The idea of christian community

[Kai Steppan]

Dear members, i tried to use the search-function, but didn`t found an answer or a matching topic.
Maybe you can tell me something about this question:

When i prepared myself for my first "greater" exam earlier in the year i read about a question since (or in) the beginning of the baptist faith.
I read there were two different views about the topic "christian community", on the one hand the idea of an "inner christian community" and on the other hand the idea of an "outer christian community" (i think i`m remembering right but could check my notes if you have noch idea what i mean. To be more precisely.)

Can you explain me your view or the view of your congregation about the meaning of "inner" and "outer" community?

Thanks

Kai

[Dave Roberts]

Kai, I'm not certain that I can give you a great deal of help. In Baptist life in this country, the more frequently used terms are ones such as "active members" and "inactive members" or the pairing of "resident members" and "non-resident members." What each pairing there is trying to indicate is a measure of participation levels. Another term used is "leadership core" to indicate those who take a leading role in their congregation. I don't know if that gives you any help or not.

[Ed Pettibone]

[Kai Steppan]

Thanks for your posts so far, Dave and Ed.

Hm, i tried to remember, as far as i do so, the idea of "inner community" and "outer community" had nothing to do with active members in a congregation and more inactive members.

It was more in the direction that Baptists discussed the idea of a complete, world-wide christian community -> every (real) christian would be part of this community.
On the other hand there were the membership of the concrete community, in which the people were members.

But i`m not totally sure, which was the outer and which the inner community.

Anyway, thank you so far for your posts

[Haruo]

I was thinking something along the same lines, Kai, but decided to wait to see your response to Dave and Ed's suggestions. I was thinking maybe this was more like "full communion" vs. "partial communion" vs. "being out of communion", a distinction (or range of gradations) which is also found in many other Christian denominations. I am thinking of the degrees of communion between, say, the Roman Catholic Church; the non-Roman (e.g. Byzantine, Maronite etc.) Catholic churches that are in full communion with Rome and acknowledge the Roman understanding of the Petrine Primacy; the Eastern Orthodox Churches that do not acknowledge the Pope's primacy and who maintain their own apostolic succession of patriarchs; groups like the Anglican Communion, the Old Catholics, etc., or Orthodox churches that are a bit beyond the normal degree of foreignness (e.g. some of the Copts, and the Ethiopians); Moravians and Lutherans; then passing into some degree of heterodoxy with the Calvinists, the Anabaptists, the Moravians, the Waldensians... the Baptists, the Quakers, the Christian Unitarians, the Swedenborgians, the Christian Scientists, the Mormons, the (New) English Shakers, the (Indian) Shakers, and on and on, getting less "inner" and more "outer" as they go. Baptists would arrange the map differently, with their own local congregation in loco papae perhaps, and with the Catholics on the fringes of orthodoxy... I'm kidding, to a degree, but sometimes it feels like I'm serious...

[Sandy]