Eschatology and ecclesiology: Reflections inspired by revelation 21:22

Miller, Michael St A

For some time now, I have been fascinated with the very dramatic portrayal in Revelation 21 of the radical renewal of life represented by the New Jerusalem at the culmination of history as we know it. When asked recently to elaborate on the vision that ought to guide the church's engagement with the wider community, I could think of no better response than to turn to verse 22 of this chapter, which reads, "And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb."1 It then struck me that the time had come to move beyond animated reading of this passage to the more elaborate exploration it inspires concerning the relationship between eschatology and ecclesiology.

This project is therefore grounded in the conviction that being part of a corpus that depicts the emergence of the ideal human community, the verse (and chapter) in question exposes an understanding of what constitutes meaningful communion with God. As such, it opens the door to consideration of the appropriate self-understanding of that community which perceives itself as having been called to a unique relationship with God through Jesus, and to critical responsibility for the welfare of the cosmos. I argue therefore that the symbolic expressions of Rv 21:22 point to what has always been God's "ideal aim" for creation. It is this ideal that has, from the beginning, lured members of the human family into communities and institutions (like the Christian church) that express particular appropriations of this ideal. I show that this ideal, as captured by the notion of the New Jerusalem in Rv 21:22, is directly linked with other powerful representations in both Jewish and Christian scripture (for example, an ideal city, an ideal garden, an ideal covenant, and an ideal kingdom). In the end, I make the case that Christians have been given a picture of the true end or purpose (telos) of the church, which ought to serve as motivation for a particular ethos and operational dynamic that privileges freedom and communion, even as the church lives its life in anticipation of the realization of God's ideal.

TEXT AND CONTEXT

The Book of Revelation belongs to the literary genre called apocalyptic, which is derived from the Greek word apokalypsis. There is general agreement that the immediate cultural milieu of this work is that of Western Asia, and that it was completed at some point during the late first century C.E. However, there is a wide range of opinion on exact dating. Eugene Boring believes that this work is best understood as a letter written in 96 C.E. to churches facing persecution at the hands of Domitian.2 Writing with the benefit of more recent scholarship, Ron Farmer suggests, "Evidence for a Domitian persecution of Christians is quite slim, in fact there is no reliable evidence clearly supporting the hypothesis." He does not deny that there was persecution: "What is called into question is the assumption that this persecution resulted from a new government policy aimed at Christians."3 Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza is confident that "the final composition of the work in its present form took place some time after the destruction of Jerusalem among persons who saw no signs of rebuilding."4 However, this does not mean that all the visions in the work happened at the same time and place. In all this diversity of opinion, what is not in dispute is that this work, set on the island of Patmos off the coast of Asia Minor, represents creative use of Jewish scriptures to address the situation of early Christian communities as they operated in a general context of domination, coercion, control, and alienation.

It is not difficult to discern in Revelation the fundamental desire for a world characterized by communion with God. But there is also the recognition that in the world as it is, powerful forces stand opposed to the righteous way and will do anything to destroy those who would pursue that which is desired. We find then, that throughout this work, there is the portrayal of constant movement back and forth between earthly affairs with its tribulations, and glimpses of the supra-natural realm that seem designed to remind the beleaguered believers that there was far more to life than that which they were experiencing at the time. Yes, "the powers" appeared to have control over the lives of believers, but this was certainly not the last word. Their God had not been overthrown and a glorious future had been prepared for them. Thus, after the review of life in the seven churches,5 there is a vision of heaven. By chapter 6 it is clear that disaster is imminent and a decision is made that the servants of God must be sealed before this happens. Chapter 7 provides a moving description as those from the twelve tribes of Israel, and "a great multitude which no one could number, from all tribes and peoples and tongues standing before the throne . . .," engage in praise as led by the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures. The revolutionary nature of this vision is appreciated when one recalls that through the "Pax Romana" the Roman authorities sought to fashion empire-wide unity by nullifying features of life that gave identity and meaning to particular groups. What we have here is a counter-cultural statement, and implicit in it is a resistance to conformity and uniformity. Thus the author is careful to emphasize the diversity that characterizes the multitude around the throne. Admittedly, in this scene, diversity is limited to followers of Jesus the Christ. However, it is quite clear that the center of unity is not socio-political or ecclesiastical structures, but common communion with the divine. Thus, there is the resounding declaration: "Salvation belongs to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb" (v. 10).

Other scenes that follow provide encouragement, even as the battle rages between the forces of good and evil. In chapter 11:15, the voice from heaven claims the earth for the Lord and his Christ. In chapter 14, the hundred and forty-four thousand and others play and sing before the altar in heaven, even as they are called to endurance. In chapter 15:3, those who conquer the beast sing the song of Moses. In chapter 16:5, after the third bowl of wrath is poured on the earth, God's justice is extolled. From then on the momentum of the battle intensifies and the forces of good rapidly gain ascendancy. Chapter 20 portrays Satan as bound and Death and Hades as destroyed. Finally, in chapter 21, the ideal state of affairs is realized. Whereas before this there is clear distinction between heaven and earth and movement back and forth between them, there is now a new heaven and earth. It is not only that the earth is claimed for God, but also that the abode of God is on earth with humans, and there is no hindrance to full communion.

THE NEW JERUSALEM

The idea of a heavenly Jerusalem that becomes the ultimate home of the people of God is not original to John. Boring reminds us that this idea was already present in the apocalyptic tradition that came to him. "Not only are there massive elements of Jewish tradition . . ., it also reflects much of the Hellinistic/Roman aspirations for the ideal city . . ." John, in general, adopts the narrative line of Ezekiel 37-48 as the model for his own presentation. Boring indicates that although John gets many of the details for his New Jerusalem from the description of the restored Jerusalem in Ezekiel 40-48, there is a fundamental difference in that, as a priest, Ezekiel was very concerned for the priestly principle of separating the holy from the profane. Thus, in his vision of the restored Jerusalem, "The temple dominated the new city, with a wall dividing the temple from the rest of the city, effectively distinguishing the holy from the profane . . ." While acknowledging that, like Ezekiel his source, John is concerned to portray the New Jerusalem as a holy city, Boring suggests that John's Christian understanding of God leads him to a different vision of the ultimate city:

For him the city has no temple because the city as a whole is holy. God is directly present to all throughout its streets, not only in some designated holy place. All of life is holy and God is present in the midst of the everyday, not only at special places and times, and all the people of God are "priests."6

Here I suggest that while the differences in the respective portrayals cannot be denied, it is still safe to suggest that John's vision is quite consistent with convictions that represent the best of Israel's religion. Thus, even in the midst of his institutional preoccupations, there is no mistaking Ezekiel's deep-seated yearning for the kind of intimacy with God that would later be valued by John. It is therefore not insignificant that this book ends on the very telling note, "And the name of the city henceforth shall be, the Lord is there" (Ez 48:35).

CONCEPTUAL CLUES FOR NEW INSIGHT

The foregoing discussion is quite suggestive. As a theologian of the process-relational orientation, it opens the way for me to elaborate on the conviction that the contents of Revelation (including Rv 21:22) represent not only the creative appropriation of Jewish apocalyptic, but is a "moment" in a complex process by which God's "ideal aim" for creation - that is, for the highest quality of intimacy and communion - was being intuited/prehended at deep levels of awareness by various communities over time. As these aims inform the fundamental impulse toward the actualization of all things, so too do they give focus to the constitution and commitment of the communities in question. And though reflected in various ways throughout Jewish and Christian scriptures, God's ideals become manifest with special vividness in canonical texts like Daniel, Ezra, and Revelation, and extra-canonical texts like Enoch, 4 Ezra, the Essene War Scroll, the Apocrypha of Peter, and the Apocrypha of Paul. I will now elaborate on the ideational undergirding of my conviction.

There are three compelling conceptual frameworks in which the God-cosmos relationship is being discussed in a number of contemporary circles, and each in its own way supports the idea that God has a clear ideal for cosmic existence. Starting with Augustine's conviction that even time is created and leading to Aquinas' development of the Aristotelian notion of First-Cause, classical theism presents God as the sovereignly free One who created the world out of nothing and is the final determiner of the cosmic dynamic. Augustine and Aquinas make allowances for the ongoing occurrence of apparent novelty by respectively adopting the Stoic notion of germinal forms and the Aristotelian notion of secondary causes and attributing them to God. In the twentieth century, classical theism has come under relentless criticism by process theologians. Chief among the concerns is the fact that, as developed by means of negative analogy from human experience, God was understood as in all respects immutable and impassible; that is, incapable of change or of being affected by anything outside of God's self. Surely this is antithetical to biblical faith, which understands the God who is love to be intimately related to and affected by the creature.

The spiritually grotesque results arising from early Christian attempts to reconcile Jewish and Hellinistic notions are exemplified in St. Anselm's perplexity as he contemplated the existence of God. How was it possible for God to be merciful (misericors) and at the same time impassible (impassibilis)? This would make God "merciful and not merciful." God, then, is only merciful in terms of our experience, but not merciful in terms of God's being. Anselm is convinced that God does save the sorrowful and pardons the sinner. However, in the end, he had to conclude, "You are not merciful because You do not experience any feeling of compassion for misery."7 When we turn our attention to Aquinas, it becomes evident that there is a determined end for each existent. In his estimation, the acceptance of the idea that each and every effect pre-exists in God leads to the position that the divine mind must preconceive "the whole pattern of things moving to their end." Thus, while rational creatures do deliberate and exercise free choice, Aquinas is clear that only some are brought into eternal life by God, "properly speaking as sent by God." Others are not predestined for eternal life, and so are "allowed to fall short of this goal. This is reprobation."8 So, without doubt, whatever happens within and without communities of faith is expressive of God's specific intentions for the creature. No element of this realization is affected by the dynamics of creaturely appropriation. Instead, every detail of life is an element of an inexorable movement toward a necessary end already settled by God. In the end, if God, who has pre-determined all things, is only merciful in terms of our experience and really has no compassion for misery, then our prayers in times of distress are futile and our yearnings for newness are foolhardy. What is there to save us from despair as we struggle with the tragic elements of the cosmic dynamic and our personal lives?

Process-relational theologians have offered an alternative approach to the discussion of God's intentions for the cosmos, one which takes seriously the inter-relationality that is evident in the cosmic dynamic and eschews the practice of explaining away dilemmas such as those described above (for example, by means of notions like sovereign freedom). Rather than depending on the method of negative analogizing, they follow A. N. Whitehead in understanding God as the chief exemplification of metaphysical principles fundamental to human experience and existence as a whole.9 Thus, it ought not to be possible to develop ideas of God that lead to the kind of contradictions that have been exposed. Many of the process-relational orientation reject creatio ex nihilo as understood in the classical scheme. We are invited to conceive of a scenario in which God lures low-grade entities happening at random into complex configurations with the capacity for high-grade experiences as enduring individuals. Much effort has been made to explicate the claim that in the ongoing relationship with the cosmos, God proceeds in light of ideal aims entertained for actual entities (simple and complex). These represent God's vision of what ought to characterize entities in their fully actualized state. It is as entities align themselves with this vision that they experience richness in their "life processes" and ultimately find fulfillment.

Critical modifications have been made to process-relational ideas by those called neo-process thinkers, modifications that strengthen the argument for God-cosmos intimacy. The case is made that the idea of God as chief exemplification of fundamental metaphysical principles is insufficient to explain why there is a cosmos at all. As Clark Williamson puts it, "God would seem to be subject to metaphysical categories that exist independent of God's decision making."10 Indeed, by Whitehead's own ontological principle," metaphysical principles cannot be their own explanation, Some actual entity must be considered as necessarily prior to and responsible for establishing them, It is not surprising that Whitehead eventually declares that God's "conceptual actuality at once exemplifies and establishes the categoreal conditions,"12 It is somewhat troubling that as "conceptual reality" - that is, as understood outside of an ongoing relationship with a cosmos - God is "deficiently actual."13 It would therefore not be unreasonable to inquire how the deficiently actual can satisfy that which is required of an actual entity. Having said this, there is a far greater burden on the process-relational thinker to present the best possible account of why there is a cosmos at all. And in so doing, the demands of the ontological principle cannot be avoided. These considered, there is compellingness to Clark Williamson's claim that "only God can account for all things necessary for there to be a world: creativity, forms of defmiteness, and actual things of whatever kinds. Logically, Whitehead's philosophy requires to be completed by a doctrine of creation ex nihilo." Now, the God-cosmos intimacy can be established on the fundamental assertion that God is the originating ground of the cosmos. Addressing the human situation, he asserts that it is God who "creates us as free, partially self-creating, self-determining creatures. To be a human being means, among other things, to decide how to understand and constitute ourselves."14 God therefore pursues intimacy with a cosmos that is inextricably linked to God and also with humans who necessarily contribute to their own formation. It could therefore be argued that the enablement of self-creation is fundamental to Godly intimacy. And it is to this end that God provides ideal aims for entertainment.

Whitehead indicates that the community of actual things is an organism. And this is not a static organism but a dynamic process: "Thus the expansion of the universe in respect to actual things is the first meaning of 'process'" and "each actual entity repeats in microcosm what the universe is in macrocosm."15 An important implication is that even as actual entities are themselves dynamic processes of actualization, the cosmos as a whole (which includes this vast array of entities and interactions), is itself a complex process moving toward its own actualization. As God entertains ideals for entities within the cosmos, there is an ideal for the cosmos as a whole, and the structure and processes of the cosmic organism reflect the ongoing dynamic around this initial ideal aim. all this determines that the way human inhabitants - as "components" of the cosmos - appropriate God's intentions for themselves is of vital importance for the realization of God's ideals for the cosmos as a whole. Individual and corporate self-determination will necessarily be in relation to cosmic self-realization. And it is, in part, to be constituted for contribution to cosmic communion with a God who is by nature covenant-making that humans in various settings have and are being lured by aims that rise to the surface in terms of symbolic representations of ideal communities with God as head.

IN THE BEGINNING, THE END: HEBREW INTUITIONS

Given that Christianity emerged primarily out of judaism, it is not surprising that the cosmic resolution in Revelation 21 seems reminiscent of the ideal state of human life as portrayed in Genesis 1 and 2. In the idealized setting called the Garden of Eden, God "walks in the cool of the garden," and is unambiguously present to and influential in all affairs of human life. There is clear unhindered communication between God and humans (and there is no temple there). Adrio Konig suggests that the vision in Revelation is "not merely of a restoration but a new creation which surpasses the old."16 In the new creation, God makes a home with humankind on the new earth. I ask, however, what can surpass the depth of intimacy and influence as captured in Gn 1:26, 27 by means of the notion of "Image of God," and especially in 2:7 by the idea that it is through the "breath of God" that humans are constituted as humans (that is, as living souls)? There are quite decisive indications in Jewish (and Christian) tradition that God, though a transcendent sovereign, is internally related to the human and the very source of their lives (Gn 6:3; Job 34:14, 15). The reference in Job to "all flesh" perishing, along with support from the Psalms (139:7-12; 147:17, 18), suggest that God has a not too dissimilar relationship to nonhuman creation and constitutes a pervasive-ubiquitous presence in all life.

Paul Tillich suggests that the Garden of Eden account represents the "dreaming innocence of unrealized potentials"; that is, the undistorted, potential nature of things (essence). This state could be seen as a convenient presupposition that enables understanding of an actualized existence that is distorted and estranged. It could also be seen as a way to characterize the "persistent ought" that challenges us at every stage of human existence; that is, the abiding awareness that there is a way to be authentically human and an ideal way for the cosmos we inhabit to be. I now suggest that lurking beneath these notions is the intuition that there is an ideal - God's ideal - at the heart of life, and this creates a contrast with the prevailing features of ordinary experience. Yet, while Tillich's view that the "decision for self-actualization produces the end of dreaming innocence"17 helps set the stage for a powerful discussion of Jesus the Christ as the symbol of New Being, it does not adequately portray the very positive and purposeful process that has been at the heart of the cosmic dynamic and which is represented by the notion of ideal-aim.

It proves far more enlightening to further interpret the Genesis account in light of the insights exposed from the process-relational scheme. By so doing, the way is opened for the proposal that for Israel (like the later Christian community), struggling to live with meaning and purpose, the Genesis story was a powerful-challenging-inspiring mythological representation of the deep-seated intuition that there is an ideal state of being for each entity, communities of entities, and the cosmos as a whole. These are real and realizable potentials that pre-existed with God and have been made present as lure for self-realization. John Cobb is therefore quite correct in his characterization of God as the "One who Calls," and, more specifically, the one who calls us forward.18 In the process of self-actualization, entities and communities of entities do experience distortion and estrangement because of decisions they and others make in regard to God's ideal aims. These could range from inadequate appropriation because of finitude to outright rebellion. However, even as characterized by inadequacy and rebellion, "existence" and "self-actualization" are not by definition distorted and estranged. There has never been a cosmic "moment" that the all inclusive-relational God has not been actively present, and present in a way that is most relevant for that "moment," such that it is possible for decisions to be taken that lead to the highest levels of attainment for individuals and communities.

Genesis 3 and other scriptural narratives have trumpeted the message that, generally speaking, the operations of life as we know them are not in accord with God's ideal. But there is also the clear recognition that this is not all there is to life. There is a profound experience of wholeness and fulfillment that is available and waiting to be appropriated. In Romans 8 (vv. 22-23), Paul describes a restlessness that is intrinsic to the created order: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together till now." The notion of "groaning in travail" can be seen as not only reflecting "awareness" of a discrepancy between "what is" and "what ought to be," but also incessant yearning on the part of the creature for that which, in relation to the present struggles, appears to be in the future. The note of hope and anticipation for eventual attainment is clear, "and not only the creation but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we await the adoption as sons . . ." Thus, in important ways, the anxiety that Tillich sees as fundamental to human experience is not "dependent only on the threat of non-being,"19 but is positively linked to the power of a desire generated by the ideal that as lure always seems beyond our grasp.

Important biblical representations of this desire whet the appetite by providing enticing details on the personal and inter-personal dynamics that would characterize a community focused on the hope for unhindered-unmediated communion with God. A striking example is Jer 31:31-34, as it articulates the promise of a new covenant with Israel. This covenant is said to be quite unlike one that is driven by structures and edicts external to the believer. Instead, behavior would be governed purely by inner conviction, even as God placed God's law within individuals and wrote it upon their hearts (v. 33).20 There is a clear suggestion of a significant measure of personal autonomy in relation to other members of God's covenant community, and most certainly in relation to the institutions and customs that had hitherto directed life. This pericope culminates in a most radical way in verse 34: "And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor saying 'know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest . . ." Nothing in this statement discredits Israel's fundamental self-understanding as a covenant people. And for Israel, God had always been Immanuel; that is, God's dwelling place had always been with God's covenant people.21 But the notion of corporate solidarity would be understood in light of the celebration of God's immediate connection with each individual member of that community. In fact, the community of faith would find its raison d'etre in the promotion of the notion of "solidarity in freedom."

When Jeremiah's eschatological vision is associated with Joel's pneumatological pronouncements (Jl 2:28, 29), we are led to imagine a situation in which those who take responsibility before God for their own faith life in a climate of mutual trust and respect are gifted by God to contribute to the overall ethos of the covenant community. The profundity of this point becomes more apparent when we take seriously the claim that God has aims not only for individuals or communities of individuals, but for the cosmos as a whole. With support from passages like Gn 9:8ff., one can assert with confidence that God's aims for cosmic entities are entertained within the context of a cosmic covenant. Thus, the integrity of covenants with particular communities is established necessarily in relation to the complex of interactions that constitute the cosmos as a whole. It is the intuition that behind the cosmic dynamic lies God's desire for intimacy, which fuels Rv 21:22 and justifies the vision of the New Jerusalem as representing a cosmic state in which traditional ecclesiastical structures, personnel, and activities had disappeared. Finally, the traditional divide between church and world would be erased, and life would be characterized by unhindered and un-coerced communion.

CAPTURED BY THE VISION: THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY

Exploration of the gospels and the letters of Paul provide unique exposure to the allure of God's ideal as associated with the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth. The very claim that God chose that we should experience God through another human being suggests an intuition of God's desire for intimacy. This intuition is further expressed in the conviction that this unique life process, characterized by special communion with God, resulted in a powerful and pervasive "field of force" that would eventually lure diverse peoples into awareness of God's desire and their capacity for intimacy and communion. In order to appreciate the revolutionary significance of the fundamental intuition, we must remind ourselves that the life and ministry in question and the community that gave interpretation were honed in the same broad psycho-social crucible that would also nurture the visions of Revelation 21. What we have in the complex Jesus tradition is, in Fiorenza's language, "a new angle of refraction"22 on what was a perennial in-tuition. Thus, when the New Jerusalem is envisioned by Christians, it is not only God (Immanuel) with whom the inhabitants have immediate intimacy, but also "the lamb."

In his own way, Paul Tillich helps us to appreciate the existential power of this unique moment in the history of God's pursuit of communion. He makes the bold assertion that the experience of Jesus as the Christ constituted final revelation for the Christian community. Final does not mean last. It means, instead, that the revelation "is universally valid, because it includes the criterion of every revelation and is the finis or telos (intrinsic aim) of all of them." Admittedly, this claim is problematic. While it does make sense that a life perceived as "transparent to divine mystery until death,"23 would be understood as universally valid, there is nothing in the fact of transparence itself that establishes the Jesus event as the criterion of every revelation. It does not seem unreasonable, however, to understand it as an exemplification of the criterion, which has to do with the openness, intimacy, and radically transformative power associated with the communion that God desires with the whole cosmos. Thus, there is no need for bashfulness in claiming that the uniqueness of the particular communion experienced by Jesus can never be replicated and that there can be no other institution like the Christian church, which is the direct result of the efficacious outflow from this communion. For those who understand themselves to be caught up in the transformative power of this particular relational dynamic, it is truly the case that "to be in Christ is to belong to a new corporate reality . . . The 'new creation' has taken place, and the church is the new historical embodiment of the new humanity."24

For many decades of the last century, the significance of Jesus' life and witness was discussed in terms of the notion of the kingdom of God. However, as Wolfhart Pannenberg indicates, the dogmatics of recent times has been marked by a steady erosion of this notion. This he attributes to "the conventional understanding of the Kingdom of God having been deprived of its exegetical foundations."25 In his mind, recovering this notion is important to interpreting the church. And there is kinship with the notion of ideal aim, as he portrays the kingdom of God as "the eschatological future brought about by God . . . Only in light of this future can we understand man and his history."26 Taking the notion of the kingdom of God as representing God's cosmic ideal (that, as ideal, always seems ahead of us), I suggest that informing the early use of this image was a keen sense on the part of Jesus' followers, that being the product of a unique life process, their authenticity as community was contingent on commitment to God's ideal, which demanded radical decision making in the present moment. "The choice is clear: either God and his reign or the world and its reign."27 What is termed "God's ideal" corresponds to what in more popular Christian language is "the will of God." The problem with popular use of the latter notion is that, influenced by the values of traditional theism, it connotes the fixed overriding mandate of an all-determining God. The former more obviously represents the deep desire a non-coercive God entertains for creatures in every moment of decision making - this desire opening up the possibility of alternative ways of being to that conditioned by the prevailing circumstance. As such, it is a promise for future actualization and is thus eschatological. Yet, to the degree that there is the conviction that this ideal represents God's present desire and is a sign of God's immediate presence to the person and community of faith, making available that which is supremely good, one can confidently declare with Jesus, "The kingdom of God is at hand."

What we have is a strong reminder that the integrity of claims concerning the kingdom/reign/will of God is linked to the privileging of freedom and choice for the sake of actualizing God's ideal (individually and communally). In fact, what Kung referred to as "the world" can now be interpreted as representing all personal and systemic conditions, such as those that formed the background to the vision of John and the ministry of Jesus, that undermine freedom and decision making and inhibit the capacity for positive prehension of that which would lead to satisfaction, or, better yet, fullness of life. Operating in opposition to "the world" is the history of God's rule through the word of promise and the Spirit of freedom.28 The awareness that God has an ideal intention for the cosmos of which the believer is a part heightens appreciation that each decision that is made has cosmic significance. Yet the awareness with the most radical significance is that God's aims reflect God's nature and have implications for God's well being. So then, in every "moment" of choice in relation to God's pursuit of intimacy, the individual believer and communities of believers are confronted with the challenges of eternity, and each decision has eternal significance. These give unfathomable meaning to every historical moment and constitute each moment as an ultimate moment.

It is by means of pneumatological language that the New Testament rounds off its testimony to that which results from intimacy with God. Thus, the Gospel of John represents this radical intimacy in terms of Jesus' unique identification with both God and Spirit (Jn 14:9ff.), such that he is able to initiate his disciples into the dispensation of the Spirit (John 20:22). In his portrayal of the Pentecostal event, the writer of Luke has Peter suggesting that the occurrences of that day were the fulfillment of Joel's prophetic expectation (Acts 2:14ff.). In further portrayals of life within the post-resurrection community, there is a preponderance of references to the central role of the Spirit - revealing, challenging, convicting, renewing. In quite important application, the apostle Paul makes direct connection between spiritual gifts and the personal development of individual believers, insisting that those ought to be exercised within the context of unity of purpose for the building up of the people of God (1 Cor 12). Writing to the Ephesians, he speaks about "the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." The ultimate purpose is explicitly stated, and this is not simply a matter of conforming to a particular polity or dogmatic system. Above and beyond these is the realization of authentic personhood (mature manhood) as each believer grows unto "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" and contributes to "the effective working and growth of the community of faith" (Eph 4:13, 16).

Paul exposes the dilemma of Christian believers through the ages, when, in Romans 7, he indicates that he is far from having achieved this goal. He is quite frustrated with his appropriation of the rich vision he's been afforded, as there is an ongoing tension between what he views as ideal and what he is able to achieve at any given time. "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate" (v. 15). Whatever his deficiencies, however, Paul is clear that God's ideal is very much at the center of his being (as a law), and continues to be a lure for him. And, whatever his condition of life and state of mind at any given time, Jesus as the Christ protects him from despair (w .24, 25). In the end, he is assured that nothing can separate him from the God with whom he is connected in the very depth of his being (Rom 8:1, 37-39), and who is present at every moment of decision making. Convinced that this is true for other believers, Paul challenges the Philippians to "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," because God with God's ideal aim was at work in them, "both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil 2:12, 13).

Our discussion translates into a powerful challenge for individuals and institutions concerned with the will of God/kingdom, of God/reign, and of God/God's ideal aim. They are challenged to give serious attention to the facilitation of those conditions that engender the freedom to make appropriate decisions for the sake of communion with God. Yet this could be quite intimidating for those who appreciate the extent of human frailty, both to understand and address what is needed in each moment. Whereas one ought to be awed by the significance of our decision making, it would be a travesty if that which was born in freedom led to the incapacitation that intimidation often results in. Thus, one must be careful how the framework of decision making is characterized. Clearly, an understanding of eternality (as in the classical scheme) that places God outside of the temporal-historical process immediately disqualifies the claims concerning the significance of our decision making. And the mere notion of a dipolar God who confronts us with ideals that have far reaching significance does not necessarily take us far from an antiseptic moralism. However, the appreciation that the one of whom we speak is Yahweh, the God of Israel, who "is eternal by his faithfulness through time" and that this eternity is "intrinsically a relation to his creatures . . .,"29 directs our attention away from the mere adherence to regulations toward the quality of a relationship. Further, if creation is an expression of God's love; that is, "It is the life-giving activity of God's creative love. 'God is love' (1 Jn 4:8) . . .,"30 the question becomes: how do we live as entities who, by simply existing, are expressions of God's love? Furthermore, how do we operate in response to the one by whose outpouring of love we exist? In effect, the central challenge in each moment of human experience is how to participate in a loving relationship with God; that is, by what means do we display our love for God and open ourselves to the ongoing presence of the creativetransformation that God's love enables? It is in regard to these intentions that the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ reveal "a God who, in love, seeks us out for reconciliation with God, ourselves, and one another; this love is freely and graciously given to us."31 Grasped by the power of this love we come to appreciate that:

If the coining kingdom is present in history as liberating rule, this liberating rule of God is manifest in his promises and in the proclamation of the gospel. The promises call people out of the environment in which they have settled down and put them on the path to the fulfillment of the promise. They free people from earthly slavery and call them to take the road to freedom. . . . The presence of the Holy Spirit is to be understood as the earnest and beginning of the new creation of all things in the kingdom of God.32

TOWARD AN ECCLESIOLOGY OF FREEDOM

Using existential-ontological language, John Macquarrie exposes an interesting perspective on the ultimate rooting of the church. The church, he asserts, is already implicit in creation because "creation is the outpouring of Being, whereby there is getting built up a commonwealth of beings freely united in love."33 Being (upper case) in ontological language is the equivalent of what in the language of faith is God. But the outpouring referred to does not represent some property or substance that constitutes the fixed substratum of the church as an entity. Instead, Macquarrie is referring to that which is at one and the same time the act or energy of existing and the existent entity in which this act expresses and manifests itself.34 The church is seen as the outgrowth of the self-expression of Being, so that to believe in creation is to believe in the church, and there is a sense in which the church was there "in the beginning" and is coeval with the world. There is an obvious attempt to nudge the church toward a more open and inclusive self-understanding as he suggests, "As far back as we can go, there has always been a community of faith." The church (ekklesia) is, then, the assembly that God had summoned, just as Israel was the nation that God had chosen.

On the basis of what is seen as the greater universalism of Hebrews, Macquarrie traces the history of faith back beyond Abraham, the founder of the Hebrew nation, to such mythical figures as Abel, Enoch, and Noah, who, he claims, belong to the whole human race.35 It is exactly because I appreciate the intention to remind the Christian community of its connection with the wider cosmic dynamic that I insist on a more restricted application of the term "church" than Macquarrie employs. We must resist that which could be used to support an inclusivism that can only appreciate the integrity of particular expressions of the "community of faith" to the degree that they can be identified with that institution that is most obviously identified with Jesus the Christ. Instead, in keeping with the process-relational understanding of God's relationship with the cosmos as a whole, I assert that the church has emerged from the wider community of those who have through the ages struggled in one way or another with what it means to align their subjective aim with God's ideal aim for them and for the cosmos.36

As it pursues God's ideal, the church needs to constantly remind itself and be reminded that even when it declares the kingdom of God to be present, it cannot rightly be identified with the reign of God. There is the real danger that because Jesus the Christ is perceived as both proclaiming and symbolizing the reign of God in its full meaning, the community that emerged as a direct result is mistaken for the basileia.37 Actually, the incarnation, which reached completion in Jesus, is in process in the church,38 and beyond the limitations of finitude, the church is not free from sin. Thus, "To apply to church what [in the New Testament] is said about the reign of God will inevitably lead to an intolerable glorification of the church, the presentation of an ecclesiologia gloriae with the church as its end."39 The church is instead "an anticipatory sign of the definitive reign of God: a sign of the reality of the reign of God already present in Jesus Christ, a sign of the coming completion of the reign of God."40 So important is the notion of anticipation to Moltmann that he views it as the first mediating category in the messianic sphere.41 Implicit in this notion is the admission that the highly prized and hoped for is not yet present. Yet there is also acknowledgment that the anticipated has determining significance for the present conditions of life.

The church is an anticipatory sign to the degree that the concrete expressions of its life point to God's desire for communion with the cosmos. In Kung's elaboration of the expected life-style of and within the church, the notion of freedom is prominent - the primary expressions pointing to "freedom to be and do certain things" and "freedom for the sake of certain things."42 However, the eschatological scenes in Jeremiah 31 and Revelation 21, along with process-relational claim that God is immediately present to each entity and addresses aims to them in their particularity, requires that we also highlight "the freedom of and "the freedom among" those who belong to the church. One recalls Luther's commentary on the status of those who have experienced redemption through God's grace. He asserts:

Not only are we the freest of kings, we are also priests forever, which is far more excellent than being kings, for as priests we are worthy to appear before God, to pray for others and to teach one another divine things. . . . Thus Christ has made it possible for us, if we believe in him, to be not only his brethren, co-heirs and fellow-kings, but also his fellow-priests. Therefore we may boldly come into the presence of God in the Spirit of faith [Heb. 10:19, 22] and cry "Abba Father?!" pray for one another, and do all things which we see done and foreshadowed in the outer and visible works of priests.43

This is a situation in which confidence in one's personal relationship with God is being encouraged. So too is a corporate life in which each recognizes their capacity and the capacity of others for deep insight and the ability to contribute to the spiritual welfare of others within the Christian community.

So often our lives within the church display the characteristics of what Kierkegaard presents as the second stage of the journey of faith. This moral or ethical stage represents progress from the individualism of the aesthetic stage, only to be subordinated to the universal; that is, the universal moral law, the realm of "thou shalt nots." The church, bent on control, sets itself up as the interpreter of the moral code, effecting punishment when these - by the church's estimation - have been contravened. The church, instead, ought to enable persons to operate from the standpoint of faith, in which, rather than being preoccupied with subordination to some impersonal universal law, the believer stands in immediate relationship to the supreme all-inclusive subject. Kierkegaard's popular example of the nature of this relationship is of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. This went against the universal moral law, but in faith he recognized that the absolute relationship of the individual to God transcended the universal. "The paradox of faith is this . . . that the individual . . . determines [his] relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not [his] relation to the absolute by [his] relation to the universal."44 Indeed, it is through the affirmation, in faith, of this relation to God that the human will become an individual in the highest possible degree.

Given his reaction to Hegel's "system," one imagines that Kierkegaard would be quite skeptical of the process-relational scheme as undergirded by universal metaphysical principles. However, it is exactly the foundational notions of this scheme that provide the conceptual means to explicate Kierkegaard's conviction concerning the significance of the individual's relationship with God. Along with this, it serves as corrective to the rabid insularity that arises when immediacy with God is highlighted at the expense of interconnection within the wider cosmic dynamic. In fact, we come to appreciate the necessary relationship between both. Thus, with substantial foundation, one can uphold an ecclesiological principle that is universal in scope exactly because it establishes the integrity of the personal and interpersonal. The principle is that the church ought to be a sphere in which the integrity of each participant is nurtured, with the recognition that this integrity depends on the exercise of freedom to process the personal individual address of God in relation to communal influence, and for the sake of communal good. As a result of this dynamic, the church is enabled to be God's agent in fulfilling the ideal aim for each individual and the cosmos as a whole.

It is obvious that the quality of contributions to the life and work of the whole Christian community (the church catholic) by each grouping of believers is determined by the internal dynamics of these groups and the individuals that comprise them. At the same time, Alfred North Whitehead reminds us that the quality of a society is determined by the way it provides a favorable environment for the subordinate societies within it.45 This refers to a general state of affairs within the church catholic that facilitates the highest fulfillment of potential; that is, the exercise of self-determination in the realization of God's ideal aims. When all this is understood as part of a network of interactions in which God is at one and the same time immediately present to individuals, particularized groupings, and the whole cosmic process, respect grows for the integrity for each and every pursuit of ideal aim. It will then become clear what Kung means when he suggests that the church is wholly present in every place, "endowed with the entire promise of the Gospel and an entire faith, recipient of the undivided grace of the Father, having present in it the entire Christ and enriched by the undivided Holy Spirit."46

This being the case, there cannot be a fixed template for the details of organization and procedure in each particular situation. Indeed, it has been a severe weakness of historic denominationalism that in the quest for notable identity and pervasive influence, diverse peoples and groupings have been pressed into suffocating types of uniformity. In this, the church's approach more resembles that of the first-century Roman overlords than the one whose life and death is seen as transforming and liberating. More recently, the so-called non-denominational congregation has been presented as a liberating alternative. Yet these churches are usually fully-determined by the vision of one or a few, and, despite their proclamations, they are equally in quest for dominance. Consequently, beneath the rhetoric of personal faith and the excitement of individual expression, there is resistance to diversity of opinion as attempts are made to construct single-minded adherence to specific propositions and practices. What place is there, then, for individuals to appropriate and work out the implications of God's ideal aims for them? And how much scope can there be for groupings of individuals in particular settings to work toward a community that reflects the unique outcome of their own contextual struggles in relation to other contextual struggles as influenced by intuitions of God's aim for the cosmos as a whole?

This discussion does not constitute anti-institutionalism, Instead, it should be incentive for the fostering of communities of faith that seek to live the creative tension occasioned by the eschatological vision as articulated in this paper. If nothing else can be predicted, it is clear that this structure ought to encourage individual pursuit of God's ideal aim. In the first place, it necessitates the nurturing of sensitivity to the validity of this pursuit. Along with this, there is need for a framework for the ongoing evaluation of individual intuitions - this in relation to other intuitions within the community, in conversation with the historic reflections on Christian intuitions, and in conversation with the text considered normative within the Christian community. There must also be the provision for creative interaction with representatives from the wider community of faith as together and separately attempts are made to discern collective and individual responsibility in God's intention for the cosmic organism as a whole. All this must be pursued with the appreciation that ultimately, we, with other identifiable communities of faith and entities of all kinds who constitute the cosmos, are together in communion with God. The eschatological visions in Jewish and Christian scripture not only remind us of this "fact," but encourage us to live in anticipation of that day when all the rich possibilities (imagined and unimagined) associated with communion with God will be realized.

Obviously, there are consequences for our approach to important features of church life, like fellowship and worship, teaching and outreach. In the first place, we become acutely aware that in worship we are not attempting to commune with a God who is distant or who requires particular protocol to ensure that which is desired. Instead, we are in touch with a God who is as close to us as Paul suggested to the Stoics and Epicureans: "He is not far from every one of us . . . For in him we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:27b, 28a). And even though many of the Pauline stripe might be disappointed that most of the world's population is not Christian, this fundamental bond persists. Each grouping of worshipping Christians is, therefore, not simply in solidarity with other groupings of Christians, but with all who have a sense of God's intimate connection with the cosmos as a whole and are interested in discerning God's ideal aim for this cosmos and their particular role in the realization of this aim at all levels of existence.

In this kind of Christian community, there will be more rather than less theological reflection at every level of church life. In the first place, there will be general engagement with and refinement of the metaphysical notions that serve as foundation for belief in a fundamentally interconnected and relational cosmos, whose process and end is worked out by means of a network of responses to the lure of God's intentions for each and all. The interpretational tools developed in this process would be applied vigorously and imaginatively in analysis of scripture, and of theological and anthropological notions developed over the course of Christian history. Interaction with other communities of faith and concern would be seen as essential for appropriate understanding of the Christian message, and, at the same time, sharpen efficiency in theological dialectic. This necessarily entails research, analysis, reevaluation, and explanation. If, as this writer hopes, the traits identified will characterize church life in general, then worship, fellowship, and outreach would need to be informed by a vigorous education process that does not avoid thorny theological issues but employs the best resources for meaningful explication for different levels of understanding.

The life force of the church is honored and nurtured in unique fashion by dramatic acts that celebrate the mystery of communion enjoyed with and because of the all-inclusive internally-relating God. As it stands, Protestantism recognizes baptism and the Lord's Supper (Holy Communion) as pre-eminent vehicles for the satisfaction of this intention. The former announces our engraftment into the ethos that emerged out of the life, death, and resurrection of one who was transparent to divine mystery. As such, the baptized in their finitude are provided unique access to the God of Jesus and the cosmos, such that we are able to enable others into new insight, which can lead to discernment of the summum bonum that this God entertains for each and all. What greater testament to communion, inter-relatedness, and transparency is there than the baptismal statement of Eph 4:4-6: "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Along with baptism, the real presence of the Christ is enacted by the Lord's Supper. By our participation in this communal meal, we are repeatedly sensitized to that which the life and death of Jesus the Christ had made transparent; that is, the abiding presence of God. And we are drawn ever deeper into a meaning system that binds us to God and to all who seek after divine presence.

Those who appreciate process-relational thinking should not be afraid to associate the term sacrament to these dramatic enactments. This begins with appreciation that the practices we engage in are really the tip of an iceberg that is the history of God's intimacy with the cosmos. It is God's internal relatedness that enables basic elements of life, represented in bread, wine, and water, to be properly symbolic, which means having the capacity to open us up to the hidden depths of reality, while participating in the power of that which is symbolized.47 Because of internal relatedness, God is in a sense consubstantial with the sacramental elements exactly because of being consubstantial with all life. Thus, by participation in acts perceived as sacramental, we are lured into the recognition that all of life can be sacramental. Even with his radical christocentric determinism, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin shows clear evidence that he was possessed by this spirit. In Hymn of the Universe, he speaks of being lost in the mystery of the flesh of God, and he prays:

Grant, Lord, that your descent into the universal Species may not be for me just something loved and cherished, like the fruit of some philosophical speculation, but may become for me truly a real Presence. Whether we like it or not by power and by right you are incarnate in the world, and we are all of us dependent upon you.48

Like every other aspect of the church's life, sacramental activity should be constantly evaluated within the framework of ongoing theological reflection. This reflection ought to explicate the church's grounding in God's cosmic incarnation and relate this to biblical eschatology, so that, with each baptism or Lord's Supper, there is heightened anticipation of that "time" depicted in Revelation 21, when all that presently hinders full experience of the divine presence is done away with. Until then, the church, operating in the spirit of that which is anticipated, should pursue for the sake of the cosmos and all who inhabit it the freedom, fellowship, and actualization associated with communion with God. It would do so with the appreciation that the ultimate eschatological lure is toward institutional obsolescence; that is, the time when "there is no temple there." This means intentionally nurturing its members such that deepened communion with God, informed by serious theological reflection, leads to a progressive experience of individual autonomy, whereby each is free to make decisions about his or her life with all the excitement and risk that this entails. Communion would not be mandated, nor service coerced through guilt or obligation. But together and separately, members would engage in ongoing interpretation and application of what it means to belong to what Macquarrie referred to as the "commonwealth of beings freely united in love."

Many view the present condition of numerical decline in some denominations as a liability. However, this might well constitute the optimum condition for expression and enablement of freedom, actualization, and communion. The larger the immediate group that one is involved in, the less likely it is that the particular requirements of individuality will be catered to, and greater the chance of depersonalization. And the perceived need to maintain consistent identity, and orderly process easily nurtures mechanisms of control. In the church, this usually takes the form of intellectual and psychospiritual oppression. On the other hand, smaller groupings of be lievers can allow for individual adventure with limited fear of chaos. At the same time, there is greater opportunity for concrete expression of freedom in community, as members of these small groupings exercise their joint priesthood through cooperate governorship of their spiritual welfare. In fact, there should be increased possibility of sensitive collaboration and the kind of theological engagement that addresses specific concerns and/or lays the groundwork for confident and informed pursuits. These processes will take place with the acute awareness that small groupings of Christians are important elements in a vast and complex arena where diverse communities are employing a variety of means to discern cosmic process and purpose. These become family with and for whom the church prays, constituting that wider fellowship with which it celebrates, and on whose wisdom it calls but must sometimes resist in the pursuit of God's ideal.

CONCLUSION

Contemporary anxieties have fostered defensiveness and sapped the vitality and imagination from many a Christian community. But it was exactly for times like this that eschatological visions like those of Revelation 21 are given. This is not for the sake of some other-worldly existence for which believers should hanker or to which they will be spirited away. Instead, the vision provides the kind of holistic vision of what is possible in order to guide and invigorate our efforts for transformation in the ongoing process of life. This is why the heavenly city descends into the midst of humans, and God and the lamb occupy center-stage. By means of these visions, we are to understand that the place of the church is not as some religious enclave, as tag-alongs to some political or social agenda, or as fragmented groupings of defeated skeptics. Instead, the Christian church has a calling to be a beacon of freedom and communion by its own internal dynamic and as it operates as an enlightened and enlightening partner in cosmic appropriation of God's desire for intimacy and community. A reading of the book of Revelation reminds us that the path to the New Jerusalem will be fraught with danger and at points will be absolutely frightening. Yet the vision represented in chapter 21 must ever be before us, even as we pray, "Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

1 This and all other biblical quotations are from The New Oxford Annotated Bible: Revised Standard Version (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977).

2 M. Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Preaching and Teaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989), 10.

3 Ronald Fanner, Beyond the Impasse: The Promise of Process Hermeneutic (Macon, GA.: Mercer University Press, 1997), 142-143.

4 Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment, 2d ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 11-12.

5 It is significant that after the charge is given concerning the seven churches (Rv 1:11), the son of man (Jesus) is portrayed as an imperial figure with seven stars (probably corresponding to the seven churches) and a two-headed sword issuing from his mouth (Rv 1:13-16).

6 Boring, 214, 218.

7 M. J. Charlesworth, St. Anselm's Prosologion with A Reply on Behalf of the Fool by Gaunilo and the Author's Reply to Gaunilo (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), 125.

8 Michael Miller, "Aquinas and His Detractors," TMs (unpublished paper), 10, 12; references taken from St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologaie, vol. 6 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1964), 89, 117, respectively.

9 A. N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, ed. Donald Sherburne and David Griffin (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 343.

10 Clark M. Williamson, Way of Blessing, Way of Life: A Christian Theology (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999), 106.

11 In short, the "ontological principle means that actual entities are the only reasons; so that to search for a reason is to search for one or more actual entities." See Whitehead, 24.

12 Whitehead, 344.

13 Ibid., 343

14 Williamson, 107.

15 Whitehead, 214-215.

16 Adrio Konig, The Eclipse of Christ in Eschatology: Towards a ChristCentered Eschatology (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1989), 62.

17 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 33-34.

18 John Cobb, Jr., God and the World (Eugene, OR.: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1998), 45ff.

19 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951), 191.

20 Without doubt Israel understood their covenant with God to be fundamentally one "of the heart" (Dt 4:29, 6:4-9). But it is not strange that, like other individuals and communities, Israel often struggled to ensure correspondence between what was understood as the ideal and the way things were in the ordinary transactions of life. Jeremiah's pronouncement was probably a reaction to the excesses of Josiah's reform.

21 Williamson, 206

22 Fiorenza, 3.

23 See ibid., 134-137.

24 John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Charles Scribners Sons , 1977), 348.

25 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Kingdom of God (Louisville: Westminster Press, 1999), 51.

26 Ibid., 53.

27 Hans Kung, The Church (New York: Image Books, 1976), 80-81.

28 Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Holy Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 190.

29 Williamson, 104.

30 Ibid., 138.

31 Ibid., 129.

32 Moltmann, 191.

33 Ibid., 347.

34 Ibid., 99.

35 Macquarrie, 347.

36 Actually, Macquarrie seems fixated on using Christian nomenclature when referring to the wider community of faith, and this complicates his ecclesiological declarations. He is clear that this community is wider than the church as the visible, historical Christian community, and this leads to the radical claim that "for this reason too, one cannot draw a hard and fast line between the church and the 'world.'" However, to establish the particularity of the Christian community, he must employ a burdensome qualification between "the church as that which is continuous with wider community that extends indefinitely both in time and space," and "the church itself, as the consciously Christian church, the community of those holding the Christian faith . . ." (ibid.).

37 Kung, 127.

38 Macquarrie, 348.

39 Kung, 130.

40 Ibid., 135.

41 Moltmann, 193.

42 Kung, 142.

43 Timothy F. Lull, ed., Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), 607; see "The Freedom of the Christian."

44 Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling and Sickness unto Death, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 80. See the former for a full discussion.

45 Whitehead, 99.

46 Kung, 121.

47 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 1, 240.

48 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hymn of the Universe (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1965), 21.

Michael St. A. Miller

Assistant Professor of Theology

Christian Theological Seminary

Copyright Christian Theological Seminary Spring 2003
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