News

What is your image of the Church?

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

DE PERE -- Do you think of the church as a kingdom, with all the teachings flowing from God to the pope to the magisterium and downward? Or do you see the church as the people of God, with gifts given and shared between all its members for the common good?

The way you view your society, the culture in which you live, even your age can affect how you view the church and the way you practice your faith.

That's the insight Dr. Howard Ebert hopes people will gain from his workshop on "The Nature and Mission of the Church: Contemporary Theological Perspectives" held at the "Leadership Convocation 2007: We Believe," Friday, Oct. 5, sponsored by the Diocese of Green Bay at St. Norbert College in De Pere.

"I'd like to help people understand that how we image the church has a real impact on how we view the church's interaction with the world and with culture, on how we evangelize and on what are the forms of evangelization we use," said Ebert, director of the Masters of Theological Studies program at St. Norbert.

"Our understanding of the church is very contextual," he said. "That raises the question of what is essential and what is not."

He hopes the workshop's discussion will encourage participants to challenge their views on the church, step outside comfort zones and realize how the church remains a constant mystery - since Christ in God is a constant mystery - that has been addressed in different ways in different times of history.

"The more we understand the healthy diversity of models and views in the church in theology," said Ebert, "the more we're able to respond to the distinctive needs of people in our own times." As a basic model for discussion, he intends to refer to Cardinal Avery Dulles' classic book, Models of the Church.

Ebert has taught at St. Norbert for 20 years and sees a distinct difference in how students today view the church as opposed to when he was a student at St. Norbert.

"The present generation has made me analyze my own views of authority in the church," he said. "Millennial students have a deeper appreciation of authority than I do. They have been raised at a time when authorities have protected them and been on their side. My own generation grew up when so many things about authority were called into question by things like Watergate and the Vietnam War."

He also believes the younger generation's more positive image of authority helps explain, in part, why the late Pope John Paul II was so popular with young people.

This comparison of generations has, he said, given Ebert the insight to "be aware that different models of viewing the church are needed at different times and that there is a need not to discard any model completely."

(For a Leadership Convocation registration brochure, visit www.gbdioc.org and click on "Leadership Convocation 2007 We Believe.")