Who is Responsible for
the Cultural Mandate? The Church Organized or Organic?
For a book devoted to ecclesiology,
one of CC’s greatest weaknesses was
its inconsistency about the church’s mission.
While Keller affirms that there is a cultural mandate, the million dollar
ecclesiological question is whether the cultural mandate belongs to the church organized
(the corporate, gathered body) or organic (the individuals who make up the
church as they scatter into the world).
How does Keller answer the question?
It depends on which page you read.
For example, from the following quotes Keller teaches that the cultural
mandate is exclusively the function of individual Christians as they live godly
lives in the work place, school, and neighborhood:
…it
is important to remind ourselves of the critical distinction between the
‘church institutional’ and the ‘church organic.’ Abraham Kuyper taught that the
church institutional was the gathered church, organized under its officers and
ministers. It is called to do ‘Word and
sacrament’—to preach the gospel, baptize, and make disciples. This he distinguished from the church
organic, referring to all Christians living in the world who have been
discipled and equipped to bring the gospel to bear on all of life. (240-41)
…it
is best to think of the organized church’s primary function as evangelizing and
equipping people to be disciples and then sending the ‘organic
church’—Christians at work in the world—to engage culture, do justice, and
restore God’s shalom. In many
expositions of the missional church, this distinction virtually disappears.
(268)
So
we hold that the institutional church should give priority to Word ministry,
but we also teach that Christians must do both word and deed ministry in the
world—and the church should equip them to do so. (324-25)
On the other hand, there are other paragraphs
where Keller records that the institutional church has a theological obligation
to meet the social mandate and fulfill mercy ministries.
