Book Review: Veli-Matti Karkkainen, An Introduction to Ecclesiology, InterVarsity Press, 2002

Veli-Matti Karkkainen is currently a professor of systematic theology at Fuller Theological Seminary. Originally from Finland, Karkkainen has lived in Europe, Thailand and the United States with his family. His areas of expertise includes ecclesiology and pneumatology, which he connects in this book. In, An Introduction to Ecclesiology, Karkkainen studies the church while providing an overview of the traditions and ecclesiologists.

Karkkainen brings up many questions, including, what is the church? And what makes the church church? He presents a survey and analysis of the major ecclesiological traditions and structures, compares contemporary theolgians in leading ecclesiological thought, and provides a framework by contextualizing the church. Karkkainen provides a vast amount of information concerning these three topics, but for the purpose of this paper, I will focus on three major points from each section as it relates to my ministry. They are: 1) The Church of the Believers in the Free Church Ecclesiology, 2)Lesslie Newbigin in leading missionary ecclesiology, and lastly, 3) “A World Church.”

The Free Church’s uniqueness stems from its stray from the traditional hierarcharal model of the church. This shift in thinking proves itself to be a “powerful, global force” (p 59), with implications of social changes occuring in its communities. It focuses on unmediated access to God, seeking to balance the Spirit and the Word. The church belongs to Christ, with membership voluntary, and its core value of being separate from the world. There is a strong emphasis on missions, church and spiritual disciplines, and its distinguishment from the the secular. Important to note is that Missions is the purpose of the church. According to Menno Simons, one of the pioneers, four focus points of the church in missions includes holy living, brotherly love, unreserved testimony and suffering.

Missionary ecclesiology believes that missions is not merely a task given to the church, but rather, the essential purpose of the church. In this chapter, ideas are taken from Lesslie Newbigin’s book, The Household of God: Lectures on the Nature of the Church. His view focuses on the church as a pilgrim people of God, eschatological and ecumenical in nature. According to Newbigin, the history of the church is a story of the calling of the visible community (p. 154). He divides Christianity into three streams. These ecclesiological streams are the Protestant Reformation, where preaching and the sacraments are rightly administered, A Catholic view of encompassing the sacramental as the true church in a continuous form, and lastly, the living experience of the Spirit, the Pentecostal approach. Church is in tension with culture, with influences from modernism and post-modernism. His basic approach is that there is no church without mission and no mission without the church.

Catholic missionary Vincent J. Donovan sought a “world church” and a planetary Christ. There is an important note that missionaries fail to see the influence culture has on religion across the world. In the world church, culture does not have to be destroyed in order to participate in the church. It compares religion and revelation and seeks to become a church of revelation where the Spirit is present outside its walls and in their community.

I chose to focus on these three points because of its relation and practiciality of working cross-culturally. Being a visible community is essential for missionary work. The Free Believers church played along central themes in Lohfink’s book, Jesus and Community. One can compare the emphasis on the chosen people of God as a visible and holy community to win others for Christ, with the core values and doctrines of the Free Believers Church. It also followed Newbigin’s views of the church in mission. Although there are differences between the Lohfink’s view and Newbigin, the theme of missions and how to approach missions are similar. The world church adds to Newbigin’s thought of the three streams, while challenging the church to see its effectiveness, or lack of, in ministering to others with a mission focused thinking.

I think these three points provide a foundation for my purpose in my future ministry. Missions is central to me and understanding the structures of different churches, in particular the free church ecclesiology, equips me in my future ministry working overseas. Seeing how relgion influences culture, yet the church is in tension with culture enables me to be effective in how the church works across cultures.

Overall, I had a difficult time reading this book because it covered a lot of information in a short period of time. I think it would have been helpful to have a lecture with an overview and introduction to ecclesiology. Even though the title is “Introduction to ecclesiology,” there were still some missing links that I did not grasp because of my lack of knowledge in this area. An overview would have been helpful to fully understand the book.