Ecclesiology
Introduction
In searching for the public theology of Bosch, we would need to answer the questions posed
at the end of chapter 2: “What did Bosch think the church is, or is supposed to be?” This is
intertwined, at least within the theology of Bosch, with the relation between church and
world. In Livingston’s analysis of the theology of Bosch, the alternative community is the
most important concept in the ecclesiology of Bosch (Livingston 1990:5). The alternative
community is not a popular concept within public theology, as is illustrated in Storrar’s
(2007:8-9) reaction to the work of Hauerwas and Willimon (see 1989).
The alternative community in the writings of Bosch
The alternative community is a very important concept in the writings of Bosch, at least for
the period dating from the late 1970’s till the early 1980’s, when he explicitly used these
words, and possibly also later (Livingston 1990:11). Bosch stressed the importance of this
concept for his theology with title he chose for an article that the Journal of Theology for
Southern Africa asked him to write. The journal came into existence in 1972, and in 1982 it
approached a number of theologians in Southern Africa asking how their minds had changed
in the past ten years. The subtitle of Bosch’s article was “Mission and the Alternative
Community” (Bosch 1982:6). After first explaining his understanding of mission, he says:
“Perhaps it would be correct to say that, in the course of time, the essence of my thinking in
this area has crystallised in the concept of the church as the ‘alternative community’” (Bosch
1982:8).
The alternative community around Jesus
On various occasions Bosch uses a specific argument in which he points out how Jesus
provided an alternative to all other options available within the Judaism of his time. This
argument is then frequently linked to his own understanding of the alternative community
(see Bosch 1975:4-7; 1979:56; 1982d:3-15; Nicol 1993).
In Bosch’s picture of the historical Jesus he time and again sets Him against the backdrop of
other Jewish groups. The four groups Bosch uses are the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the
Zealots and the Essenes, and he also uses these as analogies for possible choices confronting
the church today on how to approach mission.
The first option available to Jesus was that of the Sadducees. They worked with a theology of
the status quo, working within the politico-sociological framework, accepting the Roman
rule. It was a form of political realism; they knew that the Roman rule could not be
overthrown. This evolved to the point where it even appeared that they were defending
Roman rule (Bosch 1975:4; 1982d:5-6). We choose this option when we feather our own
nests in the name of religion, and adopt a version of religion of which the purpose is to
satisfy our own need (Bosch 1984:31).
The second option would have been that of the Pharisees, who despised the Sadducees
because of their involvement with politics. Bosch regularly describes them as the Pietists of
their day. They busied themselves with that which was purely religious, the classification of
the whole of life into what was clean and what was unclean. This option would advocate a
purely religious ministry that concentrated on evangelism alone, and steered clear of politics
(Bosch 1975:5; 1982d:6-7; 1984:31).
The third would have been that of the Zealots2, an underground political movement, directly
opposed to the Sadducees. They answered the Roman force with force; they were the
freedom fighters of the day. They represented a theology of revolution, and identified the
reign of God with institutional reform. Jesus was closer to this group than to the other three,
but still rejected it (Bosch 1975:4-5; 1982:7). Bosch (1984:31) called this option of diverting
the course of history by overthrowing the status quo with the hope of ushering in Utopia,
“vain hope”.
The fourth option would have been that of the Essenes who withdrew from public life to
live in a faithful community, waiting for the final judgment of God (Bosch 1975:5).
Theirs is a theology of the ghetto, a theology of asceticism (Bosch 1982d:8). Bosch
(1984:31) identified this with the survival preparation evident in some groups today
which retreat out of this world and wait for God to destroy the world and our enemies.
But the Jesus which Bosch portrays provided an alternative to all of the above. More than
this, the alternative that Jesus provided was seen as a threat by all of the above groups. So
for once they chose to ignore their own differences, mere squabbles compared to the
depth in which all of them differed from Jesus, in order to get rid of him. And in this,
three of the four groups joined hands in the crucifixion of Jesus. The Essenes were not
part of this. In any case they would not have dirtied their hands by attacking Jesus;
According to their view God would deal with this man from Galilee in his own way
(Bosch 1975:5; 1982d:8-9; 1984:32).
The early church
Bosch sees a continuation between the way of Jesus, and that of the early church: “the
early church retained the consciousness that a radically new age was inaugurated by
Jesus” (Bosch 1982d:17). Although this is used much less than the argument about the
new community surrounding Jesus, Bosch also uses the early church as an example of
being an alternative community. This was a source of wonder for both those inside as
well as outside the church. In this alternative community, contrary to the Roman Empire,
Jews and Greeks, slaves and freemen, males and females are all on equal level. It is time
and again with a sense of wonder that those on the outside of the church become
interested in this new community (Bosch 1979:223; 1982d:30).
The alternative community in creative tensions
Throughout Bosch’s work, his approach of holding on to a creative tension between
theological concepts which seem to be mutually exclusive, is apparent. This led to the
title of a Festschrift for his sixtieth birthday entitled Mission in Creative Tension: A
dialogue with David Bosch. An essential feature of Bosch’s missiology, indeed his
theology, is the way in which he holds seemingly incompatible theological emphases in
creative tension (Kritzinger & Saayman 1990:1).
The church finds itself constantly being both in and not of this world (Bosch 1975:4). For
Bosch there is a need for these two realities to be kept in a delicate tension, but all too
often one of these dimensions is forgotten. It is in keeping this creative tension that Bosch
made use if the concept of the Church as alternative community (Livingston 1990:11).
On the one hand Bosch consistently warns against the Church becoming a Christian
ghetto (Bosch 1975:5; 1979:224; 1982d:8; 1984:31), and on the other he points to the
danger of the church becoming either redundant by doing exactly that which any other
social organization could have done or by losing its critical voice through becoming
inseparably related to, and sometimes indistinguishable from, the institutions of this
world (Bosch 1979:224; Livingston 1990:12). The concept of the alternative community,
as understood by Bosch, provides a way to keep this tension intact. He stresses that the
alternative community exists not for the sake of the church, but for that of the world. The
significance of the church for the world lies in its being uniquely separate from the world,
although for Bosch this did not imply not involved with the world. We work on the
renewal of the church and in doing so, also on the renewal of society (Bosch 1982b:8-9;
Livingston 1990:5). Christians may never withdraw themselves from the world, from the
tasks of the world or from public life, but must take part in it (although by serving, not
reigning) (Bosch 1979:224). Political and social factors may never become taboo to the
church. At the same time church and world must always be distinguishable from each
other (Bosch 1979:224).
For Bosch the alternative community must be understood together with the way in which
he understands eschatology (Bosch 1982b:8). Livingston (1990:4) has identified
eschatology as one of the three key categories through which the work of Bosch must be
understood, the other two being ecclesiology, which we have been discussing up to now,
and soteriology. For Bosch, eschatology must be understood as a tension between the
“already” and the “not yet” (Bosch 1982b:93). This is an unbearable tension (1982b:9;
2004:510), but one that needs to be held onto. He distinguishes between putting all our
stakes on the coming kingdom because we despair of the world, and trying to build utopia
here and now, with our own hands, because we have given up hope of a coming kingdom
(Bosch 1982b:9). The alternative community embodies this tension between the already
and the not yet.
“She is no longer what she used to be and not yet what she is destined to
be. She is too early for heaven and too late for this world. She lives on the
borderline between the already and the not yet. She is a fragment of the
world to come. She is God’s colony in man’s world, God’s experimental
garden on earth. She is a sign of the world to come and at the same time
guarantee of its coming”.
(Bosch 1982d:18)
