Ecclesia semper reformanda est?

This Latin phrase, coined by the Reformers, means "the church always needs to be reformed." The following are my musings on the meaning of this phrase.

When we confess the Nicene Creed in worship, we claim that the church is "holy." That is true. The church is holy because Christ has called it his bride (Eph. 5:25-26). The church is holy because it is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Yet because the church is a fellowship of human beings, it is also sinful. It is blemished and imperfect. The church, therefore, is holy and sinful. Losing sight of this paradox can cause us to become either too pessimistic or too optimistic about the church.

The saints in the Christian faith always have a deep awareness of their sinfulness, and thus a deep awareness of their need to be constantly reformed. I think the same ought to be true of the church. "The church always needs to be reformed" because we recognize that it is broken and corrupt.

How do we go about that reform?

Here I think Martin Luther's life is instructive. Luther did not critique the Catholic Church from the outside; rather, he critiqued it from within. In point of fact, Luther's very ability to critique the church was the result of the fact that he had been positively shaped by the church. Luther's voice was not one of "external criticism but of a conscience reared within the tradition which it denounced. If Luther condemened the church on the authority of what he read in the Bible, or in the writings of St. Augustine, it was the church...who had put these documents into his hands" (Collinson, Oxford History of Christianity, 246). When Luther posted his 95 Theses on the church door in Wittenberg--a document which boldly critiqued the church's brokenness--he was not trying to start the "Protestant Reformation." He was trying to reform the church he loved.

To all zealous reformers of the church--the church needs your creativity, passion, and critique. It also needs your love. The church needs you to reform from within. I will let Derek Webb, a Christian artist who has written many songs about the church, have the last word.

"If you love me [Christ], you will love the church" (She Must and Shall Go Free, INO Records, 2003).