Lecture - The Church - by William Henn

16 [15] These stages thus help one to appreciate some of the features of the final text which might go unobserved without knowing something of the revisions that were instrumental in forming it. All of this led to re-envisioning the basic flow and logic of the text. Its four chapters now adopt the following logic. An opening chapter seeks to present in dynamic, contextual terms the origin of the Church in God’s design for the salvation of the world. A second chapter seeks to celebrate many of the fundamental truths that most Christian communities share. The third chapter seeks to address those ecclesiological issues where differences still remain, illustrating, by means of footnotes to earlier ecumenical texts on ecclesiology, the progress that has been made and transforming the contrasts that were once contained in the boxes into invitations to see whether further progress toward a common vision might yet be possible. Finally, the last chapter relates the Church to the wider society, addressing how the Christian community is meant to be a ferment – salt and light – for the promotion of the full realization of the Kingdom of God which Jesus inaugurated. Thus it concerns the moral teaching of the Church and its promotion of justice, peace and the protection of the environment.