Of Pastors and Presbyters

When historians turn to consider the early twenty-first century in Southern Baptist life, a number of momentous events from our annual meeting will figure prominently. The revision of the Baptist Faith & Message in the year 2000 marked a turning-point in the history of our confession of faith and will be remembered as a milestone in the story of the Conservative Resurgence. The 2006 election of Frank Page later propelled him into his current role at the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the meeting (its prelude and its aftermath) launched Southern Baptist blogging. The 2012 election of Fred Luter as the first African-American President of the Southern Baptist Convention stands head and shoulders above all of these other historical events as a key element of a story that reaches all the way back to the convention's formation in 1845.

But something else has been happening in the Southern Baptist Convention—something that has not appeared on the agenda of any of our annual meetings—that will also figure prominently in our recollection of this moment in our history. This is the era when Southern Baptist churches in large numbers began to change the governance of our churches. This is the day of the "elder-led" movement in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Causes

The previous form of church government—congregationalism with varying levels of pastoral leadership and responsibility—held sway over Southern Baptist life for a century and a half. What factors have led to its precipitous decline?

The rise of the New Calvinism is one important factor. Groups like Mark Dever's IX Marks have championed the transition to elder governance as an important means to increasing church health. Other groups among the New Calvinists, even if they have not been as focused on ecclesiology as Dever's group has been, have lifted up a number of Presbyterian or presbyterial voices as heroes to younger Southern Baptists. The correlation between the elder-led movement and the New Calvinism is tight (although Southern Baptists from more than one soteriological viewpoint are embracing the elder-led option), and when the soteriological pendulum swings the other way, the most lasting impact remaining upon Southern Baptist churches by this movement may very well be the structural changes that it made to local churches by means of the spread of elder-led polity.

The sorry state of congregationalism in many of our Southern Baptist churches is another key factor. For decades nobody in the Southern Baptist convention SAID anything nice about congregational business meetings, and in too many dysfunctional churches it had been at least that long since anyone had DONE anything nice in a congregational business meeting. Furthermore, congregationalism had, in too many places, ceased to enjoin entire congregations in the search for God's will and had become the vehicle by which mean-spirited tyrants—too many of them unconverted—lurked in the shadows and dominated the church as covert power brokers. I previously wrote about this phenomenon in my blog post Pseudo-Congregationalism Is from Satan. Most of those who experienced these abuses first-hand, plus a number of those who heard the stories, were ready for an alternative.

A related matter is the weak and sorry state of the office of pastor/elder/overseer in so many of these dysfunctional churches. Bad congregationalism had eviscerated and emasculated many a minister of the gospel. A sizable number both in pulpit and in pew knew that something was amiss in an arrangement in which the pastor is little more than a hired speaker forced to cower in his corner in the meeting house.

A final factor to consider is the incongruity between what we as Southern Baptists said about the office of deacon versus what our deacons actually did. Much of the Southern Baptist preaching about deacons in the last half of the twentieth century would meet the formal definition of a riv (a literary device from the Old Testament prophetic books in which God formally airs his grievances against His people). The comparison and contrast between deacons and elders has been a mainstay in this conversation as Southern Baptist churches have considered the change to elder-led polity.

Objectives

What have the advocates for elder-led polity hoped to accomplish for Southern Baptist churches? Some, before enumerating perceived pragmatic benefits, have simply advanced the case that elder-led governance is the most biblical form of church polity. Southern Baptist congregationalism was made much more vulnerable to these attacks by the abandonment of the word "elder" in Southern Baptist parlance near the beginning of the twentieth century. Since the word "elder" is spread throughout the pages of the New Testament, and since Southern Baptists, having chosen the word "pastor" to the exclusion of "elder," appeared to the casual observer not to have any such thing as an elder, the moment was ripe to make the case that the "People of the Book" had abandoned something biblical.

Proponents of this change in church polity also reminded Southern Baptists that the elder-led pattern can be entirely compatible with Baptist belief, and indeed, can be identified in Baptist history. Particularly among Particular Baptists, plural-elder congregationalism appears in church minutes and confessions of faith as the practice of many early Baptists.

Among the pragmatic appeals was the suggestion that a transition to the elder-led pattern would liberate pastors from the tyranny of loneliness in an overwhelming task. "God never intended for one man to try to do this job alone" is a winsome slogan to the ears of a group of people who, in survey after survey, are highly isolated and overburdened. To impanel a board of elders is to call for backup, so they say.

Another winsome feature spanned both pragmatism and biblical fidelity: the prospect of elevating the station and power of pastors/elders/overseers in the church. Pastors in beleaguered situations knew that they should have more power to lead and they wanted that power, confident that the church would operate more smoothly and accomplish more ministry once their congregational roadblocks were out of the way.

Causes for Concern

As someone who despises so much of what has passed for congregationalism in Southern Baptist churches, I welcome and embrace the new openness in our churches to revisit our polity and make it better and more biblical. Also, I acknowledge that some of the more careful and faithful implementations of polities more dependent upon the leadership of pastors/elder/overseers in the local church have been both a success and a blessing. Nevertheless, in the broader movement, I see some causes for concern.

1. The Lapse into Presbyterianism: I've been blogging for a long time now, and I hope that my readers recognize me as a cordial interlocutor with my more Calvinistic brethren. Specifically, I am not among those who reflexively cry "Presbyterian!" at every juncture when someone discusses his soteriological convictions. Permit me to air my view that the elder-led approach, if done carefully and well, can be done in a way that is more Baptist than Presbyterian. I am no opponent of these implementations.

   And yet, although everything I read from the hand of Mark Dever is unmistakably Baptist, when local churches put down their copies of Nine Marks of a Healthy Church and go about implementing what they think they've read, the results sometimes look a lot more like John Knox than Mark Dever. Some of the individual points listed below will serve as the specific indicators of this diagnosis, but I'm going to leave it unsubstantiated for the moment in order to free this space in the essay to speak about the general phenomenon.

   A lot of interaction is taking place at this moment between Southern Baptists and Presbyterians or quasi-Presbyterians. Some of this is due to the facts of American Evangelicalism; some of it is due to the unique influence of men like Al Mohler. At least some movement of pastors between Southern Baptist life and Presbyterian life is taking place—Southern Baptist pastors becoming Presbyterian and Presbyterian pastors becoming Southern Baptist. In saying this I am not alleging a wrong (Southern Baptists ought to talk to more people than just Southern Baptists) so much as I am observing a trend.

   Because of this interaction and familiarity with Presbyterian life, when local Southern Baptist pastors start out to implement elder leadership in their local churches, the Presbyterian model may be more familiar to them, being as widespread as it is, than is the subtle nuance of the more Baptistic varieties of elder-led polity. Indeed, whether unwittingly or deliberately, "elder led" often becomes something more like "elder ruled."

   Since the move to elder-led polity is indisputably a movement TOWARD Presbyterianism, it is perhaps not surprising that the move sometimes fails to stop short of full-fledged Presbyterian polity.

2. The Cleavage of the Presbytery: Although a less-noble author might have used that subtitle for a condemnation of immodest female preachers, I'm talking about the unsettling tendency among elder-led Southern Baptists to set aside our unified presbytery for a divided presbytery. A divided presbytery has a bifurcation between preaching elders and lay elders. A unified presbytery holds all pastors/elders/overseers to be occupants of the same biblical office without distinction. After all, the New Testament does not give qualifications for two kinds of elders, does not enshrine terminology for two kinds of elders, and does not assign tasks to two kinds of elders. A misreading of I Timothy 5:17 lies at the root of the error of a divided presbytery.

   I've spoken with Mark Dever about this topic (although he may not remember and probably doesn't have any idea who I am). He affirms a unified presbytery and does not agree with the bifurcation of preaching elders and lay elders that is a prominent feature of the Presbyterian system. And yet, is the bifurcation of staff elders and non-staff elders not a bifurcation just the same? Doesn't it appear important to the IX Marks system that some of the elders be people who are not paid at all? And yet, doesn't I Timothy 5:17 seem to suggest that all of the elders are paid something, just not all the same thing?

   If a careful, conscientiously Baptist, elder-led Southern Baptist church of the new type were suddenly to receive a windfall and were able to provide full-time income to all of its elders, would it feel compelled to go out and elect more elders, just to make sure that at least some of the elders were non-staff? I think a good many of them would. Although there is a strong, biblical case to use the term "elder" to refer to pastors/elders/overseers, and although there is a strong, biblical case to permit multiple elders to serve in a single congregation, where is the biblical case for insisting that some of these elders be unremunerated by the church, or for making any cleavage between different subcategories of elders?

   As a final word of clarification, if straitened financial circumstances cause one or more (or ALL) of a church's pastors/elders/overseers to go unpaid, I have no problem with that. I become concerned when the choice to have unpaid elders is strategic rather than circumstantial.

3. The Demotion of Pastors: Another remarkable feature of this movement is related to the insistence upon non-staff elders. In many of the congregations that are adopting elder leadership, pastors other than the top pastor in the organization chart—men we might refer to as "Associate Pastor" or "Assistant Pastor" in the traditional parlance—are being excluded entirely from the elder board. And so, in selecting elders, these congregations are passing right over men who have already been ordained into the pastor/elder/overseer ministry, have trained and have been credentialed, and are serving in the role of pastor/elder/overseer in that local congregation. The congregation is passing over these men and are elevating onto elder boards laypeople from the congregation.

   I had a recent conversation with a young man being called to one of these churches. After talking with me, he approached the lead pastor of the congregation and asked, "Hey, if I'm the Youth Pastor, and if pastors, elders, and overseers are all the same thing biblically, then why don't I get to come to the elders' meetings?" The lead pastor replied, "Wow! I hadn't thought of that. I just read IX Marks of a Healthy Church, thought it sounded good, and started implementing it here as best I could, but I never considered that other staff pastors might need to be elders. We probably ought to change your job title to take the word 'Pastor' out of it."

   As an editorial note, it is remarkable to me that a movement holding out the promise to elevate lead pastors out of situations of bad congregationalism—situations that did not accord to them the rightful and biblical respect and leadership role that pertained to them—would then be used by lead pastors to deny the rightful and biblical respect and leadership role that pertains to other pastors in the congregation. Every pastor ought to be considered a full-fledged elder in our congregations. Indeed, ONLY pastors ought to be considered elders in our congregations.

4. The Dismissal of Pastors: I know of two pastor-friends in recent months who have been fired by elders whom they themselves installed into the office of elder while the pastors were trying to transition the churches to elder leadership. In case you missed what happened there, these pastors (a) decided to adopt the elder-led model, (b) hand-picked leading laypersons in the congregation to serve as elders, (c) saw to their election as elders in the congregation, and (d) were promptly sent packing by the elders they had selected. In both cases there was no congregational vote involved (unless I've somehow misunderstood).

   I asked one of them, "If you hadn't made those guys elders at your church do you think they would have done this or even COULD have done this to you?" The answer? No.

   History guys should stick to talking about the past and should avoid prognostication about the future, but I'm going to go there: I predict that the stories of bad Presbyterianism that will come out of this new polity in Southern Baptist churches will make the old stories of bad congregationalism look like a church picnic. Why? Because the selfsame people who did so much damage through the congregational system will be the very ones who worm their way into the local presbytery. You think they were formidable when they held no official position at all? You think they were formidable when they were deacons? Wait until you encounter them as constitutionally empowered ruling elders of the congregation!

   Of course, a great many of the churches making this transition are more fortunate for now. After all, a great many pastors will pick people to serve as elders who will not, in fact, turn around and fire them. But this is the rosiest season for the elder-led movement—the season in which first-generation elder-led pastors get to serve with the elders that they have picked for themselves. The test of the movement will come after a few pastoral transitions, once pastors are coming into service alongside a PREDECESSOR's hand-picked elder board.

Proposed Solution

Those who are exploring the biblical role of the elder in Southern Baptist life should take the following biblical steps if they choose to implement elder leadership in their churches:

1. Extend the office of elder to all pastors, since biblically the pastor, the elder, and the overseer are the same person.
2. Restrict the office of elder to only pastors, for the same reason.
3. Protect the authority of the voting congregation to select its own pastors/elders/overseers.
4. Make it the goal of the congregation to pay all of its pastors/elders/overseers at least something.
5. Require all pastors/elders/overseers to do at least some work at preaching and teaching.
6. Make it the goal of the congregation to pay more to those pastors/elders/overseers who work harder at preaching and teaching.
7. Charge pastors/elders/overseers to keep the congregation informed and to build congregational consensus behind key decisions.

If the elevation of pastors/elders/overseers in Southern Baptist churches will take place along these lines, it can be an opportunity for us to revisit our polity and strengthen it, making our churches healthier and more effective in the accomplishment of our mission.

My Beliefs about the Extent of Communion

I believe that you should encourage to participate in the Lord's Supper any and everyone who, if he or she were a member of your church, you would not discipline out. That states my understanding of the extent of the Lord's Supper in its entirety.

A few corollary thoughts:

1. This presumes that your church has the framework in place to exercise church discipline and the guts to do it.

2. Our church is a Baptist church. That means that if one of our Sunday School classes started sprinkling infants and refused to stop, they would be subject to church discipline simply because they were sprinkling infants. Believer's baptism is not just our preference, it is the clear and indisputable teaching of God's word. Thus, any pedobaptist member of our church is necessarily someone against whom we would start discipline proceedings.

3. The reason why I never make statements about the extent of communion using language like "Like Faith and Order" is because too much of a focus on baptism erroneously and dangerously conveys the impression that so long as you are saved and have been dunked subsequently, you need not consider the matter further. But truly every Christian ought to examine his or her own heart and ask the question, "If my fellow brothers and sisters knew about all of the attitudes in my heart and all of the things that I've done this week, and if I persisted in them unrepentantly, would I be a legitimate candidate for church discipline?" If the answer to that question is "Yes," then I need to spend some time getting my heart straight with the Lord before participating in the Lord's Supper. I tell people that only those who are believers and who have repented of their known sin should participate in the Supper. I further clarify that having refused scriptural baptism is a sin.

4. It surprises me not at all that a sizable number of SBC churches are probably basically Stoddardian in their approach to the Lord's Supper since church discipline is all but lost among us.

   In my opinion, it is far more important (and is prerequisite) to recover a meaningful idea of church membership before trying to repair what has happened to our theology of the ordinances. It is difficult to make lasting and meaningful repair to the crack over the doorway before addressing the problems in the foundation.

5. I am actually optimistic in the long term. More is being written and preached about ecclesiology today than has been the case for at least a couple of generations preceding us. Biblical preaching always bears fruit. I think that this problem will solve itself with time and with the help of the Holy Spirit.

FBC and TBN: What Paul Crouch's Life Tells Us about Southern Baptists in the Twenty-First Century

Yesterday Paul Crouch, founder of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), died at the age of 79 (New York Times). Begun as a single Christian TV station in California, TBN is now a family of more than 20 television networks the span the globe. By the way, the Barber family has neither cable nor satellite television, but even our plain over-the-air TV antenna picks up at least five TBN-related channels. It is only barely an overstatement to claim that Paul Crouch founded an empire.

The pervasiveness of his influence, the opulence of his lifestyle, and the particulars of his theology necessarily mean that Christian blogs will heap upon him in equal measures both plaudits and opprobrium in the coming days. To speak specifically of Southern Baptist pastors, although a few have evidenced toward Crouch what might be termed approval or envy, a larger number (in my experience) have chosen their attitudes from among indifference, distaste, or anathema.

And so, confident that others will praise his accomplishments and criticize his failures, I choose to write today, to the best of my abilities, as church historian rather than as pastor-theologian. Furthermore, I write as someone who loves the Southern Baptist Convention, lives within the Southern Baptist Convention, and observes the Southern Baptist Convention. What does Paul Crouch's life tell us about Southern Baptists in the this century?

Paul Crouch, Southern Baptists, and Broadcast Media

In the story of Southern Baptist blogging since 2006, TBN has played a small, uncredited role. In 2008 the network broadcast a panel discussion consisting of Richard Hogue, Scott Camp, Dwight McKissic, and Dwaine Miller. The episode featured a characterization of non-Pentecostalism as "silly" (especially the views of Dr. Paige Patterson on the subject) and concluded with panel participants looking into the camera and imploring with Southern Baptist pastors to be converted to the gospel of Pentecostalism.

Also, a number of prominent Southern Baptists—influential pastors and denominational employees alike—have appeared on TBN programs in recent years. Perhaps the most recent is Ed Stetzer, who (if I understood his tweets correctly) has landed something of a repeating gig on the network. Paul Crouch and the network that he founded exerts some influence upon even the Southern Baptist Convention.

Whenever something like this happens, I hear about it from some of my friends. "Why are our SBC leaders appearing on TBN? Don't they realize what damage the Name-It-Claim-It Prosperity Gospel has done to American Christianity? Aren't they dragging the reputation of our entire convention down into the theological gutter when they do that?"

The question "Why are our SBC leadership appearing on TBN?" may be an interesting question, but here's what I think is a far more interesting one: Why isn't there anywhere else for them to appear? Southern Baptists leaders do not choose TBN from among some larger universe of successful Christian broadcast media empires because they prefer Paul Crouch's theology; if they want to appear on widely viewed Christian television, there simply are not many other options available to them. Paul Crouch monopolized the market.

Sometimes it seems to me that Southern Baptists aren't self-aware enough to mourn the loss of the Radio and Television Commission (RTVC). Of course, the RTVC was lost (in terms of hope that it would have any significant impact) long before it was dissolved. Whether the failure of the RTVC was a result of insufficient funding or insufficient dreaming I am not able to say. Perhaps it was a doomed venture from the start—Paul Crouch succeeded by way of entrepreneurial chutzpah rather than by means of a committee. But Southern Baptists never produced a media mogul—nobody but Pentecostals ever did. Whatever broadcast media hopes we had, we pinned them all to the RTVC and buried them with it in 1995's "Covenant for a New Century."

Dream with me for a moment: How would the story be different if Southern Baptists had somehow succeeded in Christian television? From the New York Times article linked above, "In 2010, donations to TBN totaled $93 million. The Crouches had his-and-her mansions in Newport Beach, Calif., and used corporate jets valued at $8 million and $49 million each." Certainly Southern Baptists would have exercised better stewardship than this. How might Southern Baptist missionary enterprises have been fueled by a successful SBC media venture? Southern Baptists would be in a position to harness the airwaves to promote responsible, sound doctrine rather than the epidemic of error for which TBN has too often served as a vector.

Why have we Southern Baptists failed so miserably in our feeble attempts to harness radio and television for our ministries? One can argue that Pentecostal worship is far more entertaining to watch than is the average Southern Baptist worship service. And yet even the Pentecostalest (I just made up that word) of Pentecostal worship services isn't all that entertaining either. TBN's stock in trade has been the studio program rather than the broadcast of worship services. Southern Baptists, who more than most ought not to have depended upon their worship services to drive ratings, could hardly think of anything to do with a TV camera other than to point it at themselves while they were preaching (I'm speaking here not so much about the folks who worked at RTVC as about SBC pastors).

Also, I think that TBN has understood and has (MIS-?)applied a truth that David understood and employed in the composition of the Psalms. The Hebrews sang Psalms prior to the life of David. David didn't invent the psalm. But during the prolific life of David the Hebrews began to sing psalms about every facet of life. Aaron and Miriam sang in times of celebration, but David sang in times of despair, or even in times of personal humiliation and contrition. David changed worship forever when he taught God's people how to sing honestly but hopefully to God even on the darkest of days. TBN, likewise, has spoken a word of hope to the poor, lonely, and downtrodden. Even if it has predominantly been a word of false hope motivated by an avaricious plot for self-enrichment, it has proven to be more than a match for "Seven Steps to a Superhero Faith" when it comes to what the world would rather watch on television.

If there is a bright spot in all of this for Southern Baptists, it is the promising strength that Southern Baptists have shown in the realm of new media. Of course, the apparatus of the convention has generally alternated between belittlement and toleration of blogging and Twitter (after all, the SBC is Microsoft, not Apple). But I think all of that is slowly changing, and it needs to change. New media is more propositional and less visual than TV. Twitter does not lend itself well to sermonizing, simply because of length. The SBC is well-poised to contribute solid content in the world of new media, and it has shown in the success of SBCers online. Southern Baptists have some rockstars and some potential rockstars in the realm of Christian new media. If we will be deliberate and visionary about it, we may find ourselves doing better in the coming media age than we did in the last one.

Paul Crouch and SBC International Missions

Of course, there is a wide world for whom their 2013 is our 1993, where TBN rather than Twitter is the new media. A few years ago I taught Church History in Kenya. I encountered there a student who presumed that I was a prosperity gospel preacher (of which he did not approve) simply because I was an American. You see, all he had ever encountered of American Christianity was TBN, which is beamed by satellite around the world. Likewise, just a couple of weeks ago I found myself in Africa defending the Christian orthodoxy of the Assemblies of God and of other tongues-speaking Christians against the attacks of a black Christian pastor (my friends will appreciate the delicious irony in this). For this man, his predominant exposure to American Christianity (and charismatic Christianity in general) had been TBN-related networks.

And so, I think we must acknowledge about Paul Crouch that he has affected the way that the entire world sees not only him but also us. The average member of a Southern Baptist FBC Somewhere may see a mighty chasm between his church and TBN, but to a tribal animist in the DRC, we're all the same thing. My experience with international missions is limited, but from what I've seen so far, Crouch's influence harms the broader Christian missionary effort. Missionaries face the challenge of getting themselves out from under the shadow of broadcast charlatans without inaugurating an internecine shooting war among evangelical denominations in areas where the Christian movement is young and fragile.

The Media Empire and the Local Church

Paul Crouch equated the growth of his business enterprise with the growth of the Kingdom. While reflecting upon the expansion of his network into more cities, Crouch said "All over the country, [people are] coming to know Jesus.…Church, I think we ought to rejoice ’cause the whole world is getting saved.”

And yet, Crouch's ascendancy has not resulted in any measurable growth of Christianity "all over the country." Worldwide, the statistics for Crouch's brand of Pentecostalism are rosier than in the USA, depending upon who is doing the counting and whom they are willing to count. But setting aside the question of statistics for a moment, there's no doubt that whatever the details of Crouch's ecclesiology, Crouch figured prominently in it. There are those who erroneously think that all of their countrymen are Christians because of their citizenship. It is an equally grievous error to think that all of one's customers are Christians because of their contributions.

Southern Baptists did indeed miss an opportunity by failing to take better advantage of radio and television. I'm more comfortable with making that mistake, however, than with the idea that we might have diluted our focus upon the local church in order to pursue broadcast media domination. Jesus Christ did not found a television network. We have no promise that TBN (or any network we might have started) will prevail over the gates of Hell.

It is therefore most accurate, if we will evaluate the contributions of Paul Crouch to the Kingdom of God (or of anyone else), to ask ourselves not how many nations his satellites reach nor how much money he made nor how many Christian celebrities have occupied a couch on his studio stage, but instead, we must ask ourselves whether churches are healthier and more numerous because of TBN. Because Crouch's doctrinal errors are of sufficient gravity to call his contributions into question, I would struggle to conclude that Crouch has made churches healthier through his endeavors, although the aftermath of the man's death is perhaps not an appropriate time to indulge in excessive criticism of his life's work.

Indeed, I only mention what I consider to be this critical failure on Crouch's part to make this appeal to Southern Baptists: Whatever we will do with new media—be it Twitter or YouTube—we must be careful to focus our efforts upon the strengthening and planting of local churches rather than upon the accumulation of personal wealth or the vicissitudes of fame. To the degree that we can harness media to the benefit of local churches we will have done something lasting and worthwhile.

Pseudo-Congregationalism Is from Satan

The First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, Mississippi, has become the pariah of the Southern Baptist Convention. On the eve of their wedding, Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson were forced to relocate their ceremony to another church's meeting house in order to placate the objections of racists within the congregation. Shameful.

The title of this post refers to James MacDonald's blog post from months ago in which he declared that "Congregational Government Is from Satan." Indeed, for all I know, MacDonald might be reading about FBC Crystal Springs and thinking that the situation in Mississippi is a prime example of exactly what he was talking about.

But the real problem with FBC Crystal Springs is that it appears that they are NOT practicing congregationalism. Rather, they are suffering from a malady that I call "pseudo-congregationalism." Pseudo-congregationalism is a system in which the official structure of the church's polity is congregationalist, but the church actually functions in a manner that avoids the key components of true biblical congregationalism: submission to the lordship of Christ, prayer, free collaborative discussion, strong pastoral leadership, and decisive congregational voting. From what we've heard about the decision to relocate the Wilsons' exchanging of vows, it appears that there was no vote taken, no call to corporate prayer issued, no congregational discussion held, no courageous resolve on the part of the pastor, and (consequently) a decision came forth that was contrary to the will of Christ. Pseudo-congregationalism really IS from Satan, and he uses it to dastardly effect.

Let me explain why these key elements of biblical congregationalism would have made a positive difference in Crystal Springs.

1. A Decisive Vote: I choose to doubt that this congregation would have actually voted to deny the Wilsons the opportunity to marry in the church's meeting space. Because there has been no vote, there is nobody to take responsibility for this decision. Because there is nobody to take responsibility for this decision, everyone in the church is under suspicion.

   The victims instinctively recognize the need for congregationalism. In this interview (Be sure to watch the video; don't just read the text) Charles Wilson responds to the suggestion that only a troublesome minority in the congregation raised opposition to his nuptials: "When you talk about the minority…How many is the minority? Was it half of the church? Was it three-quarters of the church? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know!" The witness of this church is sullied and unclear, and even the local TV station opines, "Many believe there would have been no controversy if there had been a vote within the church."

   Of course, there's the possibility that a vote within the church might have favored some racist policy to exclude the Wilsons and other black people from being able to get married in the church. I think that's unlikely (for reasons I'll mention below, I doubt the troublemakers would even have spoken up in such a meeting), but it is possible—would have even been PROBABLE a century ago in the preponderance of churches throughout our nation. But even if the vote had gone the wrong way, at least the people behind this horrible decision would have to take responsibility for it. As things stand at present, the culprits are the anonymous "some people" who always dominate churches governed by pseudo-congregationalism.

   In contrast, the Apostle Paul was able to state definitively that "the majority" (2 Corinthians 2:6) in the Corinthian church had enacted punishment upon an errant member (the offender in 1 Corinthians 5, perhaps?). Biblical congregationalism facilitates biblical accountability.

   This church needs to understand that they are not riding out a storm by faith. That's the wrong metaphor here. The storm is of their own creation. They're facing a decision. They need to decide it. By a vote. With no ambiguity remaining once the matter has been settled.

2. Free Collaborative Discussion: When the people of the congregation know that they make all of their decisions through voting, they also know that they'll have to persuade their fellow congregants if they want their viewpoint to prevail. In most congregationalist churches, somebody is going to have to make the motion. Somebody else is going to have to second it. For decisions that are controversial at all, people are going to have to rise in the midst of the congregation and make a case for or against the policy.

   The result is that, whether shameful racism would have prevailed in the vote or not, individual members of FBC Crystal Springs either would have had to go on the record in support of racism or would have had the opportunity to declare their principled opposition to this proposed travesty. As it stands now, every member of the congregation is under a cloud of suspicion. Am I the only one who watched that video and wondered how many of the people who are publicly decrying the church's action NOW were among the people who were PRIVATELY supporting racism before? People act differently when they have to take public responsibility for their views. Business meetings can provide this kind of accountability, or you can wait for TV cameras to provide it.

   Wilson expresses his own frustration with the unavoidable uncertainty that hangs over this congregation now. He knows that the individuals responsible are extremely unlikely to identify themselves in an open vote: "How're they going to go in and have a head count? Ask the person, 'How are you going to have a head count? How are you going to stand up and say, 'Yes, I voted no."?'" Wilson's right: That's not likely to happen at this point. An honest discussion held among the full congregation would have provided the clarity he desires.

   In Acts 15, facing a strikingly similar question of race and the gospel, the Jerusalem church called a meeting at which full and free discussion took place. In the Jerusalem meeting, as far as we can tell from the biblical account, the opposition to Paul and the gospel, in spite of having caused so much trouble up to that point, didn't even have the courage to dare to speak their wrongful views before the apostles and the congregation.

   The first words of Acts 15 are "some men"—the anonymous "some men" of pseudo-congregationalism. The episode ends with an official letter endorsed by the apostles, the elders, and the congregation. Good congregationalism does that: It dethrones sinister cabals of "some men" and subjects them to the will of the Lord by the authority He has granted to His congregation. Light makes cockroaches scatter. Free collaborative discussion can be a balm to wage medicinal war against the sinful ills of human agenda in Christ's church.

3. Strong Pastoral Leadership: MacDonald's presumption is that congregational church government and strong pastoral leadership are mutually exclusive. Not so. In this case, a commitment to true biblical congregationalism would have empowered this pastor and would have bolstered his courage. Here's his mistake (and we all make them): He said, "I didn't want to have a controversy within the church." If we take Pastor Weatherford at his word, he was trying to avoid a messy conflict between racists and Christians in the church, knowing that each party had "strong feelings" on the subject.

   And let me say it, lest anyone be misled by my little article: Congregationalism is not the way to avoid controversy in the church. If you want to avoid controversy, you will avoid votes on anything but the mildest of questions. You will avoid public discussions unless everyone who speaks is guaranteed to speak on the same side of the issue.

   And yet, internal controversy is precisely what this church desperately needs if it will be healthy at all. Was there ever a better story to illustrate the truth of 1 Corinthians 11:19? "There must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you." Sometimes it is a pastor's job to love holiness more than peace. Clearly this is about pastorally loving the Wilsons enough to take a courageous stand on their behalf. Clearly this is about pastorally loving the innocent member of FBC Crystal Springs whose reputation is unjustly besmirched by this episode. Perhaps less clearly to all observing, it is also about loving the racist members of FBC Crystal Springs, whose primary discipleship need at the moment is that it "become evident among them" that they are not among "those who are approved."

   In a pseudo-congregationalist system, these few members have purloined unto themselves the right and authority to intimidate this pastor without any congregational mandate. Pseudo-congregationalism shuns the formal in favor of the informal, for the informal is so much easier to manipulate. In a true system of biblical congregationalism, a pastor can have the confidence to tell troublemakers to take it to the church or shut their traps.

   That's not to deny that sometimes even the majority of the congregation stands on the side of wrong. But even in those situations, congregationalism can provide the right environment for strong pastoral leadership to take place. A good friend who is a pastor recently resigned his church immediately following a particularly baleful vote in the church's business meeting. An associate pastor of the church was confronted for wantonly carnal behavior. All of the lay leadership of the congregation (their personnel committee, deacons, etc.) supported the ouster of this associate pastor, who really needed to go. But he was able to play upon the sympathies of the congregation and won a close vote that would otherwise have required his termination. My friend knew that he could not lead a church that would make such an endorsement (and neither could I), so he immediately tendered his resignation.

   Some might point to such an episode as a failure of congregationalism. In a sense, it is, since the action of the church departed from the will of Christ, who ought to be her head. Nevertheless, the action of the church formed the setting for one of the strongest actions of pastoral leadership that my friend has ever taken, in my opinion. My pastor-friend taught the members of that congregation—especially the ones who had barely lost their attempt to do the right thing—the importance of taking principled stands, even at risk to one's own livelihood, for the sake of the gospel and the church. My friend wasn't afraid of controversy; he was willing to stand up in the storm and do the right thing. It is in controversy that pastoral leadership is proven and put on display—or revealed to be lacking.

   In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul exercised his strong apostolic leadership to tell the church precisely what to do. He did not, however, presume to do it himself. He would settle for nothing other than the action of the congregation to discipline its wayward member. It is, after all, supposed to be pastoral LEADership, not merely pastoral DOership. In healthy congregationalism, congregational decision-making is a benchmark of discipleship. The pastor must lead the disciples so well that they see for themselves the wisdom of following Christ at each step of the church's mission and they take positive action to embrace those steps and take ownership of them as the disciples they are called to be.

4. Corporate Prayer: By "corporate prayer" I do not mean to signify, necessarily, the moments when a congregation gathers in the same room and somebody voices a prayer for them. Rather, I'm talking about those times when an entire congregation is praying, even if they are doing so individually in their prayer closets, with a united focus on the same question or matter of prayer. Pseudo-congregationalism makes rush decisions in the middle of the night to placate "some people" and avoid controversy. In contrast, true biblical congregationalism sets aside time for corporate prayer before addressing important or controversial decisions. At FBC Farmersville, we publish the agenda of our business meetings in advance for this very reason. Although a member may introduce any item of business in our business meetings, if it has not been placed on the agenda in advance (and any member can place anything on the agenda in advance), then our constitution prevents us from voting on it at that meeting, since we have not had time to pray about it.

   I don't doubt that Pastor Weatherford prayed about what to do in response to these graceless critics, whoever they were. I suspect that he prayed long into the night. But this is the key weakness of episcopal or presbyterial (or, worse, in this case, oligarchical) church polity: Even good, godly pastors sometimes can't pray enough when they're all alone in praying. We pray better for God's guidance when we all pray for it together than when the congregation is kept uninformed and denied the opportunity to seek the Lord for guidance.

   In the New Testament, the church was nimble to pray in moments of crisis. In Acts 12 the congregation convened on the very night that Herod was planning to bring Simon Peter forward to do him harm. God answered their prayers and miraculously freed Peter from the jail. When, after we kept what would have been our first adopted child for twenty-four hours, the birth-mother changed her mind and took him back from us, FBC Farmersville assembled for prayer on our behalf within a few hours. Even in times of crisis, when decisions must be made quickly or when circumstances are thrust upon us, we are better off when we all pray together before we act or react.

5. Submission to the Lordship of Christ: The goal of any worthy system of church polity is to have the church find and obey the will of the Lord. At this point it is important to clarify that the problem at FBC Crystal Springs is really only secondarily and tangentially a question of civil rights. Yes, wrong has been done to the Wilsons, but far greater wrong has been done to Jesus Christ. In pseudo-congregationalism, the need of the timid to avoid controversy, the need of the compliant to be liked by all, the need of the aggressive to dominate, the need of the marketer to project the right image, and the need of the financially dependent to safeguard the money supply all take a back seat to the RIGHT of Jesus Christ to be Lord over His church.

   It is here that congregationalism intersects with church discipline. If the membership of the church extends freely to those who are disinterested in the Lordship of Christ (not the same thing as those who just see things differently from me) because they have never submitted to His lordship by receiving the gospel or have demonstrated by their behavior that their carnality is leading them away from obedience to Christ as Lord, then gone is the one mechanism by which biblical congregationalism can work—the action of the Holy Spirit among genuine believers who are listening carefully to Him.

   Unless they repent, the members of FBC Crystal Springs who opposed this wedding on racist grounds need to be disciplined out of the church. So long as they remain in such a spiritual condition, they are not qualified to contribute to the mission of the church, to identify themselves as representatives of the gospel, or to aid the church in seeking the Lord's will. Congregationalism in which such people have ANY say is a recipe for disaster.

There are many victims of pseudo-congregationalism. Innocent members like the Wilsons are victims of it. Many suffering pastors are the victims of it. But among the greatest victims of psedo-congregationalism is true biblical congregationalism. So weakened is the wheat by the spread of this noxious weed that drastic measures are required to revive it. We cannot look too smugly in the direction of Crystal Springs. Pseudo-congregationlism holds sway in many congregations that haven't made this big of a blunder yet. May the tragic unfolding of this sin-drama in Mississippi awaken us all to the need to rise up and defend the Lordship of Christ against all challengers in our churches.

James MacDonald, Convictional Baptist?

James MacDonald just delivered what I thought was a very good sermon in the SBC 2012 Pastors Conference. In general, I would say that the program has been superb, and I'm very thankful for Grant Ethridge and the entire Pastors Conference team.

MacDonald said that he is a "Baptist by conviction," and immediately after the sermon, Ethridge asked that Kevin Ezell go back to the Green Room and sign MacDonald up into the SBC. I couldn't help but recall, as that conversation was transpiring, MacDonald's declaration last year that "Congregational Government is from Satan." I want to be a man who passes over opportunities to tear down a brother, but I also want to be a man who takes opportunities to teach. In the latter interest, and not in the former, I contribute the following:

1. Being a Congregationalist is a condicio sine qua non of being a "Baptist by Conviction." The Baptist movement is an ecclesiological movement. Congregationalism comes in bewildering variety, but Congregationalism in the broad sense is part of what it means to be a Baptist. Congregationalism is one of the things about which we feel a Bible certainty. That's why the Baptist Faith & Message is direct and clear on the matter.

   It's important to say so, not to hate on James MacDonald, but because we Southern Baptists are great at forgetting what makes us who we are. This episode in his life is a chance to remind all of my Southern Baptist readers that we are congregationalists, and that those who are not congregationalists are not us, even though we may love and appreciate those outside our fold.

2. Although I disagree with MacDonald's argument against Congregationalism, I am actually sympathetic toward it. MacDonald's major motivation throughout the article, it seems to me, is the statement that he made as his fourth reason, "Congregationalism Crushes Pastors."

   Who can argue with that?

   Last week I spent several hours with a young man who claims to be a Christian but is not in church. He began to tell me that he had had some bad experiences in churches. I love it when people tell me that, as though I could not possibly relate, since I'm a pastor. Nobody knows about bad experiences in churches better than pastors do. I sympathize with MacDonald, because I too have seen men who wanted and tried to be a good pastor who have been crushed in congregationalist church processes.

   But maybe churches weren't created primarily for the comfort of pastors. Maybe Jesus' intention was not to put a big red "Easy" button on the desks of pastors. Maybe, as men like Stan Norman have been declaring for years, the congregationalist system has biblical advantages for the task of discipleship, which I think IS the Great Commission purpose of the church.

   If you conclude that congregations exist at the pleasure of pastors, then congregationalism is not going to be your preferred form of church polity. If, however, you believe that pastors exist at the pleasure of Christ's body, then I think that much of MacDonald's argument will be unpersuasive to you. But it is unescapable that all of us who love the Lord and who love His church will mourn over the ways that Satan has wounded pastors (who are disciples, too, after all) and scandalized them. Some of them, perhaps, needed to be pruned out of a ministerial role in which they had no business to begin with, but some of them have been driven out by wicked men, and that's an unavoidable truth. My heart, just like MacDonald's, is grieved over that, and although I think that he has drawn wrongful conclusions about the matter, I am thankful for his sympathetic heart toward struggling pastors.

3. Pastors need accountability. Episcopal and Presbyterial government is used by Satan, as well, and others have already made this point well, so I need not belabor it. Ecclesial dictatorships are not biblical.

By the way, I have not undertaken to rebut MacDonald's unsupported claim that congregationalism is unbiblical, but I will happily direct you to Jonathan Leeman's well-written article, which addresses that question toward the end.

Perhaps MacDonald has changed his mind about congregational church government. If so, then welcome to the SBC, Pastor MacDonald! But I do think it is important that we—as cordially as is possible—remember and reiterate that we are congregationalists.

The Gift of Church Membership

The discipline that I chose for my studies is known by several names, each with a slightly different emphasis. Perhaps the most famous practitioner is Martin Marty, whose University of Chicago Divinity School teaches "History of Christianity." That's a nice, detached, secular sort of title for an academic discipline, indicating that Christianity is a thing of which this program studies its history. Boston University prominently employs the phrase "Christian History," a term that could describe either history produced by Christians or history describing individual Christians.

At Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I studied, we used the name "Church History." It is a fitting title, I think, for a seminary situated in a theological tradition that has rightly emphasized the local church. Church History is the history of the churches, including the ways in which prominent individuals or social movements have impacted the churches.

What I would like to propose in this essay is something that fits within Church History but is rather more focused. This is an essay on the subject of Church Membership History.

A Gift from the Church?

By the third century AD, church membership had come to be regarded as a gift that the church gave to the individual member. Cyprian of Carthage, in the middle of the Novatianist Controversy, authored a treatise "On the Unity of the Church" (De Unitate Ecclesiae). In that text, Cyprian famously declared "He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother. If anyone could escape outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church."

In Cyprian's mind, it was foolish to speak of "the churches." Cyprian knew only one Catholic Church, institutionally united by the undivided episcopate. This episcopate—these bishops—exclusively controlled the gateway into church membership. Obtaining church membership from the bishops was of unparalleled importance, since, according to Cyprian, "outside the church there is no salvation."

Cyprian's position became the default position of the Roman Catholic Church. Although people sometimes cite Augustine's statement, "How many sheep are outside; how many wolves within?" as support for a medieval view within Roman Catholicism that supported the idea of salvation outside the church, this is a misreading of Augustine. The ongoing context of the quote clearly requires that one read Augustine's statement on predestination as though it said "How many sheep are outside; how many wolves within [as of yet]?" Augustine had no doubt that even the presently wayward sheep would all eventually (as he had done) wind up within the Roman Catholic Church

The zenith of the concept of church membership as a gift from the church to the member came in AD 1077 at an alpine village called Canossa. The Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV marched through the snow to Canossa that year, shoeless and wearing only a hair shirt. For three days he stood outside in the snow, begging to be admitted into Canossa Castle and into the presence of Pope Gregory VII. The Pope had kicked Henry out of the church, and the Emperor was there to beg to receive back the gift of his church membership.

A Gift from the Member?

If your church were to require that people stand shoeless in the snow for three days in order to gain membership, how many members do you think you would have? Obviously, things have changed somewhere along the way!

Pinpointing a time when the change took place is difficult. At least the beginning of the change probably occurred in 1517, when Martin Luther launched the Reformation by which the German people (for whom the experience of the German Henry at Canossa had come to represent the subjugation of Germans to Italians) broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and formed their own Lutheran Church. However important the Lutheran Reformation may be in understanding this change in the nature of church membership, it is possible to overstate its importance. The result of the Lutheran Reformation in 1555 was the assignment of state churches according to the religious beliefs of each state's respective monarch. For the individual Christian, it makes very little difference whether one's religious convictions are dictated by a King or a Pope.

Instead of 1517, I think the turning point of the Christian concept of church membership is the First Great Awakening in America and the accompanying Evangelical Awakening in England (1740 - 1776). As a result of this period, a vast multitude of people who had been born into one denomination of Christianity died as members of a different denomination of Christianity by means of nothing more than their individual convictions about which denomination most appealed to them (hopefully by being the most true to the teachings of the Bible). So widespread and uncontrollable was this spiritual migration that evangelist George Whitefield famously lamented, "my chicks have become ducks!"

What ensued was a period of competition among churches to win the membership of individual believers. At first, the medium of this competition for membership was inter-denominational debate. Baptists, Methodists, Quakers, and Presbyterians went at it with a fury. Within a few decades, Campbellites and Stoneites gleefully entered the fray. Eventually the effectiveness of theological debate waned and churches turned to the new advertising techniques pioneered by corporations and made possible by technological developments like radio and television.

Canossa was a dim memory. Church membership became a gift that the individual member gave to the local church. Standing barefoot in snow now are the pastors, shuffling from house to house in the cul de sac, penitently begging for individual Christians to grant to the pastors' respective churches above all others the great bestowal of their membership.

Indeed, the gift of a commitment to church membership (like the gift of a commitment to marriage in this culture) is on the way to becoming the gift so precious and hard to obtain that pastors no longer dare even to ask for it. Calvary Chapel venues explicitly do not have church membership. A wide variety of other start-up congregations are eschewing church membership entirely. What ensues is what I call "casual worship," defined not in parallel with "casual dress" or with "casual style" but with "casual sex." Without commitment or expectation, people attend a weekly entertainment event to which they may or may not return, entirely dependent upon their momentary whims.

Like casual sex, casual worship does occasionally give rise to a long-term relationship. But like casual sex, casual worship is both the symptom and the cause of a lethal erosion of healthy relationships signaling a headlong plunge into widespread disfunction.

A Gift of the Spirit

Both of these models of church membership are defective. The appropriate way to understand church membership is to see it as a gift from Christ both to the individual Christian and through the individual Christian to the brotherhood of Christians that is a local church.

Four items in the New Testament require local church membership:

1. The relationship that local pastors/elders/overseers and deacons are required to have with the membership of local churches. Individual Christians are commanded to follow the individual leaders that they know are theirs (Hebrews 13:17). Individual pastors are commanded to shepherd specific sheep that are located among them and are allotted to their charge (1 Peter 5:1-5) and are warned that they will give an account for those particular sheep (Hebrews 13:17). Each Christian is required to know precisely who is his or her pastor, and each pastor is required to know precisely who are the Christians for whom he has responsibility.
2. The process of biblical local church discipline as indicated in the New Testament. In the apostolic implementation of Matthew 18, Paul sternly commanded the Corinthian church to cease in the judgment of "outsiders" but to reinvigorate their exercise of church discipline toward those who were "inside the church." This commandment is nonsensical if a church does not bother to know who is inside and who is outside.
3. The evidences of structure within the local churches mentioned in the New Testament. It is difficult to imagine that the church that kept a strictly qualified list of widows (1 Timothy 5:3-16) did not bother to keep a careful list of members.
4. The stated purpose and operation of spiritual gifts. In 1 Corinthians 12, we learn that God's rationale for the appointment of the various spiritual gifts and offices within the Body of Christ and the placement of those gifted believers within the body is for the common benefit of the churches according to the will of God. It is from this passage and others like it that we have come to call the individuals in the church by the name "members."

All of these are good reasons, and in conglomeration, they constitute an invincible case. For the purposes of this essay, let us consider solely the last of them.

The word "member," where it refers to a whole individual Christian, always appears with reference to the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not synonymous with a local church. Rather, the Body of Christ is composed of all human beings who ever have and ever will be born again. These are not infinite beings; they are finite humans restricted to life at a particular time in particular places with particular roles and particular attributes. These particularities of their existence are assigned by God.

For example, I am alive from 1969 forward to some end-point known at present only to God. I live in the United States of America. I have been brought to Farmersville, TX. I am a pastor/elder/overseer. I write and speak a lot. I teach. These are the particulars of my life. Some of them are entirely out of my control. All of them are under the control of God. Some of them (teaching, for example) the New Testament has specifically enumerated as spiritual gifts.

Why?

Why do I live now? Why do I live here? Why am I all of these things? Why do I have the spiritual gifts that I have?

My placement within the Body of Christ with regard to time, location, aptitude, and giftedness has been determined by the hand of God. "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired." (1 Corinthians 12:18, NASB). For what reason has God done this? God's overall plan for common good of the churches and for His own glory and eternal victory involves my placement in precisely this way. I must remember that "…the same God…works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." (1 Corinthians 12:6b-7, NASB)

My membership in the Body of Christ came by Christ's gracious regeneration of me when I believed. My membership in a local church comes by God's will and by His assignment. This is no less true for any member than it is for me as a pastor. God not only makes the members of the body, but he also places the members within the body.

Are there "unplaced" members of the Body of Christ? Roving shortstops without commitment to a local church? "Body-only" Christians who are not intended by God to be a member of a church? Certainly location does not preclude relocation. Aquila and Priscilla moved from one church to another, apparently. One might argue that the apostles and missionary church planters moved among the various individual churches without membership in any particular one (although Paul seems to have retained a special relationship with the Antioch church). One might point to the Ethiopian eunuch (although we know not what he founded upon reaching Ethiopia). And yet to find in the New Testament an individual Christian believer who could have participated as a member of a local congregation but who (with divine approval) chose to remain aloof, one must be resigned to a lengthy search with little hope of ever reaching a eureka-moment.

And so, membership in a local church is an assignment from God that accompanies gifting from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives me particular spiritual gifts for the purpose of their particular application within my particular context. The purpose of those spiritual gifts is the increased common good of the overall Body of Christ, accomplished first by the increased common good of this particular local church.

The local church is the setting for every mention of spiritual gifts in the New Testament. The most common context in which spiritual gifts receive mention in the New Testament is the context of their disfunction. Both in Rome and in Corinth, something had gone awry with regard to spiritual gifts. In both cases, what was suffering from the abuse of spiritual gifts was the local congregation. Individualistic egotism with regard to spiritual gifts had eroded local congregational unity. Specific instructions for the use of spiritual gifts are, every one of them, instructions for how to use them among a local congregation.

I ought not to ask whether my local church is worthy of my membership. As a pastor, I ought never to ask whether any member of my local church is worthy of my pastoral care. Rather, I ought to remember that I am unworthy to be a member of my church. I ought to remember that membership in my church is a job. It is a job to which God has entrusted His amazing, universe-defining plan. No job is more important than my job as a member of my church. I ought to remember that it is a job for which I am entirely unqualified. I qualify for this position only by means of the gifts of the indwelling Holy Spirit. This position—this placement within the Body of Christ—is itself a gift from God made according to His desire, not mine nor my pastors'. I am unworthy of this. That's what makes it a gift. It is a gift worth cherishing.

Conclusion

The giver of the gift is the one with the power. The first act of this story (church membership as a gift from the church to the member) gave incredible power to bishops and other church leaders. The second act of this story (church membership as a gift from the member to the church) gives incredible power to the members of the church. The Bible, in contradistinction to both of these approaches, declares that all power belongs to Christ, the only Head of the church. Jesus is Lord, and biblical church membership can only take place when we are surrendered to His lordship over our individual lives and our local churches.

Next Week's Baptism

Next Sunday morning in our worship services, I will baptize my son, Jim. He's six years old.

It is an action that will bring down upon me (spoken or unspoken) the suspicion or scorn of others, all of whom I count as brothers in Christ and some of whom I count as friends. Some would delight in accusing me of being a paedobaptist. Some would wring their hands that such baptisms erode the regeneracy of the church. Some would argue that, even if there is no theological basis for waiting to baptize Jim (who stands in stead for others like him), there is ample pragmatic cause in the modern state of the churches.

If they are close to me at all, and if the topic has ever arisen between us, then they know of my longstanding (long before I had children) resistance to humanly devised age thresholds governing the Christ-ordained institution of baptism. Because few topics are as important, and because this is a dialogue worth having as Southern Baptists, I offer here my own convictions that lead me to baptize Jim next Sunday morning. I gather my thoughts around three primary questions.

1. Is there a mandatory minimum age for being converted?
2. What is the basis of eligible candidacy for baptism?
3. Who has the authority to set qualifications for baptism?

Is there a mandatory minimum age for being converted?

Certainly there are mandatory capacities that a person must master before being able to experience conversion. Repentance accompanies conversion; therefore, any person who is not yet capable of appreciating his own sinfulness before a Holy God, experiencing the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and demonstrating contrition and repentance—the person incapable of these things because of infancy is not yet old enough to experience conversion. Faith accompanies conversion; therefore, any person not yet capable of knowing the facts of the gospel and receiving them by faith is not yet old enough to experience conversion. In this sense, I affirm that there is a mandatory minimum stage for being converted.

If illness or other developmental incapacity caused a person not to acquire these capabilities until far into physical maturity, such a person could be ineligible for conversion until quite advanced in years, I believe.

But the question concerns not so much a minimum stage of conversion as it deals with the idea of a minimum age of conversion. To put it bluntly and specifically, would any argue that no six-year-old could possibly have experienced genuine conversion? I have not yet encountered anyone so bold as to make this argument. I would make it with regard to a six-month-old—no six-month-old exists, or ever has existed, who could possibly have experienced genuine conversion. But I would not make this claim with regard to a six-year-old. Would you?

You might think that I would take this question too personally to discuss it, since we're talking about my son here. You'd be only half right. I do take it personally, but not because of my son. I take it personally because of me. I was not six, but five years old (almost six) when I was converted. I testify today, God bearing witness with me, that I at that age understood that I was a sinner, understood that my sin was against God, understood that damnation awaited me for my sin, understood that I could not save myself, understood that Christ had died for my sin on the cross as my substitute, understood that Christ had risen from the dead after three days, understood that Christ wanted me to repent of my sin, understood that I needed to place my faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins, and understood that I must confess Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. I consented to all of those things at that time.

What's more, I did all of this under the powerful conviction of the Holy Spirit. If that was not the Holy Spirit dealing with me in conviction when I was five years old, then I have never known His voice—not in my dramatic calling to preach when I was eleven, not in the many stirrings and reproofs and blessings that have happened since then. In my experience, that was the time when I met the One who has walked with me through so many mileposts along the way in my life.

So, if you would argue that no six-year-old could possibly have been converted, then I suggest that you bring your best game. You're going to have an uphill climb convincing me.

If not, then I'll be glad to enter a conversation with you about how frequently God births again human beings of various ages, as well as means that God might use to secure those earlier, less frequent, conversions when He so chooses. Certainly I do not believe that God converts every six-year-old, nor do I believe that every six-year-old is capable of conversion at that time. I would not even argue that the majority of six-year-olds are in a position to comprehend or experience all that conversion entails. I am merely advancing the point that there are some people even as young as five years old who genuinely do experience conversion.

What is the basis of eligible candidacy for baptism?

Along with most formal statements on this point from Baptists, I confess and believe that only "a believer" (BF&M Article VII) is the rightful candidate for baptism. The basis of candidacy for baptism is conversion, and only conversion. Churches hear the testimony of professed believers and baptize those who are (to employ the Puritan language here) "visible saints," or who appear to have been converted.

We argue for conversion as the basis of candidacy for baptism against the paedobaptists, who argue that, at least for some people, a milestone of physical development (i.e., birth) is the basis of candidacy for baptism. Those eligible for baptism are those, irrespective of whether they have been born again, who have attained to at least the age of zero. The historic Baptist idea (if not perfectly the historic Baptist practice) has not been to argue that paedobaptists have merely found the wrong age for at which to baptize people (zero rather than, say, thirteen, for zero is just too young), but rather to argue that age is the wrong basis entirely for baptism, which must be extended to all and to only those who have been born again.

When we credobaptists say that we will not baptize any younger than eighteen-year-olds, it seems to me that we have wandered away, yes, from our Baptist theological underpinnings, but so much more importantly, from the New Testament theology of baptism that makes the new birth the sole criterion adjudging whether one be eligible for baptism. "If you believe with all your heart you may [be baptized]." (Yes, I believe that Acts 8:37 belongs in the Bible).

So, to make it all specific and personal, if my son has legitimately experienced conversion, and if our church nonetheless were to forbid him to be baptized (or if I were to do so as his father), then by our actions we are stating that the new birth is not the basis of candidacy for baptism. At best, we are saying that new birth plus something else is that basis. In which case we need to amend all of our confessions of faith and start being more honest about our beliefs with regard to baptism.

Who has the authority to set qualifications for baptism?

Ultimately, this is a question for churches rather than for individuals to address, but I do not believe that even churches have been authorized by the Lord to make requirements for baptism that are not made in scripture. We have from the Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, a positive command in scripture that we are to baptize disciples. To determine that there are disciples whom we will not baptize, or will not baptize yet, is to set our own terms for when we will and when we will not be obedient to Christ's command.

Our theology of the Lord's Supper as expressed in the Baptist Faith & Message (that baptism is pre-requisite to participation in the Lord's Supper) is based upon the presumption that it is a matter of unrepentant sin for any genuine believer in Christ to persist in an unbaptized state. I say this not to open the argument in this thread with regard to the proper extent of communion (for we'll have plenty to discuss in the main point of this post, I imagine), but merely to attempt to demonstrate that Southern Baptists have indeed considered unbaptized believers (apart from some unavoidable incapacity such as faced the thief on the cross) to be persisting in sin.

If this be granted, and if my son has genuinely been born again, then for me to refuse him baptism for a decade is nothing more and nothing less than for me to obstruct his obedience to Christ. That's serious business. For one thing, that's not the lesson that I want to be teaching to my son. For another thing, I don't want to answer to the Lord for such an action. He has commanded baptism, and I do not believe that I have the authority to countermand his instructions. Nor do I believe that our congregation has that authority, even with all of the unique authority that the congregation has.

Conclusion

I think we have every reason to examine carefully candidates for baptism in order to be earnest about determining whether they have been born again. Frankly, I've baptized some 40-somethings who gave every appearance later on of being false professors. We Americans live in a spiritual terrain noted for rocky soil, if you get my drift, and it is a good thing that we want to be more circumspect about whom we baptize. Setting a minimum age for baptism is, in my opinion (and saying it as charitably as I know how without sacrificing clarity), an unbiblical, cheap, cop-out substitute for the difficult work of seeking evidence of genuine conversion in those who profess to have been born again.

The very young who profess conversion? Push back and resist them. (We have!) Make them persist adamantly in their profession. (We have!) Make them give you a testimony of conversion in their own words. (We have!) Cut absolutely no theological corners in making sure that they understand the gospel. In fact, none of those things are a bad idea for adult professors either, are they? But none of those reasonable actions require setting up arbitrary man-made barriers that negate what is one of the simplest and most evident truths in scripture: Those who have genuinely been born again have an immediate obligation to obey Christ's command to be baptized.

Devotional Thoughts on Congregational Authority

Over at SBC Today I have offered an essay about the Christ-conferred authority of the local congregations. The essay is more exegetical and theological in nature. Here I would like to provide a few words about the practical worth and devotional effect of those theological sentiments. In other words, presuming that I believe those thoughts to be true, how do I act differently because of them and how is my relationship with Christ furthered by them, in my estimation.

I will offer just one example. This week a member of our congregation asked that the elders (pastors) of our congregation gather with him in accordance with the James 5 model to pray with him for his deliverance from alcoholism and for his forgiveness of the sin of drunkenness and the many other sins that accompanied and issued forth from that sin. James 5 is another of the passages that relies specifically upon the leadership of the local congregation being expected by Christ to function in a specific role to which they have been authorized by Christ.

While praying, I made specific reference to Christ's promise that any two of us could gather in agreement and depend upon the power and authority of heaven to be behind us. I then prayed with all of my heart for this brother's deliverance. I believe that the full power of heaven was moved in response to our prayers, and that it was moved in a way that it would not have been moved by my solitary prayer for him. This realization causes me to find value in exercises of the James 5 type, and it gives me a greater love for Christ and desire to serve Him to know that He listens and acts in the midst of such circumstances, even when they are populated with believers as frail and flawed as we are.

First Baptist Church: We Put Up With Each Other

The title of this blog post is probably not the kind of slogan that anyone on Madison Avenue would ever recommend for a church. I do not expect to see it on a billboard in the Metroplex anytime soon. In the hallways at the various state conventions this Autumn, I would be surprised to hear any pastor, when he is asked how things are going at his church, to utter the sincere sentiment, "Well, they're putting up with me, and I'm putting up with them."

We like to indulge in and sell the fantasy that church is a place where you don't have to put up with people. We like to tell people to come to church where they'll get along with everyone and everyone will get along with them. We like to create genetically screened and modified congregations, demographically controlled to lessen the likelihood of their having to put up with anybody too different from them.

We pastors speak of our church having no problems that "a few good funerals" couldn't solve. We aspire to a more frequent practice of church discipline, sometimes because we wish to return to a biblical ideal, but if we will be honest with ourselves, sometimes because there are some people we'd rather ship off to somebody else. (Do not misconstrue: I'm working toward a better practice of biblical restorative church discipline here at FBC Farmersville, and I think that most of our SBC churches are in disobedience to the Lord if we are not doing so. I'm just saying that we pastors ought to check our own motives while we do so. More on that in several coming posts.)

But putting up with one another is a good and biblical idea. This morning I am preaching from the first two verses of Ephesians 4, in the first steps of a journey that will take us through that entire chapter. In the second verse, we find the powerful command (in Greek) that we should be “ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀγάπῃ” unfortunately rendered in English in the NASB as "showing tolerance for one another in love." I say "unfortunately" not because of any defect in the NASB translators, but simply because the language of "toleration" in twenty-first-century English has come to carry so much baggage. We have come to associate with "toleration" a sort of attitude in which another person's behavior doesn't bother us. Often, in this age, the apex of toleration has come to be characterized by laissez-faire at the best and amorality at the worst.

The meaning in Ephesians, in contrast, conveys expressly the state of being bothered terribly by something or someone, yet patiently enduring the offense and putting up with the offender. The church that puts up with each other—that's a high biblical ideal to which we ought to aspire.

Ultimately, as I said in this morning's sermon, these attitudes arise out of our gospel calling. Each of us should pose two questions to ourselves as churchmen and churchwomen: (1) Do I really believe the gospel? (2) Do I really believe that the other members of this church are in the gospel?

If I really believe the gospel, including what it says about what I was and about what it took to remove me from what I was and to move me toward what I will be, then I will be humble in the church. And if I really believe that the gospel is at work in my fellow believers, then I will patiently put up with them in love, confident that whatever unChristlike thing I am enduring at their hands, it will not last forever in them as the Spirit has His gospel way with them.

On Being the Church

A sister church in our area has announced an initiative to "be the church" rather than "going to church." According to press coverage (which I always take with a grain of salt), the capstone of this initiative is the cancellation of all Sunday worship services for a given Sunday in favor of a number of community service projects.

First, I want to commend the concept of emphasizing "church" as someone who we are rather than someplace that we go. It is a needed and biblical correction in our day. And yet, having determined to be the church rather than to go to the church, I can't help but wonder whether a set of community service projects can constitute being the church in any New Testament sense.

In the New Testament, although I find the careful attention of the church to the needs of church members, I find it difficult to build an exegetical case for the policing of city park litter and the changing of old motor oil as the essence of ecclesiology. One might pretty easily argue that the New Testament church not only did none of those things, but further that they did nothing which might be construed as the first-century equivalent of them. Or perhaps I misread the scriptures.

The only hermeneutical basis I can conceive for defining the being of the church thusly is to exalt (a selective reading of) the Minor Prophets over the Pauline Epistles and to build more of an Old Testament social movement than a New Testament church. Starting off each morning with a daily passage of Rauschenbusch would go much further in building such a mindset than would a daily encounter with Acts.

Community service projects might be a great public-relations move for a church. They might present opportunities to share the gospel with new people for a church. I've led our church to participate in similar ventures. I do not write to express any personal opposition to the activities in and of themselves. Rather, I object to the labeling of community service projects as the church actually coming to be itself. The history of The Salvation Army has demonstrated, I believe, that warm-hearted and caring people can actually allow a passion for community service to get in the way of a church being a church as biblically defined.

When I think about FBC Farmersville coming to be the church rather than going to church, I think about the Church Covenant that I will be presenting to the congregation in May for a vote on it (along with our new Constitution & Bylaws) in July. It is as we two or three (or more) gather together in covenantal agreement in the name of Christ, worshipping Christ, with Him gathered with us, and we fulfill the "one anothers" of the New Testament that we are being the church which Christ founded.

Note: I comment on this matter because I believe that it addresses important questions that we can all benefit from considering. I neither name the church in question nor link to the mentioned press releases out of my fraternal love and respect for a sister congregation in our local area. Although we may answer these questions differently, and even if the topic merits our consideration, I have no desire to be gratuitously derogatory toward a sister church with whom we cooperate.

The Most Important Thing Happening Right Now in the Southern Baptist Convention

Pretty pretentious (or portentious?) title, huh?

The most important thing happening in SBC current events right now is the Executive Committee's consideration of whether Broadway Baptist Church, Fort Worth, TX, is or is not in "friendly cooperation" with the Southern Baptist Convention. Why do I believe this to be the most important thing presently ongoing in the SBC?

Do I believe that this case is important because homosexuality is the most important issue presently facing our convention? No. The SBC's answer to the question of homosexuality is, for the moment, clear. We'll see where it stands one generation from now, with researcher after researcher declaring an upcoming generation of "evangelicals" who are "more tolerant on issues such as gay rights and homosexuality" (John Turner, quoted in Christianity Today online article here). But I think we have reason to hope that the Southern Baptist Convention is distinct enough from evangelicalism at large to stick with the Bible while evangelicalism slides off into public relations. Whatever. But my point here simply is that the SBC, before showing Broadway Baptist Church the door, is already sufficiently on-the-record on the question of homosexuality.

Homosexuality is an important issue, but not nearly the most important issue facing us at present. But there are issues involved in this case that are very important for Southern Baptists.

Biblical Church Discipline and Regenerate Church Membership are among them. The very heart of this case is the idea that Broadway Baptist Church is responsible for those whom it admits into membership. Reports indicate that one of the most important questions posed in the last EC meeting simply asked Broadway's representatives something along the lines of, "If you knew for certain that a person seeking membership were an ongoing, active, unrepentant homosexual, would you still receive that person into membership?" It is a good question, and the committee did not receive a good answer, to my knowledge.

Broadway's defense, up to this point, has been that it has never taken any sort of a vote to place the church in favor of homosexuality. Unless it does something like that, Broadway's representatives argue, it has not "act[ed] to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior." (SBC Constitution, Article III). I'm hoping that the Executive Committee is preparing to decide that a church is indeed acting to affirm, approve, or endorse behavior when (a) the church knows full well that its members are engaged in that behavior, and yet (b) no disciplinary action whatsoever is taken by the church with regard to that behavior—no preaching, no formal disciplinary action, not even any passing over such a one for positions of responsibility in the congregation.

I believe that this action, if taken, will be an important milestone in our needed strengthening of biblical ecclesiology within our convention. It will be a clarion call to our churches to remember that membership does matter and that we are indeed responsible for the spiritual health of all of those who are members in our congregation. Particularly this is true for those of us in church leadership "who will give an account" (Hebrews 13:17) for these folks. At least with regard to homosexuality, the message from our convention will be clear: Loving and redemptive discipline toward known practicing homosexuals in the church is the only biblical option for our churches.

That lesson, once learned with regard to homosexuality, needs to be extrapolated to a great many public and grievous sins that muddle our testimony of Christ, weaken our evangelistic effectiveness, and diminish the holiness of the Bride of Christ.

And that brings us to the final reason why this is the most important thing happening right now in the Southern Baptist Convention: Because this question is all about the local church. We've had a Conservative Resurgence among our national institutions. Similar things need to happen in some of our state conventions. Discussions are underway regarding a Great Commission Resurgence to serve as extension and successor to the Conservative Resurgence. These are all good things. But none of them are the thing that we need most.

What we need is a Local Church Reformation, fomented by Personal Revival for some, and Regeneration for others. To the degree that the case of Broadway Baptist Church reminds us about how profound is the need for reformation and revival in our churches, this is a good thing—indeed, it is the most important thing happening right now in the Southern Baptist Convention.

UPDATE: As it so happens, the good folks over at BaptistTheology.org have just posted an article by Dr. Gary Ledbetter entitled "Is There a Church within Your Church?" I just read the article and I see that it addresses some of the same points that I have addressed in this blog post. The major difference is that Gary's article is so much better written.

So Let Him Eat of the Bread and Drink of the Cup

This morning FBC Farmersville is observing the Lord's Supper.

When someone asks you, "Who ought to partake of the Lord's Supper?" you probably will take that question to mean, "Of those attending today who are not members, which, if any, ought to partake of the Lord's Supper?" The latter question is an important one and worthy of serious study. I do not belittle the work that has gone into seeking to answer that question biblically. However, I fear that our noble and worthwhile efforts to answer that question have distracted us from what may be a larger and more important question.

How often do you ask yourself, "Of those attending today who ARE members, which, if any, ought to partake of the Lord's Supper?"

The Bible presumes the Lord's Supper as (at least) a predominantly local-church activity. Nowhere does the Bible explicitly address the question of people other than members of or apostles to the local congregation participating in the Supper. What it DOES contain in spades are careful instructions regarding the participation of local church members in the Lord's Supper. The congregation is to "celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth," (1 Corinthians 5:8) by maintaining redemptive church discipline that removes from the table those Christian believers caught in unrepentant profligate sin (1 Corinthians 5:1-13). Clearly the New Testament presumes that the Lord's Supper will take place (at least) predominantly among a group of people who have voluntarily subjected themselves to the judgment of "those who are within the church" (1 Corinthians 5:12).

The loss of redemptive church discipline and regenerate church membership therefore corrupts a church's observance of the Lord's Supper, regardless of whether that church practices open, close, closed, strict, or whatever they wish to label their policy regarding non-members who attend. The local church has an obligation to remove grossly errant members from the table before observing the Lord's Supper.

The Bible commands that every believer is to "examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup" (1 Corinthians 11:28). Clearly, the danger of "[eating] the bread and [drinking] the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner" (1 Corinthians 11:27) is one that threatens members of the local church to whom Paul's warning was delivered.

Let us who are preachers beware the miscommunication to our members that, so long as they are members of this congregation, they may consume with wanton abandon. Each of us has been charged by our Lord to come to His table in circumspection, contrition, and confession. Apart from that, we are in peril of sickness and death (1 Corinthians 11:30). And now that we have passed a resolution about regenerate church membership, let us press on all the more to recover it and thereby to redeem our celebrations of the Lord's Supper.

On Baptism and the Local Church

A recent post at SBC Today has generated significant conversation (yet again) about the proper relationship between the ordinance of baptism and the local church. No reason and no desire (on my part) exists to duplicate either their post or their comment experience over here—SBC Today is a great blog, and if you wish to jump into their discussion, then that's what the link is for

I do, however, always read with interest the differing perspectives that people bring to this topic every time it arises. It ought to be evident to the online world by now that I'm a guy with an interest in ecclesiology. So my ears perk up when I hear our missionaries describing themselves as living overseas bereft of any church with which to baptize their children. When I hear our missionaries describe themselves as baptizing several new converts in an area but being too far away from the "nearest church" to get "authority" to baptize them, the very sentiment is disconcerting to me.

Reading these things only reinforces in me the need for a renewed focus upon the teaching of sound ecclesiology among Southern Baptists. Might I offer a few basic thoughts here, tonight?

Every Christian Everywhere Always Needs to Be a Member of a Church. The Bible presumes that, whenever a Christian is living for any substantial time in one community, a Christian will be in fellowship with other believers in a church. Just as the Bible presumes that all believers will be baptized, the Bible presumes that all believers will be a part of a local body of believers.

And indeed, so much of what the New Testament presumes about the Christian life cannot take place apart from a church. How does a Christian fulfill the command to "bear one another's burdens" while remaining aloof from any church? Indeed, there are so many "one another" directives in the New Testament that presume a reciprocal covenant relationship with other believers! How can Christians relate properly to church leadership when they are not a part of any body of believers?

To be without membership in any local (to you) congregation of believers is a defective existence.

Any Christian Anywhere Can Start a Church. A great many of the blog comments on this topic seem to presume something akin to an Essential Mother Daughter Authority (EMDA) view of the church. Distilled to its essence, EMDA is the presumption that a church gains its "churchly" authority from the mother church that officially votes to start it. I believe that Christian baptism ought to be performed in connection with a biblical local church. Somebody somewhere reading those words thinks I mean that, if I were marooned in the Galapagos Islands and led one of the natives to Christ, I couldn't baptize them unless I could first build a boat and sail off to somewhere to gain permission from an existing church. They seem to presume that I'm talking about EMDA.

Not.

In such a case I'm going to start a church in the Galapagos Islands, and all of those who received Christ and were baptized in the Galapagos Islands would be added to that church. People point to Phillip's baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch. You know, the Ethiopian church claims that Philip's encounter was the birth of the church in Ethiopia.

In other words, the "authority" of a "mother" church is not necessary to the formation of a "daughter" church. If it is, then Roger Williams and his band in Providence is in trouble. As is John Smythe and his group in Holland. Indeed, both Williams and Smythe eventually endured personal spiritual angst over this very point—wondering whether they were wrong to form local churches without the authorization of an existing church. Those of us who remained Baptist concluded that they hadn't done a thing wrong and that any group of believers can form a church.

The Church Is Not the Building. Inevitably in these discussions, somebody makes the startling claim that linking baptism with the church is the same thing as requiring that you find a baptistry, a wireless microphone, and a water heater or you can't have a baptism. Nobody with a brain is saying any such thing. To say that baptism ought to take place in connection with a local church is to say absolutely nothing about WHERE baptism ought to take place. It is to say absolutely nothing about WHEN baptism ought to take place (although we ought to have a discussion about that sometime). It is merely to say WITH WHOM baptism ought to take place: with the people among whom a disciple will grow and by whom he will be held accountable to his profession if possible. And if there are no such people—if he is the first— then he is baptized as the disciple who will witness the baptism and discipling growth of others yet to be born into the church that he is forming.

Conclusion. When I read stories about people who have to baptize their children in swimming pools apart from the encouragement and support of any local believers, my very first thought is NOT, "Warning! Warning! Ecclesiological Error! Citizen's Arrest! Citizen's Arrest!" Rather, my first thought is, "How terribly sad! How unnecessarily isolated! How unlike the life of Paul, for example, who seemed to be right in the middle of a local church anywhere that he lingered for more than forty-eight hours."

Christ called me to Himself in 1975, just before I turned 6. I've been an active member of a local body of Christian believers continuously since that moment...32 years and counting, now. Cut off from the body of Christ, I think I'd feel completely disoriented to life. I'd be (not in the eternal, spiritual sense) profoundly lost. Anyone facing the presumption of ongoing, lengthy Christian existence without a church has my profound and sincere pity and my prayers.