There are two alternatives. On the one hand the church has to be brought up to date. The world has moved on but the Church is struggling to keep up. The Church is irrelevant because it is lagging, left behind because people can no longer agree with it.
On the other, the Church stands where it has always stood, while the world is going round in small circles. It is not marching bravely on to a bright new future as it has asserted. It is not going anywhere, but marching and counter-marching and repeating itself in endless confusion. The Church stands where Christ built it. He is its unchanging foundation. It is the lighthouse, beaming out the same light it always has done. It does not adapt or modify, because the truth it shows is fundamental and unchanging, the basis on which any groups of humans may love and live and sustain a society. Anyone who confesses that the Church is ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic’ is committed to this second view, that the Church must stand where Christ planted it, and never that the Church must leave its station and start running to catch up with the world.
