The nature of the Church is at the core of most of the current debates surrounding doctrine in the ELCA. Without a solid understanding of what the Church is, it is quite impossible to formulate effective theology. The difference in argument comes to the central question of whether, as the Roman church asserts, the Church is based in the organic (i.e. there the Bishops are, there is the Church), or whether, as the Reformation theology asserts, it is based in the Spirit (i.e. where the faithful are, there is the Church). When we confuse the church (the institution) with the Church (The thing Christ has), we end up with some very strange things indeed like the CCM.
So, to the point: What is the True Church and how does it relate to the institutional church?
From the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope:
" However, as to the declaration: Upon this rock I will build My Church, certainly the Church has not been built upon the authority of man, but upon the ministry of the confession which Peter made, in which he proclaims that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He accordingly addresses him as a minister: Upon this rock, i.e., upon this ministry. [Therefore he addresses him as a minister of this office in which this confession and doctrine is to be in operation and says: Upon this rock, i.e., this preaching and ministry.]
Furthermore, the ministry of the New Testament is not bound to places and persons as the Levitical ministry, but it is dispersed throughout the whole world, and is there where God gives His gifts, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers; neither does this ministry avail on account of the authority of any person, but on account of the Word given by Christ. [Nor does the person of a teacher add anything to this word and office; it matters not who is preaching and teaching it; if there are hearts who receive and cling to it to them it is done as they hear and believe.] And in this way, not as referring to the person of Peter, most of the holy Fathers, as Origen, Cyprian, Augustine, Hilary, and Bede, interpret this passage: Upon this rock. Chrysostom says thus: "Upon this rock," not upon Peter. For He built His Church not upon man, but upon the faith of Peter. But what was his faith? "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Hilary says: To Peter the Father revealed that he should say, "Thou art the Son of the living God." Therefore the building of the Church is upon this rock of confession; this faith is the foundation of the Church."
The fundamental thing here is how you answer the question of what the Church is and how that interacts with the church. Is the Church based on Peter or is the Church based on faith (and the Holy Spirit, who brings you faith)?
Rome sees these as one in the same thing. They come from the church being founded on Peter, the man, and therefore believe that it is important to have some sort of organic pedigree back to Peter, the man, to have a connection to Christ. It has lost the Holy Spirit in the equation (thus disqualifying it as a Christian church according to Luther).
Luther believed the Church is founded on faith and therefore we have connections to everyone (and in every time) of faith. Within this view, the true Christian Church is quite independent of the institutional church.
This one question is of utmost import since we can not agree on any theological or doctrinal aspects unless we agree on this one question first: what is the Church of Christ? In what follows I'll make some shorthand by referring to the institutional church as ic whereas I will refer to the One True Church as the TC…
In Reformation theology, the TC is the Kingdom of Christ (AAC VII - Tappert, 171.16), the collection of saints (those who have the gift of faith in Christ, bestowed by the Holy Spirit), invisible in this world and includes both the living and the dead saints since the Apostles. The Church transcends organic bodies.
The ic typically (but not always) contains some of these living saints along with the wicked who are from the kingdom of the devil. When the TC is revealed, the latter will be separated out. We can not touch, feel, smell or taste (?) the TC and it is enterable only by faith and that can only be obtained though the Holy Spirit. No person can impart faith in you.
Now, according to Luther, we might get some idea of where the TC is by coming on an assembly wherein the Gospel is rightly preached and the Sacraments rightly administered, but these are only signs, or pointers, that the TC might be there.
Therefore, the TC happens to coexist with the ic only by happenstance and not by definition - it is quite possible to have an expression of the ic exist without any of the TC being present.
Corollary: when we have visible unity, we are showing only a facade; a cheap ornamentation. Our real unity with each other in the Church of Christ comes not in being shoulder to shoulder, but in being prostate at the feet of Christ in faith.
So what are the Bishops good for then?
The ic, being an organization, has people that we call "leaders" or, these days, "Bishops." They are there to perform certain administrative tasks peculiar to an institution. You can't have an organization of any size without some sort of structure.
Within a coherent set of doctrine (i.e. a denomination) we typically ordain people as a way of acknowledging that they have the proper "credentials" to be preaching and doing whatever it is we need of them in the pastoral sense. Note that we do not lay hands on these pastors except during an ordination. After that we install them in various ways.
Some of these "leaders" we do call to oversee the larger organizational aspects that can not be undertaken by a single congregation. These have lately been called "bishop" but president, Grand Poobah or whatever; the title is of little importance. We accept these people for the administrative and oversight aspects that they are hired to give the overall organization.
Pastors and Bishops are vocational positions and (this is important) have no more or less theological significance than you, the pew sitters.
Contrast this to the TC which is not visible and only will be revealed on the end day. Unlike the ic where there are many levels of administration depending on the size of the organization, there is a flat "organization" to the TC with exactly one head (or leader or shepherd), Christ.
So what of Bishops? There are those who assume that the TC is based on organics and therefore assume that we need bishops to be a "sign" of the relation of our Church to the Church throughout the ages, the Church of the apostles, the Church of the Middle Ages and the Church of the time of the Reformation.
These people confuse the TC with the ic. The ministry of a bishop is no more or less the sign of the continuity of the ic than is the list of pastors or council presidents or pew sitters in any particular congregation.
The TC, on the other hand, is in the here and now and is the same in all ages, just accumulating more saints (growing) and needs no particular historical thread since it is still alive in you directly.
There are people who claim we need an Historic Episcopate because they claim the apostolic succession as a succession of faith and ordination is an expression of the aspiration to maintain faithfulness to the basis of the Church in fulfilling the Church's mission today.
But faith is something that is not able to be passed down one person to another. It is imparted by the Holy Spirit only (See also the Large Catechism). In the ic we can say that there is a succession of ordained, but in the TC we impart the Holy Spirit at your Baptism and create the conditions in the ic wherein faith might take hold and bring you into the TC.
These people also claim that it is continuity of the apostolic faith and the universal Church that is decisive, not an unbroken chain of ordinations. This continuity belongs to the Church as a whole. The succession of ordinations is not a guarantee but a sign of such a continuity.
But, the continuity of the TC is guaranteed until the close of this age at the last day by Christ. We need no rites to point towards it, as it is happening in the here and now right around you.
Secondly ordinations in the ic have nothing to do with ordinations in the TC since you are ordained into the TC at your baptism. The ordinations of which they speak of are purely a function (and fiction) of the ic.
Third, as I point out previously, it is quit impossible to pass down faith. To Evangelical (those who have a direct union with Christ) Lutherans, there is an immediacy of the TC and a continual place therein mingled with all the saints.
So when they say that a "succession of ordinations is a sign of continuity" I can't parse this. Within a TC context it just means that because the sun came up today, it is likely, but not guaranteed, that the sun will come up tomorrow. As long as some particular congregation is around, as long as some particular uberstructure is around, there is, by definition, a succession of people in "leadership" positions no matter how fancy you want to make the changing of the guard. It says nothing more than "history happens".
So, one more time, what is the Church (the TC)? From Luther's Large Catechism
(not Tappert, but I got tired of typing) concerning the third
article of the creed:
"51] But this is the meaning and substance of this
addition: I believe that there is upon earth a little holy group and
congregation of pure saints, under one head, even Christ, called
together by the Holy Ghost in one faith, one mind, and understanding,
with manifold gifts, yet agreeing in love, without sects or schisms. 52]
I am also a part and member of the same, a sharer and joint owner of all
the goods it possesses, brought to it and incorporated into it by the
Holy Ghost by having heard and continuing to hear the Word of God, which
is the beginning of entering it. For formerly, before we had attained to
this, we were altogether of the devil, knowing nothing of God and of
Christ. 53] Thus, until the last day, the Holy Ghost abides with the
holy congregation or Christendom, by means of which He fetches us to
Christ and which He employs to teach and preach to us the Word, whereby
He works and promotes sanctification, causing it [this community] daily
to grow and become strong in the faith and its fruits which He
produces."
Our biggest problems in the ELCA come from badly confusing the institutional church
(which the ELCA is) with the Church of Christ, the True Church. Once this is done, we are
on a path of glory theology and starting down the path of idolatry.