A friend from church passed this along to me today. Because I have written of my deep concern over the disunity of the church a number of times (such as here, here, here, and here), I'll refrain from further comment at this point.
But I do assure you that this kind of thing always makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
I was musing on Twitter and Facebook the other day about baptism and why evangelicals are often willing to downplay the differences in their understanding of baptism for the sake of unity. It is a topic that has caused a lot of confusion for me, especially as we see churches divide all the time over issues that seem to be of far less importance than baptism, which is so central to the church's life.
Anyway, I still don't have answers, and I'm not here to talk about my own thoughts on the matter today. But I stumbled across this short video clip yesterday in which Doug Wilson discusses whether or not paedobaptist and credobaptist ministers can work together. Food for thought, at the least. Let me know what you think.
Throughout the centuries, the church has been plagued by divisions and schisms. It is most prevalent in the American church, but it is not a problem unique to it. I grew up in Dutch Reformed churches, a body whose history is marked by much of the same (although to a lesser degree). Indeed, most any tradition will have groups who have split off and formed new bodies in the name of truth.
The decision to leave a church is of no little significance. Because of the weight of such a decision, there have been some voices throughout history who have urged patience and caution against acting rashly in such a matter, including J.C. Ryle. As I have continued reading Knots Untied, I came across a warning he issued to those within the Church of England who, I assume, were threatening to leave. He writes,
It is a cheap and easy remedy to secede from a Church when we see evils round us, but it is not always the wisest one. To pull down a house because the chimney smokes, to chop off a hand because we have cut our finger, to forsake a ship because she has sprung a leak and makes a little water,—all this we know is childish impatience. But is it a wise man's act to forsake a Church because thing in our own parish, and under our own minister in that Church, are wrong? I answer decidedly and unhesitatingly, No!
It is not so sure as it seems that we mend matters by leaving the Church of England. Every man knows the faults of his own house, but he never knows the faults of another till he moves into it, and then perhaps he finds he is worse off than he was before his move. There are often smoky chimneys, and bad drains, and draughts, and doors that will not shut, and windows that will not open, in No. 2 as well as in No. 1. All is not perfect among Dissenters and Plymouth Brethren. We may find to our cost, if we join them in disgust with the Church of England, that we have only changed one sort of evil for another, and that the chimney smokes in chapel as well as in church.
This is, in part, familiar advice. We have all had someone warn us of buying into the notion that the proverbial grass is greener on the other side, and that is wisdom to heed. Some, though, may question the extent of the concessions Ryle would make to remain in a church. What conditions would need to be present for him to finally break communion with (in his case) the Church of England?
When the Thirty-Nine articles are altered,—when the Prayer-book is revised on Romish principles and filled with Popery,—when the Bible is withdrawn from the reading desk,—when the pulpit is shut against the Gospel,—when the mass is formally restored in every parish church by Act of Parliament,—when, in fact, our present order of things in the Church of England is altered by statute, and Queen, Lords, and Commons command that our parish churches shall be given over to processions, incense, crosses, images, banners, flowers, gorgeous vestments, idolatrous veneration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, mumbled prayers, gabbled-over apocryphal lessons, short, dry, sapless sermons, histrionic gestures and postures, bowings, crossings, and the like,—when these things come to pass by law and rule, then it will be time for us all to leave the Church of England. Then we may arise and say with one voice, 'Let us depart, for God is not here.'
You sometimes hear people quip that churches split because of an inability to agree on what colour the carpet in the building should be, emphasising the fact that sometimes churches will divide for the most trivial of reasons. Ryle would certainly not fall into that category, because he maintained a firm conviction that he should fight for the truth:
But till that time,—and God forbid it should ever come: till that time,—and when it does come, there will be a good many seceders: till that time let us stand fast, and fight for the truth. Let us not desert our post to save trouble, and move out to please our adversaries, and spike our guns to avoid a battle. No! in the name of God, let us fight on, even if we are like the 300 at Thermopylae,—few of us, many against us, and traitors on every side. Let us fight on, and contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.
One of the things I have come to understand is that for the British, there is a great reticence to take such a drastic step as leaving a church. They do not share the revolutionary spirit of the Americans, and tend to favour the existing establishment. This is not to say that they do so uncritically—indeed, Ryle was an Anglican by conviction—but it helps to explain his profound concern to remain united. It would be interesting to see how Ryle would react today to issues like the ordination of women in the Church of England. Would he add that to his list of necessary conditions for leaving?
I would be interested in further discussion on what is required for unity and/or separation. On what grounds do we draw our boundaries? What is the standard for determining if we have fellowship with another group or denomination, and is there a different standard for coming into full unity with them? What conditions are to be met if we are to have sufficient reason to leave a church? What do you think?
I ask you to assist me by cultivating and encouraging a spirit of brotherly love, charity and forbearance among Churchmen. In a fallen world like ours, and in a free country like England, it is vain to expect all men to see all things alike and to interpret the language of the formularies precisely in the same way. Let us on no account be colourless Christians, destitute of any distinct opinions. But so long as any brother walks loyally within the limits of the Articles and the Prayer Book, let us respect him and treat him courteously, even when we do not altogether agree with him.
Ryle had a profound concern for unity within the Church of England, but he consistently maintained that it had to be a principled unity, rooted in the adherence to the 39 Articles of Religion and the Prayer Book. In an essay on the Articles in Knots Untied, Ryle notes that in his day, many looked to the Prayer Book alone as "the real measure and gauge of a Churchman" (53), in many cases entirely disregarding the Articles. Of course, the Prayer Book was never intended to be the doctrinal standard of the Church of England; Ryle points to the original title of the Articles given by Thomas Cranmer himself: "Articles agreed upon for the avoiding of Diversities of Opinion, and for the stablishing of Consent touching true Religion."
A committed evangelical, Ryle nevertheless maintained that in the Church of England one did not have to be an evangelical to be a Christian, a position which some evangelicals in his day were taking. In his Principles for Churchmen, he wrote that the Church of England, as a national church, had to be comprehensive, but with certain boundaries defining the limits of that comprehensiveness:
Those limits, I believe, are to be found in the Articles, the Creeds and the Book of Common Prayer... They are documents, no doubt, which all do not interpret alike. As long as the world stands, and as long as language is what it is, you will never get men to place precisely the same meaning on theological phrases and words. But, however variously we may interpret the Articles, the Creeds and the Prayer Book, they are unmistakable limits, fences and bounds within which the National Church requires its ministers to walk, and he that flatly rejects them, denies them, contradicts them, and transgresses them is in his wrong place inside the Church of England.
Attempts at unity today rarely demonstrate such firm committment to doctrinal unity as Ryle speaks of. The perception usually being that doctrine is what divides the church, most seek unity elsewhere, taking something of a lowest common denominator approach. For Ryle, this was the problem with those in the Church of England who sought unity apart from the doctrinal foundation laid out by the 39 Articles.
This is not just a question the Church of England has to deal with, but one that every denomination, federation, or network has to address. For the last several years, I have been part of a Presbyterian church, and the doctrinal standard here is the Westminster Standards. The interesting thing with the Standards is that they are far more detailed than the 39 Articles, and so the question for Presbyterian churchmen is not just whether or not they adhere to the Standards, but to what degree. Some maintain that it must be a strict subscription, confessing adherence to every single part of the Standards, while others argue for some breathing room on various points. It seems, however, that the unity Ryle looks for is quite a bit broader than the Presbyterians I know. I'll return to this in a later post, because this is where it becomes really tricky.
If you have read this blog for any length of time, you know that the question of unity is one I think of often. Ryle intrigues me for this reason. If we are being honest, we must admit that often people with theological convictions like Ryle, those of an orthodox and Reformed perspective, do not share his passion for unity.
For now, these are largely just musings. Defining churchmanship and unity are very big questions that a simple blog post will not answer adequately.
Several times here I have spoken of the need for unity in the church. It is something so frequently spoken of, but so rarely acted upon. Richard Baxter, in The Reformed Pastor, makes mention of this need for unity as well. Below, at length, is a forceful critique of those who actively sow disunity in the church:
Of the multitude that say they are of the catholic Church, it is rare to meet with men of a catholic spirit. Men have not a universal consideration of, and respect to, the whole Church, but look upon their own party as it it were the whole. If there be some called Lutherans, some Calvinists, some subordinate divisions among these, and so of other parties among us, most of them will pray hard for the prosperity of their party, and rejoice and give thanks when it goes well with them; but if any other party suffer, they little regard it, as if it were no loss at all to the Church. If it be the smallest parcel that possesseth not many nations, no, nor cities on earth, they are ready to carry it, as if they were the whole Church, and as if it went well with the Church when it goes well with them. We cry down the Pope as Antichrist, for including the Church in the Romish pale, and no doubt but it is abominable schism: but, alas! how many do imitate them too far, while they reprove them! And as the Papists foist the word Roman into their creed, and turn the catholic Church into the Roman Catholic church, as if there were no other catholics, and the Church were of no larger extent, so is it with many others as to their several parties. Some will have it to be the Lutheran catholic church, and some the Reformed catholic church; some the Anabaptist catholic church, and so of some others. And if they differ not among themselves, they are little troubled at differing from others, though it be from almost all the Christian world. The peace of their party they take for the peace of the Church. No wonder, therefore, if they carry it no further.
How rare it is to meet with a man that smarteth or bleedeth with the Church's wounds, or sensibly taketh them to heart as his own, or that ever had solicitous thoughts of a cure! No; but almost every party thinks that the happiness of the rest consisteth in turning to them; and because they be not of their mind, they cry, Down with them! and are glad to hear of their fall, as thinking that is the way to the Church's rising, that is, their own. How few are there who understand that true state of controversies between the several parties; or that ever well discerned how many of them are but verbal, and how many are real! And if those that understand it do, in order to right information and accomodation, disclose it to others, it is taken as an extenuation of their error, and as a carnal compliance with them in their sin. Few men grow zealous for peace till they grow old, or have much experience of men's spirits and principles, and see better the true state of the Church, and the several differences, than they did before...
Nay, commonly it bringeth a man under suspicion either of favouring some heresy or abating his zeal, if he do but attempt a pacificatory work. As if there were no zeal necessary for the great fundamental verities of the Church's unity and peace, but only for parties, and some particular truths.
And a great advantage the devil hath got this way, by employing his own agents...by which means the motion for peace, is presently under suspicion of being one that hath need of it for an indulgence to his own errors. (157-159)
Baxter continues to go for several more pages about this. We cannot deny how terribly we have failed in this matter. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have mercy on us, that we may be one as you are one.
You would be hard-pressed to find something Herman Bavinck has written that is not rich in insight, cogent, and bursting with theological significance. Of course, this is an exaggeration (and a clear indication that I have not read everything Bavinck has written), but I find that almost every time I open one of his books and start to read him, my soul is fed.
One of the areas of theology that captures my interest most is ecclesiology. Bavinck makes much of the Church, as any good theologian should, given that it is in the Church that God joins His covenant people together, having called them to Himself and redeemed them. A couple of years ago, I remember coming across this passage on pages 280-281 in volume four of his Reformed Dogmatics, in which he gives wonderful expression to the organic unity of the Church.
All [local] churches are conceived of as one ἐκκλησία (ekklēsia) and described as the body, the bride, or the fullness (πλήρωμα, plērōma) of Christ.
This oneness of all the churches does not come into being a posteriori by the establishment of a creed, a church order, and a synodical system. Neither is the church an association of individual persons who first became believers apart from the church and subsequently united themselves. But it is an organism in which the whole exists prior to the parts; its unity precedes the plurality of local churches and rests in Christ. It is he who, continuing his mediatorial work in the state of exaltation, joins his churches together and builds them up from within himself as the head (Eph. 1:23; 4:16; 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:19), gathers and governs it (John 10:16; 11:52; 17:20-21; Acts 2:33, 47; 9:3ff.), always remains with it (Matt. 18:20), is most intimately connected with it (John 15:1ff.; 17:21, 23; 1 Cor. 6:15; 12:12-27; Gal. 2:20), and dwells in it by his Spirit (Rom. 6:5; 8:9-11; 1 Cor. 6:15ff.; Eph. 3:17). The assertion that the universal ἐκκλησία precedes the local churches is correct in the sense that while it is not historically prior it is logically so. Every local church is the people of God, the body of Christ, built upon the foundation of Christ (1 Cor. 3:11, 16; 12:27), because in that location it is the same as what the church is in its entirety, and Christ is for that local church what he is for the universal church.In the various local gatherings of believers, it is the one church of Christ that comes to expression. Its essence, both as it concerns the church as a whole and each of its parts in particular, is grounded in that it is the people of God (Rom. 9:25; 2 Cor. 6:16, 18; Titus 2:14; Heb. 8:10; 13:12; 1 Pet. 2:9-10), consisting of people who have committed themselves to the Lord and have turned to him (Acts 5:14; 14:15), who bear the name of disciples, brothers and sisters, chosen ones, called ones, saints, believers (Acts 1:15; 6:1; 9:1, 32; Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2). In its broadest sense ἐκκλησία is the gathering of all the people of God, not only on earth but also in heaven (Heb. 12:23), not only in the past and present but also in the future (John 10:16; 17:20).
Bavinck is clearly talking here about the organic unity that lies at the very heart of the nature of the Church, speaking of the Church as God intended her to be. But I think there is a great deal of work to be done building on this foundation, both to understand what this unity would look like in reality and to begin to bring that unity to fruition. I have remarked before that the division and brokenness of Christ's Church grieves me so deeply that there are times I almost feel the effects of it physically. Although I recognize that we will never see this unity come to full expression before Christ returns, we are left with no excuse, on the one hand, to remain content in our division; neither, on the other hand, is it an excuse to force unity where there is none. There must be some way to make this organic unity more of a reality among the churches on earth.
To that end, I am thinking more and more that I should like to devote my life (or at least several years, initially) to begin the work of figuring this out. (On a side note, if someone over at Oxford, Edinburgh, the Free University of Amsterdam, or any other school is willing to pay me to do so, that would be even better).
Somewhat to even my surprise, I have taken quite a bit of interest in the General Synod of the Church of England this year. In the last few weeks I heard that there is to be a discussion surrounding the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) and whether or not the Church of England should enter into communion with that body. A number of students and staff here at RTS attend or are on staff with churches joined with the ACNA, and so I have had the opportunity to become more familiar with it over the past few years. I have been reading different things around the internet to try and get some perspective on the issue, but there is a lot of material to work through.
The woman who initially raised what is called a "private member's motion," Lorna Ashworth, published a document highlighting a number of what she calls injustices done by the Episcopal Church in the US against various bishops and clergy, including the deposition of men like J.I. Packer. She writes, "It is my desire to give Synod an opportunity to hear about the unfair treatment of people who have continued to maintain the Anglican faith in doctrine, practice and worship, and to express their continuing fellowship with them as loyal Anglicans." Expressed at the beginning of the motion is her desire to see the Church of England to enter into communion with the ACNA, the proposal of which will be discussed by the Synod on this coming Wednesday.
What makes this interesting is that, technically speaking, the ACNA is a schismatic body. Ashworth states that a number of bishops and clergy had been deposed from the Anglican Communion, but many others have voluntarily withdrawn and together formed the new organization. What would be the implications of the Church of England were to enter into communion with the ACNA? What does such a move convey?
It is no secret that the Anglican Communion worldwide is in trouble; it has been in such a state for quite some time now, as the GAFCON conference in 2008 brought to the forefront in a very visible way. Many conservative bodies around the world (such as the ACNA) demonstrated their difficulties with the pervasive liberalism in the Anglican Communion and its departure from general biblical teaching. So if the Church of England were to enter into communion with one of these conservative bodies, is that an indication of perhaps a new direction in the Anglican Communion? I know it is very premature to be talking about something like that, but it must be on a few people's minds, right? Then again, I may be totally off the mark.
For more information, be sure to visit the General Synod Blog. You can also check out Thinking Anglicans, who are regularly posting other documents and links to discussions on the matter, as well as the Church Mouse Blog. Additionally, many clergy and bishops can be found on Twitter via the lists compiled on the Twurch of England account, and they are using the hashtag #synod to keep track of what's going this week.
R. Scott Clark, a professor at Westminster Seminary in California, wrote a book recently called Recovering the Reformed Confession: Our Theology, Piety, and Practice. The premise of the book is that the Reformed community is losing or has lost its sense of identity, and that it needs to recover it. Clark writes, "Much of what passes as Reformed among our churches is not. Its sources, spirit, and methods are alien to Reformed theology, piety, and practice. There are significant segments within the Reformed communion that define 'Reformed' in ways that our forefathers would not understand" (4).
Earlier today, John Frame posted a review of the book on his website. Someone apparently told Frame that the book should instead be called, Why John Frame is Wrong About Absolutely Everything. While that is humorous, it recognizes that there is a tension between Clark's and Frame's ideas of being Reformed, and that Clark is, in part, taking Frame to task in the book. If you're going to read the review, be sure to sit back in a comfortable chair—it is very long.
I haven't read Clark's book, and I won't if his writing in the book is anything like his blog (which I've had to stop reading because I have to keep my blood pressure under control). The problem with guys like Clark is that while they sometimes raise good questions—and I think the points in his book are largely worth discussing—they do it without humility and grace. Frame has taken to calling contentious voices like this the "Reformed Controversialists," and for good reason. More time seems to be spent on tearing others down than on constructively working through the issues at hand. It is unfortunate, because they could bring a lot of good questions to the table, and their voices could contribute a lot more to the building up of the Church.
In Ephesians 4, Paul talks about the need to speak the truth in love to preserve the unity of the body of Christ. As I've mentioned before, there is a reason that they honoured Frame by titling his festschrift with those words. All of us who have been privileged and blessed to study under him will tell you that there are few men who are willing to interact with those they disagree with as lovingly and graciously as Frame does. He has been a wonderful role model for us and for the Church. Jude 3 says that we must "contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints," something Frame devotes himself to. And he does it recognizing that, like Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, if he has not love, he has nothing.
I'll be the first to admit that our traditions are important, and that we cannot live in a historical vacuum, ignorant of where we came from and who we are. These are good things to talk about, and I think Clark is right to raise questions about our Reformed identity. But resorting to a sort of hostile polemic to argue a case and misrepresenting those who hold views you don't agree with is not helpful; indeed, it's harmful and destructive to the Church (again I must acknowledged that I haven't read the book, but have spent quite a lot of time reading Clark's blog). Maybe this is the reason large segments of the Reformed community don't want to be identified with that small (albeit disproportinately vocal) segment of the Reformed community.
Read Frame's review if you want his take on the nuances of Clark's argument. All I want to emphasize is that when we interact with others who don't share our perspectives, we must do it with love and charity. We do so because of our love for God, because of our love for our neighbour, and because of our love for the Church. Granted, this is a lot harder than just lobbing grenades at your opponents. But it is required of us, and doesn't leave a trail of destruction in our wake; instead, it leaves a Church that is strengthened, edified, and brought closer to the unity Christ calls us to.
By all means, raise questions, provoke thought, discuss issues. But do so in love.
