The primary task of the historical Church is the proclamation of another world "to come." The Church bears witness to the New Life, disclosed and revealed in Christ Jesus, the Lord and Saviour. This it does both by word and deed. The true proclamation of the Gospel would be precisely the practice of this New Life: to show faith by deeds (cf. Matt. 5:16).
The Church is more than a company of preachers, or a teaching society, or a missionary board. It has not only to invite people, but also to introduce them into this New Life, to which it bears witness. It is a missionary body indeed, and its mission field is the whole world. But the aim of its missionary activity is not merely to convey to people certain convictions or ideas, not even to impose on then a definite discipline or a rule of life, but first of all to introduce them into the New Reality, to convert them, to bring them through their faith and repentance to Christ Himself, that they should be born anew in Him and into Him by water and the Spirit. Thus the ministry of the Word is completed in the ministry of the Sacraments.
"Conversion" is a fresh start, but it is only a start, to be followed by a long process of growth. The Church has to organize the new life of the converted. The Church has, as it were, to exhibit the new pattern of existence, the new mode of life, that of the "world to come." The Church is here, in this world, for its salvation. But just for this reason it has to oppose and to renounce "this" world. God claims the whole man, and the Church bears witness to this "totalitarian" claim of God revealed in Christ. The Christian has to be a "new creation." Therefore he cannot find a settled place for himself within the limits of the "old world." In this sense the Christian attitude is, as it were, always revolutionary with regard to the "old order" of "this world." Being "not of this world" the Church of Christ "in this world" can only be in permanent opposition, even if it claims only a reformation of the existing order. In any case, the change is to be radical and total.
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