EARLY CHURCH TRAJECTORIES

Despite its apparent hyperbole, the above statement reveals trends and tensions that are deeply embedded in the Scriptures and traditions of the church. The dominion of God demands forms of life that respond to divine justice and goodness. These, however, are never fully realised. This generated an eschatological hope that came to be measured and reassessed by the life and crucifixion of Jesus, now risen, ascended and present to his community. What arrives in the life of the church is both an anticipation of the coming rule of God and partial fulfilment of this by the grace of Christ's resurrection. In this tension between the now and not yet of Christian existence, there is a perpetual reserve and criticism of all earthly forms, yet also a recognition that these forms, within their limits, can be providentially ordered. The church is never without blemish nor is it coextensive with the world. But by the action of the Spirit both may in surprising ways conform in some measure to the will of God. In this dialectic setting, we find theologians of the early church expressing the faith in ways that reflect their own historical circumstances. With varying degrees of dissonance, they write about the tensions, competing loyalties and dispositions of Christian living.