Posted on August 8, 2008 - by Stephen Murray

Identity or Assembly in Knox

I’ve just finished reading through a number of articles and papers by Broughton Knox on the issue of ‘church’. Now I know there’s a bit of debate going on as to whether or not Knox’s view of church (and those who practise forms of it today) is compatible with missional ecclesiology where church is identified primarily with an identity. I’m beginning to wonder though if its not an issue of semantics in some way. From what I can see Knox seems to be using the idea of the heavenly assembly in a very similar way to the concept of church as identity – I’m not sure that the two are that incompatible. It seems to me that how you interpret Knox’s concept of the heavenly assembly will lead you to certain implications and its at this point that the two groups tend to diverge because some tend to take Knox’s view as leading us primarily to local earthly assemblies as the central locus for church with a disregard for church as identity. But I don’t think that has to be the necessary implication of Knox’s view, nor do I think (and this is pure speculation) that Knox would have the locus of church as closely and tightly tied to the local assembly as some contemporary practitioners of the Knox/Robinson view have it today – I think he would allow more freedom, especially with regard to structures, for ‘the fellowship’ to take place. I guess what I’m saying is that I think we might be misreading Knox a little bit here and that he might be a bit more disposed towards missional ecclesiology than we think. But then again there are many around who studied under him and would know better exactly what he was advocating (perhaps they might leave a comment ).