ABSTRACT
The theology of incarnation discussed in chapter 4 leads, Ray S. Anderson argues, to certain ecclesiological implications. This chapter discusses his claims that the church is the ‘place’ where God is encountered as personal reality, through the evidences of Scripture and indwelling Spirit, and that the telos of the church is life in the Spirit, a formation towards real humanity consisting in a participation in Christ and in his ministry of love which is simultaneously ‘kenotic and ek-static’. Here in the space between the poles of Scripture and Spirit, as believers participate in Christ, Anderson notes that the church is to receive in love those who do not yet know how to respond in the faith and commitment to God that is associated with the Spirit-reception by which they may be joined into the divine-human communion. This chapter further considers the implications of these claims for the telos of the church and its ministry, implications which have a direct bearing on the goal of ecclesial leadership.
