Pastor Mark has responded to my post on “Mere Ecclesiology” with this post “Abscondita est Ecclesia”. I made a brief reply. You can go there to read that discussion (as Christmas is coming up, I am happy to “gift” Pastor Mark with a bit of traffic from this site).
My main point in my reply to that post (which concerns the “hidden” nature of the Church) is that a strong ecclesiology ought to be able to give some real substance and meaning to the phrase “the Church teaches…”. Unless the “Church” is in some sense a real visible and definable human society, I can’t see how it can act as an agent of Christ’s teaching office. It is significant that the Augsburg Confession says “WE believe, teach and confess…”, meaning, “we evangelical congregations”, rather than “The CHURCH believes, teaches and confesses…”.
