Good to see you back here Mark. I was thinking the other day that I haven’t seen you in blogland or real life in awhile! I would definitely agree that the Church is necessary, due to the Incarnational nature of Christianity. Perhaps a good place to start a discussion on the Church based upon a common unity could be the Acts of the Apostles. Just a thought.

FC

I noted that almost everyone calling themselves Christian today basically agree on who God is (there is one God who is three Divine Persons, the Second Person entered creation taking a human nature in addition to his Divine nature, etc.), to the degree that we can understand God anyway – what is revealed by God to us, & how our understanding of that revelation matures through the Spirit working in the Church.

However, we could say that there is little agreement among Christians, even among Catholics, about what the nature of the Church is. My friend sees it as completely unnecessary as a visible, tangible, historical thing – in this sense, he is the only honest Protestant I know – whereas I hold that it is absolutely, fundamentally necessary that the teaching of Christ Jesus – & the encounter with him the Mysteries – would necessarily happen within the sacred assembly, the Church. Eliminate the institutional Church & Christianity would cease, quickly evaporating as man remakes God in his image.

So, whereas the debates & heresies of the 1st millenium centered around “Who is God?” & resulted in greater clarity of how we can think & speak about God, the debates & heresies of the mid-2nd & 3rd millenia have to do with “What is the Church?” & we still have to see this resolved.

Orthodox Fr. Stephen is hitting a few of these points over at his blog, too.