Jonathan Brink: Help-which denomination was Jesus?

Jonathan Brink over at his blog called Missio Dei asks, Help - Which denomination was Jesus?. I won’t try to give a direct answer to the question, but I do have a link to some resources that are helpful.

In the process of doing background research for my thesis on an aspect of ecclesiology, I came across a set of audio recordings from a conference held a decade ago on the question, “What is the True Church?” The link goes to the collected lectures in the Francis Schaeffer Institute Lecture series. This series is about halfway down the lengthy list, and took place in 1997. The speakers included J.I. Packer, presenting the Anglican perspective, Father Richard John Neuhaus presenting the Roman Catholic view, Father Nicholas Triantafilou with the Eastern Orthodox viewpoint, Dr. Roger Pitelko presenting the Lutheran perspective, and Dr. Douglas Kelly with the Reformed view. Each speaker made his presentation with regard to distinctives, commonalities, and grounds for intra-denominational cooperation in various spheres, and afterward answered questions from the other speakers on the panel.

After listening to each of the presentations and the questions and answers, I didn’t come away with anything like a definitive answer to Jonathan’s question. But the speakers did expose me to thinking that challenged my presuppositions and traditional inheritances, forcing me to consider some of them carefully. As a result I think I am forced to moderate some of my views, I am confirmed in some others, and in all I come away with a new respect and higher regard for other streams in this strange and wonderful creation of Christ’s, the church.

With that in mind, I suppose I could take a small stab at answering Jonathan’s question: Jesus would go into the church that was nearest at hand, and would urge us all toward greater cooperation with those who may differ from us on some points so long as we find unity on the core truths of his life, atoning death, resurrection and plan of redemption and restoration.