Church Streams

Just read an interesting overview of "ecclesiology" in The Encyclopedia of Religion. It quickly summarized the main streams of the church: Eastern, Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Congregational, and Baptist. The ecclesiological self-understanding of the Eastern church (Orthodox) resonates with me: "the church is the mystery of the communication of divine life to created nature" and "the church is . . . human reality permeated by the divinizing power that flows from the Incarnation and Pentecost" and "the emphasis is less on forgiveness of sins than on restoration of the image [of God's likeness] through participation in the divinizing energies."

This strikes me as a more feminine way of understanding the church than is characterized by the Western conception, which does tend to emphasize forgiveness of sins. Church, says the Eastern tradition, is not about repentance and forgiveness as much as it is about restoration and participation in the divine life.

I like that.