest challenge today. However, within the evangelical tradition—in its confessions and hymns no less than its formal theological reflections—there exists a rich reservoir for articulating a strong doctrine of the church. One resource we share with the broader Christian tradition is the Nicene Creed. I would like to explore here what evangelicals mean when we affirm our belief in the church as "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic."

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June 15 1998, Vol. 42, No. 7