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Episode 5.16: Joseph Small on Ecclesiology in a Divided Age (audio)

Rev. Dr. Joseph Small talks about church unity, denominations, and living as the Body of Christ:

“There’s something about the faith that impels us into relationship with each other. Now what happens, especially in American culture, is that denominations become institutionalized, become businesses that sell goods and services to their member congregations, become political institutions where significant issues of faith and morals are decided by voting. And of course, voting divides a question into two sides, as if any question that’s worth asking has only two sides… …the very method we have chosen to resolve disputes guarantees that the disputes will continue, because there are winners and losers of every single vote that’s ever taken.” -Rev. Dr. Joseph Small

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Episode 5.16: Joseph Small on Ecclesiology in a Divided Age

Rev. Dr. Joseph Small talks about church unity, denominations, and living as the Body of Christ:

“There’s something about the faith that impels us into relationship with each other. Now what happens, especially in American culture, is that denominations become institutionalized, become businesses that sell goods and services to their member congregations, become political institutions where significant issues of faith and morals are decided by voting. And of course, voting divides a question into two sides, as if any question that’s worth asking has only two sides… …the very method we have chosen to resolve disputes guarantees that the disputes will continue, because there are winners and losers of every single vote that’s ever taken.”

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Ecclesiology in a Divided Age – A Public Lecture with Joseph Small

Mon., February 10 at 1:30 PM in Mulder Chapel

In such a time of division, politically and ideologically, it becomes difficult for us to live in fellowship with one another. The church is not exempt from this type of division. The Reformed Church in America, like many denominations, faces major questions regarding unity in the face of stark disagreement. Is unity possible? Is our vision of the church as a unified body of Christ idealistic and unattainable?

Rev. Dr. Joseph Small, former director of the PCUSA Office of Theology and Worship, is no stranger to these conversations. In his book Flawed Church, Faithful God: A Reformed Ecclesiology for the Real World, he explores the following questions: What is the Church? Why does it matter for the world we live in? He says, “The church is a communion of intimacy and solidarity because of what it cannot justify about itself coupled with recognition that its justification lies in the grace of God. Only as the church knows that its life is not self-generated and maintained can it witness faithfully to the God who generates and maintains it” (xiv).

Join Rev. Dr. Small for a public lecture, with responses from Rev. Dr. Dan Griswold and Rev. Jennifer Ryden, in which Dr. Small will explore these and other questions related to the communion of the church in this divided age.

This event is sponsored by the Girod Chair of Western Theological Seminary.

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