We must not put all our faith in structures, urges Michael Nazir-Ali
It is Christ who makes the Church, Christ who renews the Church, and Christ who reforms the Church. In the Letter to the Ephesians, St Paul tells us that “Christ fills his Church with all his fullness ”; later, in Colossians, he writes that it is “Christ who is in us, the hope of Glory”. At the same time, it is characteristic of St Paul to say that “we are in Christ ”.
We are in Christ, grafted as a branch on the vine, and Christ is in us: feeding us, making us, and renewing us. The process for how this happens in the Church has to do with the transmission of the Apostolic Tradition. Transmitted from generation to generation, culture to culture, and person to person – it may be done well or badly, wholly or in part, but it is going on. People who receive this Tradition sometimes notice particular elements within it.
