Leader-Servanthood and Servant-Leadership: Third Response to Reisinger, Ekklesia

As far as the general principles stated in Reisinger's third article, I find very little with which I disagree. I believe that Christ is the Lord of the church, and that the only goal of any system of church polity is to enact Christ's will. I am unapologetically a Baptist. I believe in congregationalism. I believe in church progress by consensus. Let us do the hard work of seeing the disciples come to affirm the movement of the Holy Spirit. One thing all must agree about the New Testament is the remarkable way it describes the congregational consensus of the New Testament churches. Acts 15 always amazes me...that the Pharisaical objectors apparently came behind the solution endorsed by the "committee" of apostles and elders. The "total democracy" section may be aimed at folks who see the church like I do, but I've decided not to take it that way. Total democracy is a horrible way to have a church—church is a theocracy, and Christ is in charge. I may believe that the majority of real, Spirit-led believers is better at finding God's will than one man or five men will be, but I will never believe that the majority is better at running the church than Christ is.

I think that many people are missing the real question behind the "elder wars" in Baptist life today. Who cares how many elders there are in a church? The real question is how many kinds of elders are there in the New Testament. Isn't it pretty hard to make a New Testament case for elders who aren't also pastors and overseers? But I digress...

There's a place or two where I think Reisinger might be hinting at something that I couldn't affirm, but all-in-all I like number 3. We need leaders who serve and servants who lead. May God give us more of them.

A Non-Sacerdotal Institution: A Second Response to Reisinger, Ekklesia

John G. Reisinger's second installment in his series on the ekklesia is largely well-researched and well-presented. With Reisinger I wholeheartedly affirm:

1. The existence of the universal church.
2. The sole authority of Christ, and consequently the absence of any authority in the church except that delegated by Christ
3. The imperative for every Christian to be a part of a local church
4. The incomplete nature of New Testament instructions regarding the organization and operations of the local church (does the NT give us qualifications for the custodian? decision-making procedures like we find in Robert's Rules of Order?)
5. The propriety of churches making decisions based upon "sheer pragmatism" so long as those decisions do not encroach upon items that are addressed in the New Testament.
6. The impropriety of attempting to make the New Testament say more than it actually does say about any topic.
7. The crisis in understanding the nature of the true church provoked by the Reformation
8. The inconsistency of the Reformers' position regarding the nature of the church
9. The error of the Roman Catholic view of church authority
10. The error of the Landmark Baptist position regarding the true church.
11. The greater importance of the interpersonal nature of the church as opposed to the institutional and organizational aspects of the church.

Yet I differ with Reisinger in the following:

1. I must protest Reisinger's penchant for false dichotomies. In more than one place, Reisinger suggests that the only two viable positions are the Roman Catholic position and Reisinger's position. So, either agree with Reisinger or the Pope...take your pick! Yet reality is not quite that cut-and-dried and a great many people have articulated mediating positions.
2. Also, I diasgree with Reisinger's use of the Roman Catholic Church in this installment. The other view is wrong because it is Roman. As I've already stated, Reisinger is far too quick to call something Roman, but even where he may be right, his connection of something with Roman Catholic doctrine does not constitute an ipso facto case against its validity. Allow me to scandalize Reisinger by admitting that, on some points of doctrine, I agree with the Roman Catholics. Silly me, I think that a proposition of Christian doctrine is right if it is biblical and wrong if it is unbiblical, regardless of who affirms it or who denies it.
3. In another false dichotomy, Reisinger asks, "Do the NTS emphasis [sic] union with Christ via the indwelling Holy Spirit, which all agree is true of all Christians, or does it emphasize membership in a local congregation of professing Christians?" Well, I affirm that the New Testament emphasizes union with Christ via the indwelling Holy Spirit, which is true of all Christians. I also emphasize that the New Testament emphasizes membership in a local congregation of professing Christians. What Reisinger has utterly and completely failed to do is show why I have to choose between one or the other.
4. Reisinger asks, "Where is there a single instance in the NTS of any individual being examined and then joining "a local church?" And the clear answer is, "Nowhere." Yet, there is clear record in the New Testament of individuals being excluded from the local church. Thus, there is in the New Testament such a thing as a member of the universal church who is not eligible to be a member of the local church. If I wanted to play Reisinger's game, I could try to paint him into a corner as well: If there is only one definition for the church, then does exclusion from the local congregation necessarily mean exclusion from the universal church? Hmmm....let's see....who teaches that....could it be....the Roman Catholics?! But Reisinger has not said that, and it would not be fair to put words into his mouth in order to make him be "consistent."
5. I vehemently disagree with Reisinger's assertation that there is no biblical basis for selecting pastors, ordaining ministers, examining candidates for church membership, etc. The fact that the presentation of the biblical evidence may not have convinced Reisinger is no excuse for pretending that it does not exist. For example, to address the central point of Reisinger's series, do Acts 9:26-27 and Acts 19:1-7 say nothing to us about prospective members being examined before being allowed to "join the disciples"?
6. Reisinger makes more of the difference between himself as those with the "true church syndrome" than is really there. Although one might conclude from this series that Reisinger does not believe in any such thing as a true church or a false church, I cannot believe that he really thinks that. Surely he affirms that Jesus means something when he speaks of "removing the lampstand" of the Ephesian church in Revelation 2. Surely he regards, for example, the Mormons as a false church. So, both Reisinger and those whom he would criticize believe in true churches and false churches. Surely Reisinger's opponents all also believe that there is some limit to the specificity of New Testament ecclesiology. Their limits are different from Reisinger's limits, but the difference is just that other people draw the line at a different place than he does. He wishes to be a minimalist—to say as little from the New Testament as possible on this topic. I see more than he does in the New Testament. So, Reisinger's implication that he and those who differ from him are in two separate categories of thought is not tenable; we are just two varieties of the same thing—two points on the same continuum.
7. It seems to me that one can affirm some level of church authority without asserting the local church as the "vicar of Christ." After all, Matthew 16:19 and Matthew 18:18-20 hardly seem intelligible apart from some concept of authority excercised by Christ exclusively through the church. Is there not some middle position between asserting the church as Christ's substitute and divorcing the church entirely from the authority and action of Christ in the world? It seems to me that one must acknowledge Christ's divine choice to work through the church in a way that He does not work outside the church. To do so is not necessarily to endorse the unbounded authority of local churches.
8. Although some level of comparison between Landmark Baptists and Roman Catholicism is probably appropriate, it is highly inaccurate to compare Landmark Baptists with a system of thought that denies the right of believers to interpret the Bible apart from interpretations imposed by a church. Landmark Baptists believe that every member of a Landmark Baptist church will freely come to the same conclusions that they have in their independent study of the Bible. We may disagree with them, but we leave behind honest dialogue when we suggest that Landmarkism is comparable in this sense to Roman Catholicism.
9. Although Reisinger has correctly noted that the "one another" duties of believers commanded in the Bible are universal in application and not restricted to a local congregation, perhaps a better analysis would examine the duties of pastors/elders/overseers. Each of these, as undershepherds, has a more restrictive field of duty and authority. What is that sphere of influence and responsibility? It is the local church.
10. Reisinger's use of William Carey and Hudson Taylor is not true to history. A great many Baptists who hold different views than Reisinger have been able to affirm both the legitimacy of the local church as the sender of missionaries and the right of such churches to work through cooperative structures to accomplish this task. Reisinger is correct that some Baptists have rejected the work of the Baptist Missionary Society and similar structures, to be fair he must acknowledge that a great many Baptists have managed both to disagree with Reisinger and affirm Carey, Taylor, and cooperative missions.

So, my most prominent observation among these is that Reisinger has forced an illegitimate dichotomy. It is possible to have a church that is institutional without abandoning its organic nature. It is possible to have a church that holds authority without it being sacerdotal.

More to come.

Why Do We Park on a Driveway but Drive on a Parkway? First Response to Reisinger, Ekklesia

John G. Reisinger's theological series on the New Testament ekklesia has won some renown this year, having been commended to Baptist thinkers by none other than Wade Burleson, who has dared to go so far as to call it The Best Modern Study on the Ekklesia (Church). All of you will, no doubt, be shocked to discover that I disagree.

I will say that it thrills me to know that Southern Baptists are discussion the nature of the church. I thank Bro. Reisinger for his obvious love for the doctrine of the church. I also thank him for writing material that has achieved widespread enough distribution to provoke much-needed debate. Nevertheless, Reisinger's thoughts are not nearly as bulletproof as he suggests. I believe that there are some serious flaws embedded in this series.

Exegeting Ekklesia

And we might as well start at the top. How do you have a five-part study entitled Ekklesia that never bothers to do any exegesis of the actual use of the word ekklesia in the New Testament? I mean...seriously...how can such a study even qualify as a serious study on the nature of the church, much less "the best modern study" on the subject?

There is a brief exegetical study of the use of kaleo in the New Testament, but ekklesia is completely ignored. Why? Because Reisinger is a Calvinist, and he has chosen to develop his ecclesiology as a philosophical extension of his soteriology. So, we exegete the word for election and then use that to define ekklesia without bothering to mention any of the occurrances of ekklesia in the New Testament.

If Reisinger had bothered to look at how the New Testament uses the word ekklesia, he would have discovered:

• The word ekklesia appears in the New Testament an awful lot in the plural form. Reisinger makes a really big deal of the fact that the phrase "body of Christ" never appears in the New Testament in the plural. Why won't he give his readers the full story and let them know that the New Testament is chock full of instances of ekklesia in the plural. Here are a few:
  • Acts 15:41
  • Acts 16:5
  • Romans 16:4
  • Romans 16:16
  • 1 Corinthians 7:17
  • 1 Corinthians 11:16
  • 1 Corinthians 14:33
  • 1 Corinthians 14:34
  • 1 Corinthians 16:1
  • 1 Corinthians 16:19
  • 2 Corinthians 8:1
  • 2 Corinthians 8:18
  • 2 Corinthians 8:19
  • 2 Corinthians 8:23
  • 2 Corinthians 8:24
  • 2 Corinthians 11:8
  • 2 Corinthians 8:28
  • 2 Corinthians 12:13
  • Galatians 1:2
  • Galatians 1:22
  • 1 Thessalonians 2:14
  • 2 Thessalonians 1:4
  • Revelation 1:4
  • Revelation 1:11
  • Revelation 1:20
  • Revelation 2:7
  • Revelation 2:11
  • Revelation 2:17
  • Revelation 2:23
  • Revelation 2:29
  • Revelation 3:6
  • Revelation 3:13
  • Revelation 3:22
  • Revelation 22:16
• When Jesus first announced his intention to build an ekklesia, He said that he was building it upon the basis of a human response, not a divine choice. Really, how do you write what is purportedly "the best modern study of the church" without even interacting at all with Matthew 16:18? Reisinger claims that the basis of the church is election. I would not completely dissociate election from the meaning of the church, but Reisinger has made it the basis of the church to the exclusion of all else. Reisinger emphasizes that addition to the church is the action of Christ, not the result of human action. Yet Jesus explicitly stated that He would build His church around something related to his episode with Peter at Caesarea Philippi. Unless you are Roman Catholic, most interpreters connect Jesus' statement with Peter's public profession of faith in Christ, as do I.
• The majority of references to ekklesia in the New Testament are clearly references to an entity associated with geographic space. Reisinger acknowledges that such references sometimes occur in the New Testament, but he leaves the impression that they are the exception rather than the rule. Numerically, the overwhelming evidence reveals that the universal use of ekklesia—the basis of Reisinger's entire theory of the church—is the exception while the local use is the predominant use in the New Testament.

Defining Ekklesia

Reisinger labors hard to suggest that he is breaking away from the old debates between those who emphasize the invisible/universal church and those who emphasize the local/visible church—Reisinger suggests that he is offering some sort of a third way to think of church. Actually, he winds up simply affirming the invisible/universal church as the primary meaning of the New Testament term ekklesia, although in other words.

Reisinger indicates that he has arrived at his view because he, unlike the rest of us, is willing to deal plainly and simply with what the Greek noun ekklesia undisputably means. And what is that? Why, ekklesia means "called out ones," and the "calling" in view there is none other than the "effectual calling" proclaimed by Calvinism, ergo the ekklesia virtually always refers to the complete body of the elect. The logic, to hear Reisinger deliver it, seems invincible.

Actually....not.

What does the title of my essay have to do with Reisinger's treatise? No doubt you are familiar with the little riddle that I have posed: "Why do we park on a driveway but drive in a parkway?" It is one of those clever little observations designed to poke fun at the English language. But actually, this humorous question highlights a feature not just of English, but of all languages. It is an important principle to keep in mind while translating: A word is more than the sum of its parts.

Words are the basic units of language. They are entities unto themselves. Sub-parts of words are often important clues to the meaning of a word, but a word is never under obligation to mean exactly what its parts "add up to." Studying roots and learning the meaning of component parts can often be helpful. Sometimes the components of a word will lead you directly and simply to the word's meaning. Sometimes they will mislead you to a wrong meaning. Usually, they will sort of point you in the right direction, but you have to learn from context or a definition what the word actually means. For example, what is a keyboard? Is it that board on the wall with the pegs for hanging pieces of metal that will unlock locks? Or is it the set of buttons on a computer that allow you to type? The component parts could point you in either direction. You know what a keyboard is because...well...because you know what a keyboard is.

For a translator, identifying the component parts of a word are a helpful clue to knowing what that word means, but it is far more helpful to know how actual people alive at the time employed the word in everyday speech.

And that bring us back to ekklesia.

The component parts of ekklesia are indeed, as Reisinger asserts, ek meaning "out" and klesia ultimately from a word meaning "to call" (kaleo).

But in the moment when Jesus employed this word to describe the institution that he was founding, not a single person in the Greek-speaking universe would have associated this word with the idea of "calling out." Jesus didn't coin a new term; He borrowed one that was already in prominent use.

There is room for debate about how to translate the word ekklesia in the New Testament, but outside the New Testament the best translation clearly would be something like "town hall meeting." Ekklesia was a political term. The ekklesia was a foundational part of every Greek city. It was the meeting at which every citizen of the city got to vote on matters of civic governance. If you really want to know what the word means, step out of the theological world, where (as Reisinger correctly observes) people try to bend the terminology to fit their favorite ideology, and take a look at what secular historians and linguists, people with no theological axe to grind, say about the meaning of the word. Here is one example, but there are others. Google Demos and ekklesia and see what you get.

I think that "called out ones" probably leads us generally in the right direction, but as with the vast majority of words in any language, the meaning of the component parts is a starting point that leads us in the right direction, not a destination that secures our arrival there. Citizenship in a city was not easy to come by in the Greco-Roman world. The Greek citizens who could vote in the assembly certainly were the chosen few. Ekklesia communicated clearly that citizenship in the Greek city was selective, and only the citizens were chosen to attend the assembly. The components of the word are clearly related to its meaning.

But, contra Reisinger, the word ekklesia clearly had a very heavily institutional meaning when Jesus chose it to describe what He was founding. Reisinger has tied the meaning of the term strictly to the doctrine of election. Yet, if Jesus had merely intended to refer to the elect, he could simply have employed the word eklektos, the actual word translated "the elect" in the New Testament. But Jesus did not use this term, choosing instead to borrow the political term ekklesia from the voting assembly of the Greek city.

But Reisinger doesn't address these facts. Therefore his definition of ekklesia is not fully-orbed.

Conclusion

In this much, Reisinger is absolutely correct: How you define the church could affect your position on a whole range of issues. Yet Reisinger's actual ecclesiological practice, to the degree that I can ascertain it, is pretty similar to mine. The practical difference between the two of us is that he relegates almost all practical ecclesiology to the whim of personal preference, while I believe that the New Testament actually has something to say about the organization and operation of local churches. In a culture that loves to follow the whims of personal preference, his views are likely to appeal to many. Nevertheless, I trust that many others will dare to search the New Testament for some instruction regarding how we are to organize and function, confident that the founder of the Church would not leave us completely bereft of any leadership as to what it should look like and what it ought to do.

Postscript

I've been pretty straightforward in this article. Let me make something clear: Reisinger has every freedom to hold his own views about the nature of the church. Life is far too short for me to go about trying to "refute" everyone who holds a different ecclesiology than I hold. But Reisinger has chosen to put his views up on the Internet, and people have chosen to read his views. At least one of those people has asked me to respond to Reisinger. This was not a critic of his, but someone significantly persuaded by his views. The church (however you define it) will benefit from a free and open discussion of these matters. If I have spoken stridently, please take it not as disrespect of my brother in Christ but as passion for these ideas.

A Spurious Complaint

Anyone who has been following the situation up at Henderson Hills Baptist Church up in Oklahoma should be certain to read Nathan Finn's concise and well-written post debunking this whole crazy nonsense that HHBC's autonomy has somehow been violated.

Why So Much "Christian" Hoax Spam?

The content of this blog has been pretty heavy and academic lately, so I've decided to do something lighter, but still substantive.

I've long ago lost count of the number of times I've referred a church member to the fine folks over at Snopes for a thorough debunking of a fictitious email claim. From the friend who lost a bundle "helping" African "Christians" to liberate their wealth from an African bank (with the prospect of sharing in their wealth) to the large number of well-meaning Christians who have encouraged me down through the years to boycott Proctor & Gamble or fight Ms. O'Hare's FCC Petition to shut down religious broadcasting, it seems that a disproportionate number of these nasty, insidious email hoaxes are targeted particularly at Christians.

Who do you think is doing this, and why target us?

Review: Thomas White, "What Makes Baptism Valid"

Thomas White has written a paper on the validity of baptism over at baptisttheology.org. I wish to review it here for several reasons:

1. Dr. White is an exceptionally learned and reasoned commentator, especially on this subject. His dissertation analyzing James Pendleton has brought him into close contact with the subject of baptism.
2. The subject matter could hardly be more relevant to current events in the SBC.
3. Aspects of White's paper overlap with my recent blog series on church validity.
4. White was one of the graders of my dissertation, and therefore any opportunity to critique his work will serve as a welcome vengeance and catharsis. :-) (Actually, I consider Dr. White a friend)

Unfortunately (for that last reason offered), there's not much to critique. White's work is thoughtful and thorough. Some will certainly disagree with his conclusions, but no one can accuse him of ignoring the Bible, of being a closet Landmarker, of being a blind traditionalist, or of not considering other points of view.

White posits six attributes that make valid baptism: subject, mode, meaning, church, administrator, and formula. I do not see how any thinking Baptist can disagree that each of these categories impacts the validity of baptism. Many will perhaps differ as to how right baptism must be in each of these areas in order to be valid, but can any say that any of these areas is irrelevant? To be baptized in the name of Elvis Presley would surely not be valid Christian baptism. To be baptized by a Buddhist monk could not be Christian baptism, could it? To be baptized under the auspices of a Mormon temple is not Christian baptism, is it? To be baptized by waterslide would hardly be recognizable as valid baptism. Each of these categories rightly belongs in this discussion.

Under the category of "church," White gives a significant essay regarding what differentiates a true church from a false church. His definition differs from mine, and is therefore, by definition, wrong. :-)

But I enjoyed White's argument greatly. White stands on solid theological and historical grounds for his conclusions. He employs the time-honored distinction between attributes that impact the "being" of a church and those that impact "well-being." I would join him in his exact definition, but for the fact that none of the items White has in view under the "being" category seem to have been on the line for the Ephesian church of Revelation 2. I like his system a lot better than mine; I just don't think it answers the questions that Jesus' lampstand admonition raises in my mind.

I'm not sure whether it is possible for Southern Baptists to read this article with an open mind. So many of us are so committed to our personal beliefs about baptism. But I want to encourage you to click the link above, visit Thomas's paper, and read it carefully. Even if you differ at a few points, as I have done at one point above, you will be much the better for having read it. If this vital (in both senses of the word) discussion continues in Baptist life, perhaps we will learn a great deal in spite of ourselves.

True Churches & False Churches: A Systematic Attempt

I propose the following as introduction, not conclusion—as rough draft, not finished product. I say this not to discount my thinking. I have thought hard about what I am now writing. I hope that the tedious, laborious journey we have taken together over the past several posts has demonstrated the lengths to which I have gone. I am not uncomfortable with my amount of thinking and research.

I am, however, aware that I am dusting off a topic that has been on the shelf for a long time for Southern Baptists. This is not one of those topics that I have discussed in the hallways of the seminary a thousand times over. Thus, these ideas are carefully crafted, but they are not yet proven. I invite you to help me prove them. Be my editors. Tell me what you find reasonable and what you find unreasonable. This is the moment for free and thorough discussion. But first, read this really long post.

Defining the Concept

What does it mean for a church to be invalid? I take my cues from Christ's lampstand analogy. I think that the removal of the lampstand implies the removal of the blessing associated with the intensive presence and leadership of Christ in the church.

Many have noted the tendency for entire denominations of Christian churches to form, experience some period of extremely high productivity, and then plateau and decline. Often, the proposed explanation for this common historical phenomenon is a sociological one. For example, one might conclude that churches start out poor and disadvantaged, which causes them to grow through connection to poor and disadvantaged people, but then they attract wealthy and privileged people and lose touch with the source of their growth. Also, one might suspect that churches are born in a time-bound culture that makes them particularly relevant at the time of their birth, but then the culture changes and the very things that once made them relevant come to make them irrelevant.

But is there no spiritual dynamic at work behind the rise and fall of churches? Some groups have never been a true church (I believe), and therefore I accept the sociological theories as explanatory of some groups, but I wonder whether this phenomenon is not the evidence on this earth of Christ's removal of heavenly lampstands in at least some cases? Statistics are not the one true measure of the presence, headship, and blessing of Christ, yet I believe that some churches are small because they are spiritually dead. I acknowledge that it is possible to be one of the worst churches in the nation and yet be very large. Other factors are more important indicators of the presence of Christ. But I believe that tangible, mundane measures sometimes offer evidence of spiritual reality.

Now is a good time to make an important point: Because I believe in the autonomy of local congregations, I refuse to speak categorically of true churches and false churches with reference to entire denominations. Certainly, if we can establish that every congregation in an entire denomination is guilty of something that falsifies a church, then it is possible for an entire denomination to consist entirely of false churches. Yet being a part of a bad denomination is not enough to make a local congregation invalid—that local congregation must participate in the sins of the larger group in order to be guilty. To put it another way, I believe that it is possible for a single local congregation to repent, change their ways, and validate their congregation without necessairly gaining the consent of the entire denomination.

How to Invalidate a Church

So, what makes a once-true church a false church?

Abandoning our Original Purpose

I interpret the act of losing "your first love" as mentioned in Revelation 2 (see earlier post) to be the act of losing sight of the church's purpose. Please don't read too much Rick Warren into that. Purpose involves the heart (first love) as well as activity (the deeds you did at first).

I think that a church can lose sight of its purpose and become a club (by the way, I don't like to use the phrase "country club" in that statement...as though if your church is blue-collar and poor you are in no danger of committing this sin). A church exists to change me, a club does not. A club allows me to associate comfortably with my peers; a church confronts me and my peers uncomfortably with the nature and expectations of God.

I think that a church can lose sight of its purpose and become a charity. Making the world a better place is a doomed enterprise. Making the world a better place is not our purpose. If we fulfill all the purposes that God has given us, the world will become a somewhat better place incidentally, because we will become better inhabitants of it. But Jesus has given us good reason to believe that, no matter how much good we try to do, we will always be outnumbered. Forgive me for a disparaging use of the word charity and understand that I have contrived a meaning of the word to fit my present purposes. A charity is focused on earthly solutions for earthly problems; a church is focused on eternal solutions for eternal problems.

I think that a church can lose sight of its purpose and become a concert. It all exists to entertain me. The style of the music, the topic of the preaching, the timing of the activities, and the demographics of the other people around me—all of these must meet my demanding preferences. At a concert, the customer is always right; at a church, the sinful and fallen creature is very prone to being wrong.

I think that a church can lose sight of its purpose and become an academy. "We are here to exercise the mind. Let us debate. Let us refine our positions." Yet the heart and the will, the hands and the feet, can sometimes remain unaffected by the exercises of the mind. I don't know why we are that way. It makes sense to me that our thinking, if sincere, ought necessarily to show up in our actions. But experience proves this not to be the case as often as it should be. Perhaps it is just laziness.

I find it instructive that the Ephesian church's abandonment of its first love was in the past when Christ sent the letter, but the threatened punishment of church invalidity was yet in the future. I take that to mean that we get a lot of grace. Churches may be guilty of any of the above violations for some period of time. Christ doesn't pull the lampstand out at the first infraction. We get warnings. We get chances to repent. But the church that ignores the warnings and pushes forward in its abandonment of God's purposes for the church can reach the point, I believe, where it ceases to be a true church at all.

Let me not be guilty of beating around the bush here. I think that most of the Mainline Protestant denominations in the United States are guilty of losing sight of the purpose of the church in some way mentioned above. I believe that most of them have done so long enough to be false churches [please direct all hate mail to...]. I also believe that a very large proportion of Southern Baptists churches are in grave danger of letting their grace periods expire, if they haven't done so already [more hate mail]. I further believe that some of the changes proposed by some portions of the EC movement and other modern trends will make the problems worse, not better [now the hate mail really begins].

Heresy

I interpret 1 John 2:19 (see earlier post) to refer to doctrinal heresy. Churches that abandon the Christian faith for a different god, a different canon of scripture, or a different gospel are (to quote Paul) anathema. Unitarians are out, for example. Mormons are out. Jehovah's Witnesses are out. So long as anyone is in agreement with these false churches, that person is heading toward an eternity in Hell.

There are lesser levels of doctrinal error. These, I believe, can invalidate a church without casting such eternal aspersions upon all of the church's adherents. Some churches acknowledge the same canon as we do, but they hold a much lower view of the Bible's worth and authority than I do. They treat it as a starting place for discussion rather than a final word. "Yes, the Bible says what it does about homosexuality, but the Holy Spirit has led us to a more up-to-date position, so we'll ordain this homosexual bishop." I believe that such doctrinal deviations mark a false church, but in a less severe manner than I would use that terminology to refer to Mormons.

In the most severe category (doctrinal error so severe as to make a church a cult), I've listed the three topics (God, scripture, gospel) for which I think error boots you out of Christianity. But what about the other category (those "lesser levels of doctrinal error" in the preceding paragraph)? What doctrinal differences count to make a true church a false church?

I don't have an exhaustive answer to that question. I do, however, believe that some passages of scripture indicate to us their centrality to the being of church. For example, look at Ephesians 4:4-6, the famous listing of the "ones" that form the basis of Christian unity. There is one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God.

Baptism, by the way, is in that group. For all of the other items in the list, we do not tend to interpret them by saying, "No matter what you do with it, it is all essentially the same thing--there's only one." We don't say, "Allah, Buddha, Krishna...it's all the same thing...there's just one God." Rather, we take the "ones" as limiting, not expansive: "There is one and only one God, and if you've acknowledged another, then you are outside the faith." So, I take baptism the same way. The immersion of a believer is the one and only baptism. To practice otherwise is the be in jeopardy of being a false church, but a false church in the second, less severe sense. I believe that pedobaptist churches are false churches.

These two categories are reflected in the two passages of scripture I referenced in my previous post. Revelation 2 almost certainly refers to a congregation that remained within the broad sphere of Christian orthodoxy but was in danger of somehow becoming less than a true church. 1 John 2 almost certainly refers to a thoroughly heterodox and no-longer-Christian group. Both of these levels of church invalidity are accessible through doctrinal defectiveness.

Impurity

I believe that a church excessively populated by or led by lost people is a false church. If the Pope is lost and the Pope is in charge, then Christ has been dethroned in the church and it is no longer a true church. If the majority of members are lost and the membership is in charge (congregationalism), then Christ has been dethroned in the church and it is no longer a true church. If the pastor is lost and the pastor is in charge, then Christ has been dethroned in the church and it is no longer a true church. One of the great benefits of congregationalism, in my opinion, is that it takes a lot more lost people to take over the church under congregational polity than it requires under other forms of church governance. Other models make it far too easy for one lost man to hold hostage a congregation full of saints.

How to Re-Validate a Church

Repent. That's the formula Christ gave in Revelation 2. When I describe a group as a false church, I am in no way forever writing them off. Repentance is always available and to be encouraged.

What About the Members of False Churches?

I believe that there is salvation available outside of true local churches. In other words, I do not believe that the invisible church and the local churches are coterminous. Many Christians are members of false churches. Think about it this way: If the Ephesian church failed to repent and if Christ removed their lampstand, did that mean that all of the Christian members of that church suddenly lost their salvation? I don't think so.

I do believe that Christian members of a false church will find God's blessing in either provoking their local congregation to repentance or, if that is ultimately unsuccessful, in moving to unite with a true church. I do also believe that membership in a thoroughly heretical group (the first category mentioned above) almost always bespeaks affirmation of concepts that demonstrate a person not to be in the faith.

Can True Churches and False Churches Mix?

I'm not sure that it is always completely evident to other churches when a sister church crosses the line and becomes a false church. Is it always completely evident to Christians when another church member is not a Christian? I think the same sort of situation applies to churches.

With church members, we (should) affiliate based upon what they profess to be and give evidence of being. As I have already suggested, I suspect that our membership in the SBC puts us in affiliation with some number of false churches, but it is unwitting. We try to reserve our truest and fullest level of inter-church fellowship for those whom we regard to be true churches.

Unlike the Landmark Baptists, I do not believe that I am endorsing a church or a minister when I listen to that person preach or join with such a one in a joint worship service or partnership activity. At FBC Farmersville, our policy of interaction and partnership with other churches attempts to make our level of agreement with them correspond to what we are trying to do together. For example, we'll tend to the poor in partnership with every church in our local ministerial alliance, but we wouldn't plant churches in partnership with the Methodists. So, we do affiliate with churches that I regard as false churches, and I don't see any problem with that as long as we are circumspect about what we do with them (and we are).

Church Validity and Church Health

In his excellent book, John Hammett refers to the difference between "being" and "well-being" when describing a church. Is there a difference between assessing whether a church is valid or invalid and assessing whether a church is healthy or unhealthy?

I do believe that a church can be true, but not healthy. I do not believe that a church can be false, but healthy. I believe that being unhealthy long enough can cause you to become a false church. I cannot completely sever the two concepts, as perhaps Hammett may be doing. Neither can I completely conflate them.

False Churches and Their Officers

The Landmark claim that a false church cannot produce a true gospel minister is one that I think history disproves. I point you back to the discussion of the First Great Awakening. Whitefield, Tennent, Edwards, and Frelinghuysen gave every evidence of the Spirit of God at work through their ministries. Yet one also notes the historical anomaly that the denominations which produced the Awakening leaders did not, by and large, benefit from their ministries. The great benefactors of the awakenings (in the long term) were the Baptists and Methodists. These men were exceptional in their denominational traditions. Many of them were opposed from within their own churches. I think that there have been valid ministers in invalid churches throughout the centuries. Let us not forget that John Smythe and Roger Williams were ordained while yet Anglicans.

Summary

So, I'm the kind of guy willing to fling around the terminology, "false church." Does that make me uncharitable? Some will believe so. Some will (no doubt) go so far as to say so.

But I hope all will recognize that I employ this terminology in fear and trembling. I have not used it denominationally in such a way that I remain untouched by it. In some ways, I fear for our church. We have much to correct and rekindle here, and leading to do that sort of thing without exploding the church is hard. I dare not refuse to speak of such things, because I know that I need the warning that this topic provides, and suspect that many others need it, too.

I have deliberately not use the four classical marks of the true church, nor have I employed the Reformation marks. I have tried to work exegetically rather than historically, although history has helped to shape my exegesis. I don't have any huge problem with these frameworks. In fact, I could take much of what I have said here and choose to organize it under such rubrics. Just put my comments about Ephesians under "one", my comments about "club" churches and "impurity" under "holy", etc. But when the marks employ words like catholic and apostolic, I find that it is easier when speaking to Baptist audiences to explain what I mean without using these words rather than with them—they carry too much baggage.

You have been very patient, all of you. I now yield the floor to you. This process has taken much longer than I anticipated, and I find that I am going on vacation as I complete this task. I'll be at Greers Ferry Lake in Central Arkansas. God resides there, but the Internet does not. Please comment like crazy, and I promise to read every word of it and respond to the best of my ability starting next Thursday (8/3).

In Christ,
Bart