Bishop Leslie Newbigin has recently written a book on the church with the attractive title, The Household of God. As most people know its title is taken from three passages in the New Testament.¹ The first and most important is in Ephesians 2:19. Writing to Gentiles in this passage, St. Paul says, "So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints and members of the household of God." There can be no question that this was a common name for the church in the most primitive period. This household has a structure; it is "built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are built into it for the dwelling place of God in the Spirit." Notice that this building, whose foundation stones and chief cornerstone are already in position, is to grow into a holy temple. All are built into it, both kleros (clergy) and laos (laity). Its character as a holy temple is not destroyed by the fact that the laity form a part, for the laity are the clergy, for all are priests to officiate in that temple. For our present task no figure of the church is so fitting and important as that of 'the household of God.' In the first place, a family is a dynamic entity--children grow into a family. By nature they become more worthy sons and daughters of the Head of the family. This growing process may be very painful. We grow in stature and we grow in character. There are good sons and daughters and worthless sons and daughters. Further there is always plenty of work to do in a family. Each has his task to perform. The text in [63] Ephesians 2:19-22 makes it clear that there is grace given to enable the children to grow up. This is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Here, in this home, we lay the foundation of our heavenly home, and for this we have the earnest (arrhabon). This 'earnest' points back to the foundation stones, the apostles and prophets, and the chief cornerstone, Jesus Christ Himself, for the Holy Spirit 'abides in Him' and reveals Him to us. Jesus Christ is our 'elder brother' and Him we imitate. Still further, in any well regulated family, there are tasks which are graded, but in this family every task is a priestly task. There will be pastors and teachers and there will be laymen and laywomen, though all are priests. There will be old and young, experienced and inexperienced, though all will be adult.

      Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of the witnesses of the confessing church in Germany, and one of the victims of the Gestapo in the Second World War, has called the laymen's movement 'adult Christianity.' It was one of his convictions that man had 'achieved adulthood' and that, therefore, the church must not deal with people as if they were still children. This is a household of adults. Surely the Reformation in the Church of Rome arose because the church failed to realize that Europe had become adult, and Luther, Zwingli and Calvin proceeded to take the people seriously as adults. Otherwise there would have been no break away from Rome.

      Recently Dr. Hans Hermann Walz lectured in the School of Religion, Butler University. He was for some years Assistant Director of the Ecumenical Institute of Bossey, Switzerland, and Secretary of Laymen's Work of the World Council of Churches. He is now Executive General Secretary of the Evangelischer Kirchentag (the Laymen's Movement) in Germany. The same lecture he gave at the Greater Boston Ecumenical Institute on July 19th, 1954. I quote from the lecture as published in The Shane Quarterly, Vol. XV, October, 1954. At the outset of the lecture he suggests three main points with which his lecture will deal:

1. Only if the Christian community makes a determined effort to be closer to the kind of life which many of its lay members have to live in industry and business, in politics, social relations, and cultural activities, can it hope to extend to its influence beyond the limited number of those who, by sheer tradition or by the lack of initiative rather than by firm conviction, are members of the church. This may be called the evangelistic aspect of laymen's work. [64]
2. Only if the work done and the life lived by Christian laymen in the world are seen and experienced as truly representative of the nature and mission of the church, can Christianity attempt to be what it ought to be--the salt of the earth and the light of the world. This is, as it were, the missionary aspect of laymen's work.
3. Only if Christians are prepared to give unfettered recognition to the relative values in secular things will they be able to witness to the uniqueness of the redemption brought about by Jesus Christ, which is more than just a solution to some technical, scientific, or moral problems. This may be called the priestly aspect of laymen's work.²

      In discussing the evangelistic aspect of laymen's work, Dr. Waltz remarks that in many countries Christianity has become a middle-class affair. Certainly in the more respectable denominations the working-class are missing. Many who should be Christian leaders are trade union leaders without that measure of Christian conviction which would make their leadership more valuable. In some countries there are factory-chaplains, and this is perhaps a second best thing. The idea of worker-priests has its value until the workers discover that they are priests in disguise. They ought to be workers and priests, but neither workers in disguise nor priests in disguise, rather honestly workers and priests. Often the moral standards and spiritual outlook and the human conduct which prevail in churches is of a pietistic pattern which leaves the world outside 'cold.' Much of our Christianity is entirely irrelevant to the problems of our day, both political and social. The trained parson can hardly hope to touch these. Christians mostly are not breathing the air of modern life and many parsons are cushioned from modern life. Many people have a deep-rooted suspicion of the spoken word, especially if spoken by a parson. It is part of his propaganda. Ultimately they utter the crude jibe, "It is what he is paid for saying," forgetting that it is laymen who pay him! Ministers and church workers at least have some vested interest in saying what they do. The church "has lost much of its authenticity in the eyes of many outside the church--and even of quite a number of churchgoers."³ Dr. Walz then goes on to show how much more valuable is the same word spoken by a worker layman in a factory or office. "It is the [65] unpretentious presence of Christians in the actual working of modern life that will draw to Jesus Christ the attention of some of those who do not know Him."⁴

      In dealing with the missionary aspect of Laymen's Work, he begins by saying it is the Christian nature to be missionary. So the church becomes the 'salt of the earth.' He insists that the mission of the church is more than converting a number of individuals, important as this is. "The mission of the church is not one of its activities. But it is its raison d'être. By its very nature the church is a missionary community; for its being is to be sent. Thus the church is related to the world from the very beginning."⁵ It is a 'city set on a hill.' At least it is seen and cannot be hidden. As salt, it prevents the world from becoming stale. The world has a natural tendency to Totalitarianism and so some types of Christianity are happy to confer in this. In fact they are themselves a type of Totalitarianism. But we are not aiming at a closed universe--a static affair. Our universe is open and throbbing with life. So the church is a block to all system-mongers. He points to a paradox in the church. It strives to be one and is so striving today, but as Melancthon said, it is 'the community of the dispersed.' Without dispersion there is no active salt. "It is the laymen, not gathered in a church building, but busy everywhere in the world, who must truly represent the church as an element of stimulation, of creativeness and criticism, as a challenge demanding response which means life for the world."⁶ Dr. Walz then points to three attitudes Christian laymen should have. First, they should have reliability opposed to conformism and opportunism. They should be less disturbed by changes and new powers and ideas than other folks. They should not oppose the new, because it is new. Others should want them as friends. Secondly, they should have openness of mind and avoid routine. They need imagination. They should not be 'wooden' or 'cast-iron.' Thirdly, and most needed, they should have a sense of humor. Their human relations should be held 'lighter.' The world is overserious built on success and efficiency. These three things are comprised in love (agape). "Love is the most perfect expression of the nature of the church, because it means being for others."⁷ Dr. Walz has no objection to the church as the body of Christ, even to an [66] organization. But these other things must be there and chiefly expressed by its laymen.

      In dealing with the priestly aspect of Laymen's Work, Dr. Walz emphasizes that the chief task of laymen is to witness to the uniqueness of the redemption in Christ Jesus, "which is more than just the solution of some technical, scientific, or moral dilemmas."⁸ He regards this as the most important aspect of all and the least recognized. He knows only about a dozen writers in recent years on the social problem, who have begun to realize the importance of this aspect. Amongst these he mentions two laymen, J. H. Oldham of the Christian Frontier Movement in Britain, and Gabriel Marcel, the philosopher scientist and existentialist of France. The proper tasks of priests is not to feed people, build houses, to order society, etc. That is the proper task of 'the people of the world' including the laity of the church. The proper tasks of priests is "to reconcile with God the feeding of people, the governing of a nation, the scientific penetration of nature."⁹ The priest as God is, must be the true servus servorum (the servant of God's servants). He is sent by the Holy Spirit and must emulate the hymn of Blanco da Siena of the fifteenth century:

That is the true priestly disposition which the royal priests of God must show. This feeling "may lead some people into the ministry, some even into the desert or to a monastery; but it certainly leads many people to accept their ordinary work as the thing they have to do, knowing however that it is secular, transient, and ultimately relative."¹⁰ For "in principle, working at the assembly lines, if done to the glory of God, is not less Christian than teaching the Bible; and preaching a sermon is not more religious than speaking in parliament, although the one thing helps to build the church and the other to maintain life on earth."¹¹ It will be remembered that I quoted something with the same meaning from Luther in my first [67] chapter and quoted a poem from George Herbert, the country priest of the seventeenth century, in the same chapter. It is the question of the spirit in which one undertakes one's job. "Sanctification means doing human things with the belief that God has redeemed the world and, therefore, with the hope that men may become a means of the Divine love.¹² The priest-worker can never approach the world in a superior manner, superior in mental outlook, or superior in the doing of the work. He must go about it in true humility. "Laymen are by definition people who are mainly occupied with transient things. It is to those people that Jesus may want to say 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."¹³ It is in this spirit that I have dared to broach the subject of the royal priesthood of all believers, that is of the church. I am not trying to set up a quarrel between the official pastor and the priest-layman. Each has his work to do, but in the official pastor it must be work not for mere salary, not for pride of place, not for counting numbers: it must be work done for Christ and His church and for the good of the people. It, too, must be priestly; filled with humility and imaginative sense. He lives and dies for the church and for the redemption of that part of the world in which he serves. So must the work be done by the royal priesthood of believers, the lay ministry. The lay-minister is able to understand better the needs of the world and the temper of the world. He is sheltered in no 'hot house,' but his 'cell' is in the hearts of the people. In performing a true priestly ministry, he will often appear to the man of the world, as more sincere than the official pastor and will thus gain an advantage. But this is no matter for boasting nor for rivalry with the official ministry of the church, for it is all for the glory of God alone. He prays for the gift of the Holy Spirit, that he may walk like Jesus, and evermore glorify and magnify the name of God. In a way, he can claim to be walking in the steps of Jesus, more than the official minister, for Jesus did not Himself belong to an official class in the Jewish church. He worked among men and understood men. But this leaves the layman no room for boasting again, for Jesus Himself was 'lowly and meek.'

      But what I have said is dangerous, for human beings have a way [68] of boasting even of their humility. Let all remember that such boasting is the highest form of pride. It defeats its own ends. As St. Augustine said, such boasting of humility is the greatest temptation to falling into the sin of pride. Whatever else Christianity excludes, it excludes snobbery and pride, even the pride of humility and the snobbery of not being a snob. Both in the official ministry and in the lay ministry, we just have to be ourselves. "Good men and women full of the Holy Spirit" as Barnabas was. Do not be deceived and led to think from modern pentecostal forms of religion, that the Holy Spirit is given to boasting. In the Scriptures, he is the most self-effacing being spoken of. He does not speak of himself, but takes of the things of Christ and reveals them to us. So have we been entrusted, both the official and lay ministry, with taking the things of God and revealing them to men and women of this world. We are stewards and cannot be false to our stewardship, or we fail in a trust.

      The question I have been discussing in these lectures is receiving more and more attention in the church around the world. The Kirchentag is famous in Germany and playing an important part in revivifying the evangelical church in that country. The matter of the worker-priests in the Roman Catholic Church in France, since its condemnation by the Pope has become world news. I venture to think that along with Church Union it will become one of the most important subjects before the World Church in the next decade. It is the part of the great Reformation we have neglected. Even our task of union cannot proceed without notice of it and that is why the World Council of Churches has set up a commission to study the matter and why at Bossey in Switzerland they run the Ecumenical Institute mainly for the theological training of laymen and laywomen. There is a rising feeling that the official minister needs the witness added by the layman and laywoman. Only this morning (March 14th) The Star newspaper of Indianapolis contained a report of an N.B.C. television broadcast. The President of the National Council of Churches claimed that a boom was coming in church membership. He and others claimed that this might lead to fanaticism unless there was a greater supply of trained ministers. Dr. Nathan M. Pusey, President of Harvard University, spoke on the importance of laymen in Christian service.

The idea that the church is the responsibility of the minister is [69] completely wrong. We need a growing sense that the way any job one does can be a Christian calling . . . a man can be in the service of God, or he can be in service for his own advancement or interest.

. . . If he follows his calling in the service of God . . . he is in a sense, a minister.¹⁴

      This is all I have been trying to say but with such testimony from such a servant of God my words are strengthened. [70]

[CTR 63-70]