Three Developments in Ecclesiology since the Reformation: The Visible and Invisible Church, The Priesthood of all Believers, The Relationship between Church, Society and State

by Boyan Mak Mihaylov

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https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6257-1246

Abstract:

Boyan Mak Mihaylov, Three Developments in Ecclesiology since the Reformation: The Visible and Invisible Church, The Priesthood of all Believers, The Relationship between Church, Society and State. History of Christian Theology II, Otniel Bunaciu, TCM International Institute. Heiligenkreuz, Austria: 2023.

This research paper examines three significant theological developments in ecclesiology that emerged during the Reformation and have continued to shape evangelical thought: the distinction between the visible and invisible church, the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, and the relationship between church, society, and state. The study traces these concepts from their patristic roots through the Reformation era to contemporary theological reflection. The paper demonstrates that while Augustine first articulated the visible/invisible church distinction, the Reformers—Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli—adapted this concept to address ecclesiastical corruption while maintaining continuity with tradition. The priesthood of all believers, though central to Reformation theology, has remained only partially realized in practice, with contemporary theologians like Craig Nessan critiquing its unfulfilled promise. The relationship between church and state is examined through the divergent approaches of the magisterial Reformers and the Radical Reformers, whose separationist ecclesiology challenged the Christendom paradigm. The study further engages modern developments including Karl Barth's rejection of the invisible church concept, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's nuanced appropriation of it, and the socio-political theologies of Gustavo Gutiérrez and Jürgen Moltmann. The paper concludes that these three ecclesiological developments remain contested and relevant for contemporary evangelical self-understanding, particularly in contexts of political engagement and institutional critique.

Keywords:

ecclesiology, Protestant Reformation, Pope Innocent III, William of Okham, Desiderius Erasmus, Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, Aurelius Augustine, Irenaeus, Cyprian, Novatian, Emperor Constantine, Eusebius of Caesarea, Pope Leo the Great, Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, John Calvin, Christian Entfelder, Ambrosius Spittelmaier, Balthasar Hubmaier, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Philipp Jakob Spener, John Wesley, George Tyrrell, Craig L. Nessan, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Jürgen Moltmann

Original language:

English

Translation:

Ukrainian | German | Russian | Spanish | Portuguese

Introduction

In this paper three theological developments concerning the doctrine of the church are discussed: the visible and invisible church, the priesthood of all believers and the relationship between church, society and state. All three became important during the Reformation and have been significant for evangelicals since then.

Around 480¹, the Western Roman Empire was conquered by barbarian tribes, and the Eastern Roman Empire gradually became the Byzantine empire². The differences in ecclesiology were becoming grater. The Western Church gradually became a powerful institution headed by the Roman Pope, and the Eastern Church existed in "symphony" with the empire. In the sixteenth century few factors led to the Protestant Reformation.

The Political Factor: The Growth of National Sentiment

In the early sixteenth century a transition happened in society with the change from feudalism to centralized monarchies. Even Spain that is portrayed as a single unity from 711 to 1492 was a divided country. It had it’s unity by the time when Isabella of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon. France entered the century as the most centralized monarchy in Western Europe. The Hundred Year War with England played the role of a stimulus for the beginning of the national sentiment. From the fifteenth century England merged consolidated by the time of Henry VII, who was succeeded in by his son Henry VIII, who would later divert the Anglican church from the Papacy. Germany was a “patchwork” of different sovereign states on which the Holy Roman Emperor should rule. Germany was also going nationalist by the formation of new nations but Switzerland, the Netherlands and Bohemia withdrew from what was called Germany. So in the beginning of the sixteenth century Western Europe was not a single empire, as Justo Gonzales writes, “where there was a sole emperor wielding the temporal sword, with a religious counterpart in Rome holding the spiritual sword”³.

The Ecclesiastical Factor: the Declining Authority of the Hierarchy

In 1198 Pope Innocent III (1161 – 1216) was chosen a pope and he led the medieval papacy to its height. He believed that he was Vicar of Christ. He also believed that the authority of all kings came from him and he could dethrone, and excommunicate them from the church. He believed that as Peter’s heir he should rule the whole world. The pope is above all people and under God.⁴

The decline began right after Innocent III and was accelerated during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Three events helped the decline: the move of the papacy to Avignon, the Great Western Schism and the “capture” of the papacy by the spirit of the Renaissance. In each events the papacy had heavy financial needs because popes were living luxurious. Because of the methods the papacy devised to secure more and more funds it loused more and more prestige. Pope John XXII ( 1244 – 1334) began to collect income for vacant posts throughout Western Europe.⁵

The Philosophical Factors

With the nominalist philosophy of William of Okham (1287 – 1347) began the dissolution of the unity of the medieval synthesis of all knowledge. The realists believed that universals really existed and this helped them to view the whole universe as an enormous logical hierarchy. It was Thomism that made the shift from Neoplatonism to a Christian version of Aristotelianism which was the high end of medieval synthesis.⁶

The nominalists of the fifteenth century did not deny the universals but they denied that trough the universals the human mind has a definite perception of the nature of reality. In the extreme form nominalism meant that reality is no subject to human logic and that theological synthesis is impossible. So nominalists began to build new systems of theology on new premises. This led to a theological debate that became extremely complex. The theological systems that developed were very hard to apply to the life of the church and the humanists distrusted this “theology”.⁷

Desiderius Erasmus (1466 – 1536) stands out as the most famous of the Christian humanists but others like Jakob Wimpfeling, John Colet, and Thomas More are also important. Christian humanism was a characteristic of the Northern Renaissance. The Christian humanists collected manuscripts and made critical editions of antique writings but also of the church fathers and the biblical texts. In 1516 Erasmus published the Greek New Testament. In 1520 a group of scholars led by Cardinal Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros (1436 - 1517) published the Complutensian Polyglot Bible with texts in Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and Latin. In Italy Lorenco Valla (1406–1457), pope’s secretary, applied the new methods of textual criticism to the so-called Donation of Constantine and declared it to be spurious. Martin Luther, without being a humanist, shared with Erasmus the desire to go back to the sources of Christianity.⁸ So Erasmus can be said to be the end of one era but also the beginning of a new. Erasmus reformation was in the field of ethics not in the field of dogmatic.

The Church before the Reformation

To understand the reformer’s view about the church and our own ecclesiology today, one must attempt to understand ecclesiology going back to the early period. This is because many of the ideas of the reformers are not new but an import from older theologians, who the reformers used critically.

One of the reformer’s emphasis was upon the relationship between the visible and invisible church. This is determined by the historical situation in which the reformers have seen a corrupt church at Rome in which there were true members. But this was not a new theological topic either. It developed centuries before the Reformation.

The True Church: Visible and Invisible?

As a Christian neoplatonist, Aurelius Augustine (354 – 430) was the first to develop the doctrine of the visible and invisible church. In the work "On the City of God", he wrote the chapter "On the sons of the church, hidden among the ungodly and on untrue Christians" (book 1, ch. 35), which contains a key text:

So, too, as long as she is a stranger in the world, the city of God has in her communion, and bound to her by the sacraments, some who shall not eternally dwell in the lot of the saints. Of these, some are not now recognized; others declare themselves, and do not hesitate to make common cause with our enemies in murmuring against God, whose sacramental badge they wear. These men you may today see thronging the churches with us, tomorrow crowding the theaters with the godless.⁹

The "City of God" is foreign to this world and its citizens are connected through the sacraments and the invisible church. Not everyone is recognized as a part of it, and it also has future members. There are others attending the meetings ("...crowd and throng the churches...") who are not true believers, but only God knows who are true. The invisible church is inside the Congregational Church and there are no true Christians outside of it¹⁰.

In a dispute with the Donatists, Augustine pointed out that the church is holy because it is Christ's, regardless of the individuals in it. The sacraments are initiated by God, and regardless of whether they are performed in the church, properly performed they bring grace and are efficacious. One difference with Cyprian (210 - 258), which explains the change that occurred in the North African church in the fouth century. For example, if you leave the Donatists and go to the Congregational Church (in ancient terms), your baptism remains valid.¹¹

In truth, these two cities are entangled together in this world, and intermixed until the last judgment effects their separation.¹²

If the earthly and the heavenly overflow, there is no strict distinction. The seeds of Western medieval ecclesiology are sown, church, social life and politics are completely intertwined later.

But there is a second topic that the reformers of the sixteenth century were interested in: the universal priesthood of all believers.

Church Hierarchy and “the Priesthood of all Believers”?

I have put a question mark in the heading, because as one can see, with the centuries coming, the church was gradually moving away from the New Testament theology of the priesthood of all believers, into the direction of becoming more institutional and hierarchical.

From a church considered a variety of Judaism, it grew into a confession, legalized by Emperor Constantine with the Edict of Milan (313)¹³ and imposed as a state religion by Emperor Theodosius I, who confirmed the decisions of the Nicene Council (325) as a norm¹⁴. So with every coming century the church became more hierarchical and looked more like an organized religion very different than the apostolic first century church.

In his first epistle to the Corinthian church, Clement of Rome (35 - 99) uses "bishop" and "presbyter" for the same person¹⁵. Ignatius of Antioch (died 108/140) sets forth the three-level hierarchy – one bishop for one church, under which there are presbyters and deacons. Unity is centered in the bishop to protect the church from schism and heresies¹⁶. In his letter to the Roman church, Ignatius does not mention one (monarchical) bishop, which, according to Professor Tony Lane, means that there is still no three-tiered hierarchy in the west.

By the time of Irenaeus of Lyons (130 - 202) the church already had a considerable geographical spread. Irenaeus raised the four gospels as a pillar, and the "Spirit of Life" as the foundation of the Church:

...While the church is scattered throughout the world, the pillar and foundation of the church is the gospel and the spirit of life (Against Heresies 3:11:8)¹⁷

In the churches founded by the apostles, the unified doctrine was preached openly and consistently, unlike the multitude of Gnostic heretics. We also observe the beginnings of apostolic succession. Bishops are receivers of the apostolic teaching and guarantee its correctness.¹⁸ But, on the other hand, this development limits the role of other believers in the church.

Cyprian (200 – 258) served during the persecution of Emperor Decius (249 – 251) when Christians were forced to make sacrifices to pagan gods if they want to stay alive. Traditionally, those who renounced were not readmitted. He claimed that the bishops, with the recommendation of the martyrs, should decide on the repentance of the apostates. According to some, he is strict, and according to others, soft. Some, like Novatian (200 – 258), separate and do not readmit apostates. That is why Cyprian wrote the treatise "On the Unity of the Church". There is one Congregational Church (in an ancient, not modern sense) that you can only leave:

If you do not have the Church as a mother, you cannot have God as a Father¹⁹

One should keep in mind this strong quote by Cyprian as the idea of the church as a mother will emerge again during the Reformation in Luther and Calvin.

As with Irenaeus, according to Cyprian, the unity of the Church is centered in the bishop (unit) and obedience to him becomes a sign of whether you are in the church:

Know that the bishop is in the Church and the Church - in the bishop. If someone is not with the bishop, he is not in the church²⁰

The bishop is independent in his church, but has a share jointly with the other bishops. If someone was baptized outside the Congregational Church, like the in Novatian’s congregation, he must be baptized again in order to come back to the Congregational Church, according to Cyprian. But according to Rome one does not need another baptism to join the Congregational Church²¹. In the fourth century, the Congregational Church in Africa rejected this view, but the breakaway Donatists accepted it. Cyprian's teaching on the unity of the church became fundamental for the next millennium²².

Thus because of the heresies the church had to develop a hierarchical structure but on the other hand this led to loss of a spiritual life in which one believer would pray and teach the other because this became the task of the clergy.

The Church and Society: from Antique to Medieval Times

Eusebius of Caesarea (260/265 – 339/340) is considered the father of church history. He was a supporter of Emperor Constantine. He became the father of the Eastern doctrine of the absolute divine monarch:

In the same way, our emperor, whom He loves, leads his earthly subjects to the one and only Word and Savior and makes them worthy subjects of his kingdom²³

Pope Leo the Great (400 - 461) participated through his "Tome" at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In addition to orthodox Christology, he is also known for his teachings about the Roman Pope. According to him, the pope is an unworthy successor of the ap. Peter (Matt. 16:18–19) and has all the authority given to Peter by Jesus Christ. Not only is he first among the bishops, but he speaks by the authority of Peter himself! Cyprian also interprets Matt. 16:18-19, but in the direction of preserving the unity among the bishops, because Peter represents all the apostles. Leo the Great claimed that the pope could empower and remove bishops, and ruled over the entire universal church. The idea was not accepted by the Eastern bishops and shows the growing differences in ecclesiology!

In 753-754, the Frankish King Pippin promised Pope Stephen II protection if his dynasty remained in power. After a year, he stopped the Lombards and donated territories to the papacy - the papal state²⁴. His son Charles I (Charlemagne) became the new king. In 799, Pope Leo III (died 816) was attacked by a rival faction. After a year, Charles I restored order and Leo III crowned him "Emperor of the Romans"!²⁵ This set a precedent in East-West relations because there was a functioning emperor in the Eastern Roman Empire. The actions of Pope Leo III claimed not only complete spiritual authority, but political authority over the empire! At the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787), relations between the Eastern and Western Churches were irreversibly strained, because the Western Church already had a military-political function.

The Reformer’s View of the Church

The True Church: Visible and Invisible

Both Martin Luther and John Calvin use the word “mother” about the Church. Both Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin speak about the visible and invisible church.

Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) speaks of the church as “Mother Church” and the bride of Christ. He sees a direct link between the sacraments and the church:

God very wisely arranged and appointed things, and instituted the holy sacrament to be administered to the congregation at a place where we can come together, pray, and give thanks to God²⁶

For Luther the Church is born of the Word, is nourished by It and dies without the Word. So if some ecclesiastical authority hinders the activity of the Word, according to Luther, it should be replaced.²⁷ But Luther also acknowledges that the papal church preserved the Word of God during the ages, so history and tradition are also important.²⁸

Ulrich Zwingli (1484 – 1531) was born just a year after Luther. Zwingli’s doctrine of the church is closely related to his doctrine of predestination. The church consist of the elect. Because until the last day no one knows who the elect are, so the church is invisible to human eyes. But, according to Zwingli the confession of the name of Christ and living according to God’s commandments are reasonable signs of election. Those who have these signs can be called the Church which is “spotless” and “the Bride of Christ”. So the contrast between the visible church and the invisible church, in Zwingli’s theology, is an attempt to show how the church is the company of the elect and in the same time a community in time when election is not manifested clearly.²⁹ Zwingli writes:

I believe also that there is one holy Catholic, that is, universal Church, and that this is either visible or invisible. The invisible, as Paul teaches, is that which comes down from heaven, that is, which recognizes and embraces God through the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. To this Church belong all those that believe throughout the whole world. And it is called invisible not as if they that believe were invisible, but because it is not evident to human eyes who do believe. The faithful are known to God and themselves alone. And the visible Church is not the Roman pontiff and the rest of them that wear the tiara, but all throughout the whole world who have enrolled themselves under Christ [through baptism]. Among these are all who are called Christians, even though falsely, seeing that they have no faith within. There are, therefore, in the visible Church some who are not members of the elect and invisible Church.³⁰

According to Zwingli in the visible church partake people from the whole world “who have enrolled themselves under Christ” but these can be also people without faith who are not included in the invisible church.

John Calvin (1509 – 1564) writes the following about the visible church in the Institutes:

But because it is now our intention to discuss the visible church, let us learn even from the simple title “mother” [Footnote 10] how useful, indeed how necessary, it is that we should know her. For there is no other way to enter into life unless this mother conceive us in her womb, give us birth, nourish us at her breast, and lastly, unless she keep us under her care and guidance until, putting off mortal flesh, we become like the angels [Matthew 22:30]. Our weakness does not allow us to be dismissed from her school until we have been pupils all our lives. (Institutes 4:1:4)³¹

On the connection between the visible and invisible church Calvin writes:

Sometimes by the term “church” it means that which is actually in God’s presence, into which no persons are received but those who are children of God by grace of adoption and true members of Christ by sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Then, indeed, the church includes not only the saints presently living on earth, but all the elect from the beginning of the world. Often, however, the name “church” designates the whole multitude of men spread over the earth who profess to worship one God and Christ. By baptism we are initiated into faith in him; by partaking in the Lord’s Supper we attest our unity in true doctrine and love; in the Word of the Lord we have agreement, and for the preaching of the Word the ministry instituted by Christ is preserved. In this church are mingled many hypocrites who have nothing of Christ but the name and outward appearance. There are very many ambitious, greedy, envious persons, evil speakers, and some of quite unclean life. Such are tolerated for a time either because they cannot be convicted by a competent tribunal or because a vigorous discipline does not always flourish as it ought. Just as we must believe, therefore, that the former church, invisible to us, [Footnote 14] is visible to the eyes of God alone, so we are commanded to revere and keep communion with the latter, which is called “church” in respect to men. (Institutes 4:1:7)³²

Someone can see that Calvin’s view on the church is somehow similar to Augustin’s view which we already discussed in the previous chapter.

The radical reformers, who were named anabaptists by their enemies, did not believe the protestant idea (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli) of the visible and invisible church. For them the church was in decline after Emperor Constantine the Great made it a legitimate religion. The Moravian Anabaptist leader Christian Entfelder (16 c.) gave a definition of the church as “a chosen, saved, purified, sanctified group in whom God dwells, upon whom the Holy Spirit has poured out his gifts, and with whom Christ the Lord shares his offices and his mission.”³³

The anabaptists believed that only converted people who have faith should be baptized and then join a congregation of saints. If someone did not show the marks of a true Chirstian then he was forced to leave the congregation. Thus the aim of the church is the visible church to consists only of true Christians and there to be no difference between the two.

Church Government and “the Priesthood of All Believers”

For Martin Luther every believer is a priest but more important is that he/she is not just his/her own priest but also a priest to the others:

Not only are we the freest of kings, we are also priests forever, which is far more excellent than being kings, because as priests we are worthy to appear before God to pray for others and to teach one another the things of God. For these are the functions of priests, and cannot be granted to any unbeliever. Thus Christ has obtained for us, if we believe on Him, that we are not only His brethren, co heirs and fellow kings with Him, but also fellow priests with Him, who may boldly come into the presence of God in the spirit of faith and cry, “Abba, Father!” pray for one another and do all things which we see done and prefigured in the outward and visible works of priests.³⁴

Here we see that every believer has the right and privilege to communicate with God but after this it seems his responsibility is to pray and to teach. This undercuts the hierarchical view of the Roman Catholic church. Luther pointed it out in 1520 by the writing of The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. But the fact that all believers are priests, does not mean that everyone can teach whatever pleases them. Luther views public preaching as a high responsibility for which only some of the priesthood are called. These should be attested by the community. The call is usually done by a prince, magistrate or a congregation.³⁵

John Calvin also understood the priesthood of all Christians as a personal access to God the Father but he makes one important stress on the idea that believers should live as “living sacrifices” to God.³⁶ However, Calvin writes:

Do you see how he assigns to each member a certain measure, and a definite and limited function, in order that perfection of grace as well as the supreme power of governing may remain with Christ alone? (Institutes, 4-6-9)³⁷

Because each member of the congregation has a finite and limited function, being a pastor, according to Calvin, is one of the highest regard and apapstor is primarily responsible for the task of teaching. Calvin’s view is corporate representation. But there is a limitation that beyond the minister, the only form of involvement in ministry was through elders and deacons.³⁸

For the radical reformers the priesthood of all believers was a starting point in their ecclesiology. As was mentioned they were interested in returning to the ecclisiology of the early church of the first century. Hans Vaatstra writes of the anabaptists:

Early leaders of the Anabaptist movement felt that the early Protestant church (1520s) was not sufficiently removed from the sacramentalism, institutionalism and clericalism of its predecessor. They emphasised the primacy of personal faith with respect to the sacraments (especially baptism), and repudiated ordination while stressing that conversion produced a priesthood of all believers beyond having access to God by faith³⁹

So Anabaptist churches had a flat structure of church government in comparison to Lutheran and Reformed.

Church, Society and State in the Views of the Reformers

Luther believes in the doctrine of the two kingdoms or realms but this does not imply a separation between church and state as the anabaptists believe. It is a doctrine in Luther that is in connection with his view of law and gospel. God has established two kingdoms as His creation and both are under His rule. The first realm is under the law in its civil function (state) and the second realm is under the gospel (church). According to Luther most rulers are not Christian and the law according to which a ruler must rule is discerned by natural reason. The believers belong to the other kingdom that of the gospel where the civil rulers have no authority. Because, according to Luther, every believer is at once justified and a sinner, one is also a subject to the civil rule.⁴⁰

For Zwingli there is a closer connection between the church and the state. The divine law, according to him, expresses the divine will for the Christian law and the civil law without any break. Therefore the people who are not from the elect are subject to the law of God and that law is manifested also in the civil law. Because of the historical circumstances in Zurich, Zwingli often speaks of the church and state as being coextensive and as there is only one body with two different functions: government and ministry.⁴¹ So Justo Gonzales concludes that:

Thus Zwingli seams to be speaking in terms that are closely parallel to the conceptions that justified the activities of Innocent III centuries earlier, although his Christendom has been greatly reduced in size.⁴²

John Calvin concerns himself with civil government in the last chapter of the Institutes. For Calvin this was an enormous issue in Geneva because he wanted to gain independence for the ecclesiastical authorities from the civil government. Geneva was organized on the pattern of Bern where the bourgeoisie had retained the control. In 1538 both Calvin and Farel decided to leave the city because a law was passed that Communion is for all. When Calvin returned to Geneva he asked for some independence of the ecclesiastical authorities from the civil.⁴³

Calvin believed that church and state had separate jurisdictions:

Therefore, in order that none of us may stumble on that stone, let us first consider that there is a twofold government in man: one aspect is spiritual, whereby the conscience is instructed in piety and in reverencing God; the second is political, whereby man is educated for the duties of humanity and citizenship that must be maintained among men. These are usually called the “spiritual” and the “temporal” jurisdiction F488 (not improper terms) by which is meant that the former sort of government pertains to the life of the soul, while the latter has to do with the concerns of the present life—not only with food and clothing but with laying down laws whereby a man may live his life among other men holy, honorably, and temperately.⁴⁴

For the radical reformers the state churches (Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic) were all corrupt as was the state. So the anabaptists wanted a separation between church and state. They were also against oaths and would not let members of the church become magistrates.

The anabaptists consider that the state has a divine origin and that is a repeated affirmation. According to Ambrosius Spittelmaier (1527): "Every government that has existed since the time of Adam and exists today has been instituted by God." For the anabaptists human sin is the reason for the necessity for the state but the state is ordained to express God’s wrath and God’s love. A natural consequence of this is that rebellion against the state is impossible for the Christian. However among some Anabaptists groups eschatological views on the coming of the Lord made them consider the state a negligible matter⁴⁵ This gave the critiques of the movement a strong argument against it.

Another aspect of Anabaptist ecclesiology is non-participation in government which has been established historically from the beginning of the movement. In 1534 revolutionary anabaptists of Münster took over the city government in 1534 and established an Old Testament theocracy which was suppressed by military force a year later. The congregation at Nikolsburg (Moravia), founded by Balthasar Hubmaier (1480-1528) did not teach nonresistance. The local ruler, Lord Leonhard von Liechtenstein, was baptized in 1527 and became a member of the congregation without surrendering his governmental authority. He expelled the nonresistant anabaptist part of the congregation who later became two major groups in Moravia as the Swiss Brethren and the Hutterites. Among the Anabaptists-Mennonites the first to open the door to participation in government were the Waterlanders, who permitted government offices but without involving capital punishment. Not until 1795 in Holland did Mennonites occupy high governmental positions, but after this they entered every level of state offices except that of prime minister, often serving with distinction. Numerous Dutch Mennonites have entered politics and there have been Mennonite generals in the army. It is almost 200 years since any but a small minority of Dutch Mennonites have been opposed to full participation in the life of the state. From 1796 on, the Mennonites used their right of voting as is sometimes still the case among North American Mennonites.⁴⁶

Developments since the Enlightenment

Just about a century after the Reformation in Europe an intellectual movement, the Enlightenment, focused on the use of reason. “The successful application of reason to any question depended on its correct application—on the development of a methodology of reasoning that would serve as its own guarantee of validity”⁴⁷ Intellectuals like David Hume, John Locke, Emmanuel Kant, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Søren Kierkegaard shaped the intellectual climate. Friedrich Schleiermacher with his view of religion as a feeling of dependence on the divine became the father of liberal theology.

But the Enlightenment was situated in modernity from a philosophical standpoint. Now we live in the time of post-modernity and beyond. “Indeed, many of the doctrines characteristically associated with postmodernism can fairly be described as the straightforward denial of general philosophical viewpoints that were taken for granted during the 18th-century Enlightenment, though they were not unique to that period.”⁴⁸ No matter if one does agree with postmodernism or not, one must take into consideration its impact on contemporary thought. So for the Christian there is the option to move back to modernism or adopt some points of post-modernity to some extent.

The Debate about the Visible and Invisible Church

On the subject of the visibility or invisibility of the church Karl Barth (1886 – 1968), a neoothodox theologian, says simply “No” to the invisibility of the church. For Barth this is a wrong idea, because this silenced the preaching of the gospel. According to him the church has been always public and a visible group since the apostolic times.⁴⁹

Karl Barth writes in his Church Dogmatics:

By men assembling here and there in the Holy Spirit there arises here and there a visible Christian congregation. It is best not to apply the idea of invisibility to the Church; we are all inclined to slip away with that in the direction of a civitas platonica or some sort of Cloud-cuckooland, in which the Christians are united inwardly and invisibly, while the visible Church is devalued. In the Apostles' Creed it is not an invisible structure which is intended but a quite visible coming together, which originates with the twelve Apostles. The first congregation was a visible group, which caused a visible public uproar. If the Church has not this visibility, then it is not the Church. Of course each of these congregations has its problems, such as the congregation of Rome, of Jerusalem, etc. The New Testament never presents the Church apart from these problems.⁵⁰

For Bart this is especially true during the time of Nazi Germany, because he was responsible for the Barmen Declaration, used by the Confessing Churches to publicly oppose German Christians and the Nazy party.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 - 1945) grew up around the academic circles of the University of Berlin. His father, a professor of psychiatry and neurology, opposed the T4 euthanasia program initiated by Hitler. At Berlin Bonhoeffer was attracted to the new “theology of revelation” by Karl Barth.⁵¹ Unlike Barth, Boehoeffer does believe in the invisible church. Boenhoffer understood the invisibility church in connection to the NT metaphor of the body of Christ. The Church is an analogy of the incarnation of Christ. First, for Bonhoeffer there is the visible church, the empirical reality, that can be studied by sociology. Second, there is the invisible church as the body of Christ⁵²:

The church is visible as a corporate social body in worship and in working-for-each-other. It is invisible as an eschatological entity, as the ‘body of Christ’ (Bonhoeffer: 1998, 141).⁵³

Between the two, visible and invisible, there is a close connection. A distinction is necessary because of the sinfulness and imperfection in the visible church: holiness is an attribute of the invisible church, sinfulness is a mark of the visible. But, unlike Augustine and Luther, Boenhoeffer’s visibility is not concerned to distinct true from false sheep in the flock. Harald Hegstad explains:

As the body of Christ, the church in this perspective seems to have a certain independent existence beyond its manifestations in the empirical world.⁵⁴

The Partially Applied “Priesthood of All Believers”

We must remember the two good examples for the spiritual revitalization of the church by moving back to the practical theology of the priesthood of all believers.

Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705) revitalized Christian life within the Lutheran tradition by the participation of all members of a group in Christian experience and service. The pietists were concerned also with education, forming the University of Halle and social ministry. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), the father of liberal theology, had Pietist roots.⁵⁵

John Wesley (1703 – 1791) structured early Methodism in small groups about 12 members for Bible study and social ministry. Wesley wanted to reform the Anglican church but at the end his movement had an impact on various denominations in church history.

George Tyrrell (1861 – 1909) was a Roman Catholic modernist theologian (modernist from Roman Catholic perspective) from the Jesuit order.⁵⁶ Tyrell disagrees with the right of the pope to speak ex cathedra because he thinks that the pope does not have the theological and moral right to speak on behalf the whole church. Against Roman Catholic ecclesiology Tyrel believed that because believers are part of the church they have the right not just to be taught but also to teach. According to Tyrell every church member is also an “authorized apostle and teacher”. Here a “protestant” reaction in Tyrell view can be seen. Connected to this view is also his view that all church members should preserve the “divine tradition” which they should responsibly entrust to the next generation.⁵⁷

Rev. Craig L. Nessan, from Warburg Seminary, makes an interesting contemporary critique by the name of “ Universal Priesthood of All Believers: Unfulfilled Promise of the Reformation”⁵⁸. He writes:

Today the Babylonian captivity of the church, although differently disguised, is equally deadly for the vitality of the church’s mission: the reduction of Christian ministry to that which is done in the name of the institutional church. Church members largely think that only what is organized by the institutional church or done within the confines of a church building really counts as Christian ministry… While leaders of the institutional church may pay lip service to the universal priesthood of all believers, primary attention in many efforts at outreach involves securing financial resources and new members for the sake of the survival of the church as institution. The gap between what happens in and for the institutional church, especially on Sundays, and the involvement of people the rest of the week has become enormous.⁵⁹

In agreement with Rev.Nessan one must reconsider practical application of the doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers” for us today! It seems that the doctrine is plain enough to understand but hard to apply.

The Church, the Modern Society and the Modern State

Both Barth and Boenhoeffer take a political position against the regime of Hitler. The Confessing Church (German Bekennende Kirche) was a movement within the German Protestant churches during the 1930s in resistance to Adolf Hitler, who wanted to use the churches for propaganda and politics of his ideology. Ludwig Müller, with Nazi suport, was elected Reichsbischof. He undermined the authority of Scripture and the theology of the Reformation in favor of the Nazi doctrine of the racial superiority of so-called Aryans. The opposing Confessing Church was formed by Hanns Lilje, Martin Niemöller, and others. In May 1934 the Synod of Barmen was held which made a confessional declaration on which Karl Barth worked. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who would ultimately be executed for his involvement in a plot to overthrow Hitler, became one of the leading spokesmen for the Confessing Church. So in Germany two separate churches developed: the Nazi controlled and the Confessing. The Confessing Church together with the churches of Bavaria, Württemberg, and Hanover, formed the provisional government of the German Evangelical Church⁶⁰.

Gustavo Gutiérrez (born 1928) is a Peruvian Roman Catholic theologian who is famous as the father of liberation theology. According to Gutiérrez the theological significance of “poverty” is the search of a way to overcome poverty as one fulfills the will Of God for the good of the peoples. Gutiérrez theology of liberation is locally concerned with Latin America but it contains some fundamental principals that can be applied elsewhere. He speaks of three types of poverty: material poverty, spiritual poverty and poverty as a social engagement. Gutiérrez writes that if someone is a Christian he must protest against poverty. Liberation from poverty has a political and social aspect which aims to change the structure of society that leads to poverty. Human liberation is a second aspect which is seen deep into Christian anthropology and ethics. A third aspect is liberation from egoism and sin but here sin is understood also in a social-economical and political way. True liberation, according to Gutiérrez, begins with the redemptive power of Christ, goes trough a deep understanding of the social, economical and political realities of contemporary life, and leads as a result to inner joy and social righteousness.⁶¹ So, according to Gutiérrez, there is a new relationship between the state and the church, a new humanism, which can describe the church as an instrument of liberation of all three types of poverty.

Jürgen Moltmann (born 1926) is a German Reformed theologian who is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at the University of Tübingen. Moltmann is well known with his Theology of Hope. Moltmann’s theology is written with a concern for a debate with the contemporary atheists, existentialists, Marxists, who think that Christian theology is not adequate today. Moltmann views Christ’s community as a messianic society. The glorified Lord is the coming Lord. Christ from history is the Christ of the future. He is the focal point of our hope and it is then possible Christ’s community to be able to become a real messianic community. The church becomes the new humanity of the future and the church is a forerunner of a future world free of inhumanity and ungodliness. On the practical aspect the hope is fulfilled in building a new humankind of the future.⁶²

Conclusion

It was shown how the reformers took the concept of the invisible and visible church from Augustin and incorporated it every reformer in it’s own way in his theology. Some theologians from modern times agreed, while others disagreed with the doctrine.

The priesthood of all believers seems to be the doctrine that is forgotten in many circles today, while in other circles, like the house church movement, it has wide practical implications. Although the main reformers did not go so far in applying it as the radical reformers, this doctrine stands in front of the face of the contemporary Christian as a pillar of first century Christianity.

The development of the relationship between church, society and state is a very complicated one today. In comparison with the time of the Reformation when there were two options of cooperation or separation with the state, today in global Christianity this a very complicated issue because of the various types of countries and societies. However the theology of the reformers and of some of the contemporary theologians can serve as a guideline for developing our own local theology about church, society and state.

I have omitted many theologians and movements who would concern the three chosen developments in ecclesiology. This was necessary for the research to be brief.