When some of the first Lutheran's from Saxony settled in and around St. Louis in the early 1800s a major issue arose when Bishop Martin Stephan was deposed. Many had believed the old patristic addage, "Wherever the bishop is, there is the church."
Were they still a legitimate chruch without a bishop? What is the church? Are there visible signs or is it all a matter of invisibility? These are some of the questions they struggled with after leaving the old country. C.F.W Walther rose to the occasion, and after spending some time in the scriptures and reading Luther on the matter, began to take the reigns of the fledgling church that would become the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. But before this happened he was challenged to a debate over this question of the "church". He formulated and defended an eight-point thesis and won the crowd over. This is called the "Altenberg Thesis" and I leave it for your perusal:
I. The true Church, in the most real and perfect sense, is the totality (Gesaintheit) of all true believers, who from the beginning to the end of the world from among all peoples and tongues have been called and sanctified by the Holy Spirit through the Word. And since God alone knows these true believers (2 Tim. 2:19), the Church is also called invisible. No one belongs to this true Church who is not spiritually united with Christ, for it is the spiritual body of Jesus Christ.
II. The name of the true Church belongs also to all those visible companies of men among whom God’s Word is purely taught and the holy Sacraments are administered according to the institution of Christ. True, in this Church there are godless men, hypocrites, and heretics, but they are not true members of it, nor do they constitute the Church.
III. The name Church, and, in a certain sense, the name true Church, belongs also to those visible companies of men who have united under the confession of a falsified faith and therefore have incurred the guilt of a partial departure from the truth; provided they possess so much of God’s Word and the holy Sacraments in purity that children of God may thereby be born. When such companies are called true churches, it is not the intention to state that they are faithful, but only that they are real churches as opposed to all worldly organizations (Gemeinschaften).
IV. The name Church is not improperly applied to heterodox companies, but according to the manner of speech of the Word of God itself. It is also not immaterial that this high name is allowed to such communions for out of this follow:
1. That members also of such companies may be saved; for without the Church there is no salvation.
V. The outward separation of a heterodox company from an orthodox Church is not necessarily a separation from the universal Christian Church nor a relapse into heathenism and does not yet
deprive that company of the name Church.
VI. Even heterodox companies have church power; even among them the goods of the Church may be validly administered, the. Ministry established, the Sacraments validly administered, and the keys of the kingdom of heaven exercised.
VII. Even heterodox companies are not to be dissolved, but reformed.
VIII. The orthodox Church is chiefly to be judged by the common, orthodox, public confession to which its members acknowledge and confess themselves to be pledged.
I'm nearing the end of my class on ecclesiology and working on the final paper, which looks at models of the church using Avery Dulles' comparative approach. In so doing, I've spent a little time peering into Dietrich Bonhoeffer's works, albeit not as much as I'd like. Bonhoeffer is an enigma as he is both loved and hated by a wide array of traditions.