the koan: a (perhaps) last remark

i have discovered in my old age roland allen, whose insistant idea of what constituted "church" was based on pauls' missionary methods, not ours. when a local group of believers have received the bible, the creeds, the sacraments, and the ministry, they are as much church as rome or canterbury or constantinople or antioch, or even jerusalem. of course his continuing problem with "the church" as it already existed was that there was no willingness for bishops to share "their" ministry--or at least the ministry which is often seen seen as "theirs" rather than the church's.

there are two things that strike me full-in-the-middle-of-the-forehead about his writings.

the first is that what he sees as constituant of the church is exactly the contents of the chicago-lambeth quadrilateral.

the second is his insistance, in which i find he is painfully correct, that we fail to trust the holy spirit.