tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790396293521449566.post6317422849667877974..comments2023-10-02T11:36:45.006-04:00Comments on A Passionate and Determined Quest for Adequacy: Pastoral Authority in Unprogrammed FriendsAshley Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04767912859236943934noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4790396293521449566.post-74207614674927725732014-09-20T10:32:55.210-04:002014-09-20T10:32:55.210-04:00Having been raised Catholic, I was imbued with a d...Having been raised Catholic, I was imbued with a different version of this body "metaphor"; in Roman doctrine, it is not an internal, pastoral image but an external, ecclesiological one: the Church (as a visible institution) is the "mystical body" of the raised Christ in the world. This notion looks more to the earlier verses in the same 1 Corinthians chapter: <br />"12For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ. 13For in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bond or free; and were all made to drink of one Spirit. 14For the body is not one member, but many."<br />I brought that notion with me into Quakerism, but with a different, no doubt heretical, slant: rather than the imperial, triumphalist orthodox Catholic vision (the RC church is THE body), I see the "church" as an invisible "body," of which various denominations (and some non-church renegades) are "members" or organs. <br />And I've often pondered: which "organ" of this "body" might the Society of Friends be? When I'm feeling optimistic, I think -- "Maybe we're the pineal gland, a tiny organ which emits influences that shape much bigger systems in favorable ways"; when I'm pessimistic, I think, "Naaah; we're no more than the appendix, a shriveling and useless evolutionary relic."<br />Yet despite my changing moods, this notion of Quakerism as a functional, if often itchy or dyspeptic, "member/organ" of a larger body remains useful. And I don't think it's really incompatible with the internal pastoral vision, tho I admit I like it better.Chuck Fagerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14049779603153152188noreply@blogger.com