The Church as a Christian Community

Few organizations are as present in our cities and towns than churches. While every municipality has dozens of fraternal organizations, shops, and information centers, it is entirely common to look across a cityscape and see the spires of a steeple peeking out above the surroundings. However, the use of the word “church” to describe this buildings fall short of its original meaning, with the word indicating a body of people, joined for a specific theological purpose. Different Churches see different ways at succeeding at fulfilling this purpose. While the Church often seems antiquated in modern times, I will analyze its importance in the modern world. Finally, I will identify the place of the Church in the modern world. It is important to recognize I will be performing this argument and analysis from a Catholic perspective, and some vocabulary and answers will be distinctly Catholic. In this paper, I will analyze the place of the Church in theological discussion, and in the world. I will argue that the Church is a body of peoples, and that it has a specific purpose, a means for achieving this purpose, and a precise mission and place in the modern world.

The modern world too often views the Church as a singular building, were worship services are held and specific business is taken care of. However, this is not the case, and the Church is better described as group of peoples, with the origin of the word coming from the Greek term for “assembly” . Throughout this essay, I will use capitalization to identify between church: a building, and Church, a group of people. Even when it is understood that the Church is a body of people, it is still easy to only imagine the clergy, or the members of the bureaucracy of that body as being the...

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... mercy is made accessible because of the Church’s special existence in both natural and supernatural reality. Because of this, I conclude that the Church is a body of peoples who are united as the mystical Body of Christ, and exists in the world while simultaneously existing in a supernatural reality, so that it may convert all peoples and lead them to the Beatific Vision through Grace and God’s Mercy.

Works Cited

Boylan, Eugene. This Tremendous Lover. Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, 1947.

Catholic Church. Unitatis Redintegratio [Decree on Ecumenism]. Vatican City: Vatican Press, 1964.

Francis. America. By Antonio Spadaro. September 30, 2013. http://americamagazine.org/pope-interview.

Thomas. Summa Theologiæ. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Bros., 1947. http://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa/index.html.

Weaver, Natalie Kertes.