Perspectief 2016-34

2016-34 Ecumenical recognition and reception in free church perspective 47 Com ment important ramifications on their ecumenical potential. 5 But, because of time, I will limit myself now to their primary characteristic of conversionism and discuss matters of “recognition” on that basis. First, as a consequence of the conversionist starting point, recognition in free church perspective starts at the level of the individual. In general terms, an individual is typically recognized as a sister in Christ if she can witness to a personal conversion to Christ in both creedal and personal terms and to the fundamental importance of Christ in daily life. As this fellow-Christian shares in the same Spirit of Christ, she is to be cared for and taken up in the local faith community, whenever that need arises. Second, a local free church would typically have little problem with the recognition of another local community of Christians as a ‘church’. Wherever believers gather in the name of Christ, there a church is. The recognition of ecclesiality of another local community is thus not a matter of the presence of a transmitted sacramental-ontological quality or even of the right Scriptural teaching being spread from the pulpit, but of it being recognizable as a community of followers of Jesus. The presence of genuine faith in a community is obviously a very difficult thing to measure. The question: “is that community on the other side of the street really a church?”, be it a Reformed, Orthodox, Catholic or Adventist community, is therefore quite atypical. But if it were asked, it would be answered in the affirmative as soon in that community faith in Jesus Christ was recognized, visible in words and deeds. Third, recognition of ecclesiality of communities superseding the level of a congregation is even more problematic. This is primarily due to the growing distance from the individual whose personal faith commitment is the essential locus of evaluation. The question ‘Is the Roman Catholic Church a church or is the Orthodox church a church or is the Evangelische Kirche Deutschland a church?’ would probably meet silence, as, as I explained earlier, such a gathering of local communities is simply a category that does not have much theological value in free church perspective. 5 See Jelle Creemers, Theological Dialogue with Classical Pentecostals: Challenges and Opportunities , Ecclesiological Investigations (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 9–36.