Lecture - The Church - by William Henn

18 [19] This is followed by an entirely new first chapter , entitled “God’s Mission and the Unity of the Church,” which locates the origins of the Church in God’s design for the salvation of the world in the missions of the Son and the Spirit. This missio Dei gives birth to the Church and characterizes her entire history. This short chapter points out the dynamic life of the pilgrim Church, proclaiming the gospel in various contexts throughout history and in the various cultures of any given epoch. It does not shy away from admitting failures in the evangelizing mission of proclaiming the Gospel, such as the complicity of missionaries at times in the lamentable and unjust aggression of colonialism. This determination to present both positive and negative aspects – both the lights and the shadows – of the history of the Christian community runs throughout The Church . Finally, the chapter relates the need for unity if the mission of proclaiming Christ is to be carried out in a credible and effective way. Several examples from this first chapter are actually quotations from earlier work done within the WCC. [20] First, there is a quote from the ecumenical commentary on the creed entitled Confessing the One Faith [1991]: “Christians believe and confess with the Creed that there is an indissoluble link between the work of God in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit and the reality of the Church. This is the testimony of the Scriptures. The origin of the Church is rooted in the plan of the Triune God for human-kind’s salvation” (# 3). [21] Then appears a quote from WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, concerning the mission of the Church as deriving from her being the Body of Christ: “The mission of the Church ensues from the nature of the Church as the body of Christ, sharing in the ministry of Christ as Mediator between God and his creation. At the heart of the Church’s vocation in the world is the proclamation of the kingdom of God inaugurated in Jesus the Lord, crucified and risen. Through its internal life of