The church is the continuation of the incarnation, the place where the “other” is made “near”. . . . [The church] is the context in which our spirituality is formed. This is why the famous statement of Cyprian, “You cannot have God as your Father without the church as your mother,” has been affirmed throughout history. Our life “in” Christ is a process that takes place within his body in transactional relationship with each other.
-Robert Webber, Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1999), 132