Body of Christ

I went to the LivingWaters church service this morning with my family, and the music included the Casting Crowns song “If We Are the Body”. The chorus of the songs struck me as particularly interesting:

If we are the body
Why aren’t His arms reaching
why aren’t His hands healing
why aren’t His words teaching?

And if we are the body
why aren’t His feet going
why is His love not showing them there is a way?

Understandably, part of the song’s purpose is to motivate Christians to take action based on their beliefs, but I think the song also raises a critical question: if reaching, healing, and teaching are expected consequences of the body of Christ, then why are these things not already happening? The song is almost in perfect syllogistic form, so to be slightly more formal we can define A and B as:

A = “the Church (or church, or a given group or congregation) is the body of Christ”
B = “the consequences of this identity (reaching, healing, teaching) should be apparent”

The idea in the song postulates if A, then B. The song may inspire individuals and groups to take action, but this does not solve the problem. Just because a group of Christians makes an active effort to reach, heal, and teach, this does not make them into the body of Christ–since if B then A is not necessarily logically true. We can say, however, that if not B, then not A; in other words, if we do not see the effects, then the group in question is not the body of Christ.

Real change and identity comes from changed minds. Action is good, useful, and often desirable, but actions cannot change minds. Truly changed minds, though, will automatically produce results without any programs or prompting. The early apostolic Christian Church was almost certainly composed of changed minds, but I doubt if this is true on any large scale today.