The Proclamation of Free Grace, Pt. 4
The Church’s Freedom for the World in the Present
About the author: Sara Mannen is the McDonald-Agape Research Fellow in Systematic Theology at the University of Aberdeen. She is working with Professor Tom Greggs on the Ecclesiology After Christendom project. Sara recently completed her PhD on divine personhood in Karl Barth. She is passionate about theological study, especially modern and contemporary doctrines of God, and its import for the life of the church and world. She lives in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, with her husband and two daughters.
What does a church that takes seriously its calling to proclaim grace look like today? What keeps one persevering in the faith and ministry against seemingly insurmountable pressure and problems?
I do not want to dismiss or lessen the reality of the stress that many pastors and ministers face. I have also faced these questions and paid a steep price to address them. Because I know this despair, I want to end on a note of hopeful, humble confidence in the God of grace by examining how the commission to proclaim divine grace frees the church to be for all people in the present. The word of God’s grace is creative and opens up fresh ways for the church to visibly declare the message of grace for all people—the church is freed to be uniquely for all in its concrete context.
First, the message of God’s grace is for all people. Therefore, the church is called to be for all people. Barth was adamant that the church could never be for its own sake; rather, just as the message of grace was intended to go to the whole world, the church is called to go into the world:
“It goes with it [message of grace] into the whole world; with it, and for its sake, to make it concrete and clear, then certainly also in the form of relief work and (let us hope, clever and bold) political decisions. It delivers the message as God’s message ‘to all people.’ Therefore the Church itself is there for all people.”1
The purpose of the church to witness to the free grace of Jesus Christ was never a mere verbal proclamation. The church is called to repeat this message in being radically for others—for all people. The church is to make free grace visible in the way that people live in the world.2 A key evaluative question ministries and churches can ask themselves is: How are we visibly proclaiming grace to our community? Are we inclusive and truly open to all?
Second, the church's life—its commission to proclaim free grace—is based on the power of the word of grace. Vitally, this word and message is the creative power of the word of God’s grace: “The uniqueness, the plain extraordinary character of this message is inexhaustible, and that is what will make the Church free and will establish the right and duty of its existence again and again.”2
An inexhaustible, creative, and powerful message of grace sustains the church. The message of grace is nothing but the God who is eternally for us in Jesus Christ and at work in the world through the Spirit. The inexhaustible and creative nature of the Word has at least two implications for the church—the church can have confidence that the message of free grace will produce or create free Christians and that the church can expect grace to open up creative and new ways for the church to be in the world. Further, Barth was confident that even when the church was lazy, disobedient, and incompetent, the message it preached would continue to produce free Christians:
“Above all … it [the message of grace] has a way of producing, suddenly and anew, now here, now there, men who are in fact free, that is, nimble, humble, questioning, seeking, asking, knocking men, and in this sense free Christians, Christians who dare to begin in a truly fresh way at some place or other.”3
The church can be confident that the message it is sent to proclaim is powerful and creative because it is the word of the living God’s grace. For this reason, Barth was confident that free Christians would never cease to arise again and again.4 Since the church today seeks to proclaim this same message, it should have the same confidence in the message’s power and productivity.
The living and endless character of the message of grace is creative. The church is continually given new ways to bear witness to Christ in the present context. The church is freed to live in its current context and to be creative while seeking to visibly proclaim the message of God’s grace. Barth expected that grace would “move” and adapt the church to live its commission in the particular situation it finds itself in as the world and culture continually change:
“Because it is grace, it will point out and open up new ways to the Church, which dare not cut itself off from walking in these new paths: new ways of seeing and addressing men concretely; new ways of soberly estimating human things in general and also political and social things, fearlessly calling them by name in their contexts.”5
The creativity and ever-new nature of the message of grace free the church to consider what it means to be the church in its local context and to ask: What does a visible proclamation of grace for all look like in my community?
I cannot answer specifically what that might look like in your community. Still, I know that God’s grace gives us the creativity to constantly rethink what it means to be church in a changing world and the confidence that the message of grace is powerful.
I do not offer these as definitive patterns. Still, I wanted to end with two examples of churches creatively engaging their local communities as visible witnesses to grace, even amidst difficult circumstances. I used to live in a community where local churches and the local district attorney’s office worked together to create a program in the local jail to help reduce recidivism—a growing problem in our local community. The program was offered to inmates who willingly volunteered to live and study together. The course of study covered various topics and provided vital connections and resources after inmates were released. This creative and collaborative effort sought to embody the message of God’s grace to a population often forgotten or marginalized in local communities. I also think of declining congregations that have carefully and prayerfully considered how to help their local communities with their buildings. Instead of clinging to past successes and attendance numbers, these churches recognized that giving their buildings back to their local communities to help provide desperately needed community spaces was the best option for fulfilling their purpose as a church. In both these examples, the church responded to a present need in their local community, and their responses embodied and witnessed God’s grace.
I know countless other stories of churches thinking beyond their walls and seeking to creatively engage their communities with the message of God’s grace in the here and now. The church can face the present knowing the message of grace is living and active for all people. From this conviction, each congregation can discern how it can best be the church in our changing world.
Karl Barth, “The Proclamation of God’s Free Grace,” in God Here and Now, trans. Paul M. van Buren (Routledge, 2003), 50.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 53.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 53.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 53.
Barth, “Proclamation,” 44.