Tag Archives: ecclesiology

A Time for Orthodoxy (Part Four)

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Today I will conclude the series urging anti-creedal churches to rethink their opposition to explicit creeds, confessions of faith, and statements of belief.

A Little More History

The Early and Patristic Church

Creeds, confessions of faith and statements of belief served different purposes in different eras of church history. Beginning with the council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), early and patristic church leaders met on occasion to deal with controversies. They sometimes issued decrees clarifying controverted issues and condemning erroneous views. For example, the decrees (creeds) from the first two ecumenical Councils, Nicaea and Constantinople (I) built on the list of truths articulated in the early rule of faith. The Councils found it necessary to clarify certain disputed points and condemn certain assertions made by the Arian party, which asserted that the Son of God was not truly God but the first and greatest creature. Wisely, these Councils made no attempt to articulate everything Christians believe and practice. Not only would this have been impossible, it would have engendered fruitless controversies. They left all these things implicit in the tradition of worship and the practical life of the church.

I see much wisdom in the patristic church’s practice. The Christian faith cannot be articulated in all its fulness and richness. As philosopher of science Michael Polanyi observed, “we know more than we can say.” If the church tries to say everything it knows, it will complicate what is simple and oversimplify what is complicated. But there are times when the church must articulate some piece of its tacit knowledge and condemn the worse distortions of its faith.

The Protestant Reformation

When Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican and other branches of the Protestant Reformation organized themselves into separate bodies, they promulgated confessions of faith to clarify for the world what they believed and taught and how they differed from the Roman Catholic Church and each other. Among the earliest of these are the Lutheran Augsburg Confession of Faith (1530), the Reformed First (1536) and Second (1566) Helvetic Confessions of Faith, and the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1563). These documents were much longer than the Nicene Creed and covered a more extensive catalogue of doctrines. Nevertheless, the Protestant confessions did not attempt to articulate the full depth and riches of the Christian faith. Every later Protestant body explicitly or implicitly followed the same rule.

The proliferation of Protestant confessions of faith was driven by necessity. Given the separation from the Roman Catholic Church and the disputes among themselves Protestants had to make clear how they differed from the RCC and each other. This task remains necessary even for contemporary anti-creedal churches. How else may anti-creedal churches let the world know that they differ from other churches by rejecting creeds?

Contemporary Independent, Community, and Bible Churches

In this list I include every church whose primary leadership and identity rests in the local congregation. Instead of a Protestant confession of faith, they often list their beliefs on their website or in printed material under the rubric “What we Believe.” This list usually includes basic teachings common to all orthodox churches (Trinity, Christ’s Deity, Atonement, Resurrection, etc.), some that are central to Protestantism in general (justification by faith), some that are characteristic of the parent denomination, and some that are important to the identity of that particular congregation. Most of these statements are not too long, at most 20 points. Like the Patristic church and the churches of the Reformation, community and Bible churches do not attempt to put into words everything they teach and practice. You learn these things, if at all, by long years of participation in the life of the church.

The Present Challenge: Progressive “Christianity”

As I explained in the first essay in this series, my faith was nurtured in a conservative wing of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. That is where I serve today and expect to serve for the rest of my life. We like to think we preserve some unique insights within a generally Protestant tradition. To the outside observer, however, we look like most other low church Protestant groups. We cherish the canonical scriptures and adhere (informally) to the orthodox ecumenical faith set out in the ecumenical creeds. But we wished to be guided by Scripture alone apart from detailed Protestant confessions of faith. Our original aim was to protest against the use of minor theological differences to exclude and condemn other believers. We wished to reclaim in practice the biblical doctrine of the unity of the church.

A Different World

Today, however, our anti-creedal stance has made us less able to assert biblical/orthodox teaching even in the most fundamental areas, which in the past we took for granted. Our hesitancy to assert doctrinal truth has opened the door to heresies that never came knocking in the past. We face a decisive moment. Will we assert and enforce the biblical/orthodox faith by making use of the authorities of scripture, tradition, and office or succumb to the spirit of the postmodern age in which everyone is their own judge?

Admittedly, I am speaking here of urban and suburban churches. Rural and small-town churches face other issues. What, then, is the challenge urban and suburban SCM and other independent, community, and Bible churches face? Readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that I think the greatest challenge to the orthodoxy of those churches is the temptation to assimilate to the progressive sector of modern culture.* That is to say, to adopt an easy-going inclusivism that accepts everyone the way they are. No demand for conversion, repentance, or confession! Sexual promiscuity? No problem! Wish us to affirm your LGBTQ+ way of life? Who are we to judge! Your inner self is the measure of your truth! Want to divorce your spouse because you found someone else? We understand…God wants you to be happy! Abortion…well, at least you struggled with the decision. You think everybody will be saved? Makes sense…God loves everyone! Want a social justice Jesus? So do we!

A Time to Stand

I am speaking to those church leaders and planters who want to preserve the biblical/orthodox faith. I urge you to follow the example of the early and patristic church. State clearly what your church believes and practices. Make it concise, but include the ecumenical faith, other basic teachings, and do not neglect the beliefs challenged by the progressive heresy: affirm the positive teaching of Scripture on these subjects, but also make clear your rejection of the progressive principle of religious and moral relativism and the specific progressive heresies mentioned above.

*Use the search function on my blog to look for essays that deal with “progressive Christianity.”

Rethinking Church #7: Witness is Essential

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What is the essential work of the church? What is its purpose? What is the activity must not be neglected at all costs? The New Testament church did many things. It worshiped, sang, prayed, baptized, participated in the Eucharist, gathered, taught, preached, comforted, and served. But I believe the New Testament vision of the essential work can be captured in one word: witness. Peter puts it this way:

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

And Paul explains that God’s

intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:10-11).

I am using the verb “to witness” is the broad sense of “to manifest.” The church works to manifest as best it can for all to see and hear on earth what is going on in heaven. It seeks to embody in the present time the kingdom of God that will come in its fullness in the future. The church teaches, proclaims, worships, embodies, and lives to make known the character and will of God in the world. The church witnesses to the truth and reality of God to itself and to others. It must not let the world go into the night with an easy conscience or a despairing heart. Even if it must be a lone voice calling to a “disobedient and obstinate” people (Isa 65:2). Even if no one listens, even if the church finds itself persecuted, the church never ceases to call the world to acknowledge its creator and its Lord. It says,

“The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice” (Psa. 97:1).

“The Lord reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake” (Psa. 99:1).

Bearing witness to the love, glory, goodness, and greatness of God demonstrated in Jesus Christ is the essential work of the church. In all it does it must never forsake this task. In its works of mercy and justice, in its worship, teaching, and preaching, in its work with children, teens, young adults, families, and seniors, and in its use of funds and of property, its work of witness must never be displaced or forgotten.

Rethinking Church #3: The Church is God’s Act

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What are the essential features of the thing we call “church”? Of course, most of us already have an idea of what “church” means—from the Bible, history, and our own experience. However at this point in the series I am asking everyone to place all those images aside to join me in rethinking the concept from the foundation up. How shall we proceed? Where shall we look to find the essential features of the church?

To get us started, let me make an assertion that I may need to modify later: we will find the essence of the church in its origin as documented in the New Testament. Perhaps we can learn more about the full implications of those essential features as the church takes different forms in different cultures and historical eras, but I am working with the assumption that its essence existed from the beginning and has not changed.

The most basic essential feature of the church is its origin in God. In Ephesians 1, we read about the grand story of salvation in Christ, from the depths of eternity (1:4, 11) to the gathering into unity of all things in Christ (1:10). At first, Paul speaks of the objects of God’s great love as “we” and “us” (1:3-10), but soon he begins to include those whom he calls “you” (1:11-18). Toward the end of the chapter Paul combines the “we” and “you” into a new “us” (1:19) that he calls “God’s holy people” (1:18) and “the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (1:22-23).

The church is God’s idea, God’s choice, and God’s act. God created it to achieve his purpose according to his plan. The church—whatever else it is—is the divine act of gathering all the scattered pieces of creation into unity in Christ by the power of the Spirit (Eph 1:13). We need to think of the word “church,” then, not merely as a noun designating an entity but as a verb describing an action. God is churching the broken, mutually hostile, and fragmented world. It will make clearer sense if we ignore the English word “church,” with its accumulated connotations, for a moment and think of the Greek word ekklesia, which means a gathering of people, an assembly. A gathering must be gathered by someone for some purpose. In reference to the church, God is the subject of the verb “gathering” and the gathering (the church) is the object.

In rethinking church, then, we must rid ourselves of any view of the church that in theory or practice displaces God as the primary actor and replaces him with human actors. The “gathering,” the “uniting” of all things in Christ that we call the “church” is God’s decision, choice, plan, and work. God is churching (reconciling) the world in Christ (2 Cor 5:19). The church is not our plan or project. It’s not for us to determine its purpose or measure its success. And its purpose is way beyond our power to make happen.

If we forget this essential feature of the church and try to “make it happen” by our own power, we may indeed achieve great things measured by human standards. We may build huge, wealthy, and influential institutions. We may entice crowds of people to say the right words. But only God can gather the scattered pieces of creation into unity in Christ. Our task is to let ourselves be churched by God. It is to believe, speak, and act only in harmony with the crucified and risen Christ empowered by God’s Spirit. Do we believe God can do this? Do we have the courage to let God be the primary actor is this event we call “church”? Can we be satisfied with what God does and the way he does it?

Next Time: the church is Christomorphic in form and Cruciform in action.

Rethinking Church #2 Where to Begin?

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I like to get to the bottom of things. I am not satisfied until I see how a claim is properly derived from a foundation that cannot be further analyzed. I know I am not alone in this desire, but I’ve been told that I am more obsessed with it than many others. So, let’s methodically clarify the essence of the thing we call church.

When something provokes us to take an interest in a thing and seek greater understanding, our minds begin sorting things, making distinctions, and seeing relationships we had not noticed before. One such distinction turns on the difference between the essential features of a thing and its accidental features. Conceptually, there is a very clear distinction between the two even if it’s difficult to apply to a real thing with precision. If you add or remove an accidental feature of a car, flower, or human being, these things still exist. But if you destroy an essential feature of a thing, it no longer exists. Aristotle said that a human being is essentially a “rational animal.” A human being can be short or tall, male or female, and brown or white. But if you remove life or rationality from a thing, it ceases to be a human being. Likewise distinguishing between the essential and the accidental properties of the church is one way to begin rethinking church.

Adding or subtracting accidental features from a church does not cause it to cease being the church. However removing an essential feature would destroy its churchly existence completely. What is left is not the church at all. As an example, let’s pick something uncontroversial. Whether a church meets in a public building, a private dwelling, or in a cave, makes no difference to its existence as a church. However, a “church” without faith in Jesus Christ is not a church at all. It is something else.

We need to exercise great care and humility in applying the essence/accident distinction to the real world church. Reading church history and observing the contemporary church demonstrates the great diversity in how this distinction has been applied. Many controversies, some of them bitter, find their origin in this diversity of application:

1. For it is possible to mistake an accidental feature for an essential one, expanding greatly the number of “essential” features.

2. Or at the opposite extreme, essential features can be treated as optional.

3. Or in a third possibility, one may burden the church with so many and such extraneous accidental features that it makes it almost impossible to live out its essence.

4. Or again, perhaps one could be so insistent that the church refrain from adding any accidental features that it cannot adapt to circumstances and can carry out its mission effectively in the real world.

Numbers 1, 3, and 4 retain the essential features of the church despite their excesses, deficiencies, and misplaced priorities. Only number 2 ceases to be the church at all. Given the possibilities for mistakes and the absence of the perfect alternative, you can see why I want to approach the question of the essence of the church cautiously, methodically, and with humility.

Next Time: The first and most fundamental essential feature of the church is its divine origin.

Rethinking Church: Introducing A New Series

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All writing is to some extent autobiography. The series I begin today is especially so. It arises out of my own struggle to understand the nature and place of the church in the world and my relationship to it. I write to articulate my feelings and clarify my thinking on this subject and perhaps to help others to a similar clarity. I don’t know in advance what I will say or at what destination I will arrive.

Like many of you, I don’t remember a time when I was not held within the embrace of the church. She was to me a mother, teacher, and guardian. She taught me about creation, Abraham, Daniel, and most of all about Jesus. And I loved her for it. From early childhood I felt a call to ministry in the church. I listened to that call, got the required training, and served churches for ten years in preaching, youth ministry, and college ministries. After I completed my PhD, I began teaching theology at the university level and served in volunteer leadership roles in local churches. Except as a small child, I don’t think I was ever naïve about the weaknesses and sins of the people that comprised the church. But I hoped that with the strong leaders and good teachers these problems could be managed so that more good than harm would be done.

About ten years ago, after many frustrating attempts to simplify church life and bring it more into line with the simple New Testament vision, I began to realize that the structures, ingrained expectations, and traditions that guided the church were able to neutralize and domesticate any effort at systemic reform. I tried to make peace with this situation and resign myself to working within a broken system to achieve some good. However, about five years ago I began to entertain the idea that the traditional ways churches organize themselves is the major obstacle to embodying authentic church life in the world. About three years ago I came to the conclusion that most of the institutions we call “churches” are really parachurch organizations, much of the “church work” we do focuses on making something happen on Sunday morning, and much of the money given goes to pay a staff to keep the parachurch functions running.

So, here I am on birthday (June 01), a child of the church and a theologian of the church, having to rethink everything I ever thought about the nature and place of the church in the world and my relationship to it. I invite you to join me in this project.

Next time: forget everything you have ever thought about the church. Get rid of all images. What is the essential nature of the thing the New Testament calls, “church”?

Is Your “Church” a Parachurch Organization?

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Question: What if we thought we attended church every Sunday morning when in fact we attended a meeting of a parachurch organization?

Many good Christian works are accomplished by parachurch organizations. My wife and I contribute financially to many of them, and she serves on the board of one such institution. Examples of parachurch organizations are: Christian schools, colleges and universities, mission and service organizations, community Bible study organizations, hospitals, different kinds of fellowships and support groups, campus ministries, apologetic organizations, and Christian homeless shelters. The list is endless. Much of the good work Christians do in the world is done through these organizations. And that is good.

So what is a parachurch organization? It is para to the church, which means it exists “alongside” the church. As an institution, it does not claim to be the church. But it sympathizes with and supports the church’s mission, and the people that constitute its membership are Christians and in some way participate in church itself. Its mission and many of its activities overlap with the mission and activities of the church. That’s what makes it related to the church in a “para” way.

What marks the difference between a parachurch institution and the church? The differences are marked by how parachurch organizations are constituted, what they add to the church’s organization and mission, and by what they cannot do in their own names. Parachurch institutions are created by Christians for ministries about which they are passionate. They are usually organized as legal entities with non-profit status, establishing thereby a relationship with the federal, state, and local governments. Their missions are usually narrowed to one type of good work, education, evangelism, apologetics, healthcare, homeless shelters, etc. But there are also some things parachurch organizations do not do in their own names. For example, you do not become a member of a parachurch institution by confessing Jesus as the risen Lord and submitting to baptism.

What is the church? The church is the people of God and the body of Christ. It is constituted on the divine side by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ through the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Faith is created through the preaching of the gospel and the working of the Spirit, and those who believe respond with repentance, confession, and baptism. The church’s mission is to speak, live, and embody the gospel of Jesus Christ in a covenant community. It witnesses in the present age to the reality of the coming reign of God. As a people, as the body of Christ, as a covenant community it exists in the world as a visible unity of many. And from the beginning, this necessitated meeting together to participate in the spiritual realities—one God, one Lord, one Spirit—that have the power to maintain the scattered people as one. When the church gathers, it listens to the words of Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles. It remembers the death and resurrection of Jesus by sharing in the Lord’s Supper. The community invokes God in prayer, and everyone is encouraged to live a life worthy of the gospel.

The church’s essence and mission are very simple, and accomplishing its mission requires few of the things we’ve come to associate with churches. It does not need money, land, or property. It does not need clergy or employees of any kind. Nor does it need scores of tired volunteers the “make things happen” on Sunday morning. It does not need accountants, bank accounts, or receptionists. It does not need a stage, a worship ministry, or microphones. It does not need to exist as a non-profit corporation. It need not have any legal entanglement with the state. Nothing in its constitution or mission requires any of these things.

But most of the “churches” we attend have all of these unnecessary things. Indeed we cannot imagine a “real” church without them. They have huge budgets, large staffs, and expensive properties, which force them to organize themselves like businesses. To fund this enterprise, church leaders need to spend lots of energy on financial matters, planning, accounting, and fund raising. Staff must be managed and paid. Because their meeting places are designed to accommodate over a hundred people—and some a thousand or more—many of these churches are staged-centered and focus on the few people running the show. This creates a celebrity atmosphere where importance and visibility are identified. There is little sense of the unity of the many or intimacy of community or accountability. In analogy to a concert or political rally or a lecture hall, the unity is created by focusing on the speaker or singer. The meeting includes people who are present for a variety of reasons. Many feel like strangers, and some suffer silently for years without anyone else knowing their struggles. And all these extras were added on the supposition that—even if not necessary—they would be helpful in carrying out the mission of the church. But hasn’t it turned out to be the opposite? Doesn’t this stuff get in the way? Hasn’t the means eclipsed the end?

Perhaps the churches we attend every Sunday are really parachurch organizations? They are devoted no doubt to good works and activities that overlap with the church’s mission. They are founded, funded, and for the most part populated by Christian people. They include some activities essential to the church, and the church is present somewhere in all the busyness. But they are not just the church, not simply the church. And because they are not simply the church, the essence of the church is obscured and its essential mission is neglected.

As I said at the beginning, many parachurch organizations serve the mission of the church in admirable ways. I do not reject the legitimacy of parachurch churches. So, I shall be attending a parachurch church this Sunday…but I do so with some uneasiness…because I long for the simple church, stripped of unnecessary baggage, devoted single-mindedly to the original mission.

Challenge: Make a list of the things your church is, has, and does that are not essential to the church Jesus founded and the mission he gave, things that if you removed them the church would still exist. Next ask yourself which ones of those things cause the essence of the church to shine forth and help it accomplish its mission and which ones obscure its essence and hinder its mission. After you’ve done that why not work in your church to reduce the number and significance of things that keep your parachurch church from being simply the church?

Ron Highfield

Author Page at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/author/ron.highfield

 

Has Your Church Forgotten Something?

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I have been deeply involved in the life of church since I was a child. The church taught me about Jesus and formed me as a Christian and as a person. I love her and I can’t imagine my life without her. Early in my life I felt a call to serve in the ministry or, as I would have articulated then, “to become a preacher.” And after some hesitancy in my teen years I decided to take that step. I studied Bible and theology in college and graduate school, receiving my Master of Theology degree. I spent approximately ten years in campus ministry, youth ministry and preaching ministry. After receiving my Ph.D. in religious studies I began teaching at the university level. That was nearly 28 years ago. For much of that time I served as an elder in a local church. Last summer, after 22 years as an elder, I ended my career in this role. I informed my beloved congregation that I could no longer do what contemporary elders are required to do and make the decisions they must make. For the first time in a long time I am a regular church member.

I want to share with you today a perspective that has gradually been crystalizing in my mind over many years. I have come to believe that many of the challenges that consume the energy of contemporary churches arise because they have redefined the nature and work of the church to include many things almost wholly unrelated to the essence and original purpose of the church. The New Testament church was a family, but we’ve transformed it into a bureaucracy. The early church’s ministers were traveling missionaries or respected local leaders, but we’ve turned them into religious experts and middle class professionals. The first churches met in homes around a table, but we met in a hall in facing a theater stage.

Think of how much energy and money churches spend and how many legal and political entanglements they bring on themselves by involving themselves in following unnecessary things: owning and managing property, hiring and managing professional clergy and staff, acquiring and servicing nonprofit tax status, organizing and funding worship bands, singers and worship ministers, and buying, maintaining and operating expensive sound and video systems. And consider how many unnecessary and inefficient programs must be staffed with overworked volunteers and paid staff. Think of how much envy, resentment and showiness having a stage with spotlights and microphones as the focal point of the service evokes.

Ask yourself why people attend church and on what basis do they choose a church. Do they attend church to be reminded of who they are in Christ, to participate in the Lord’s Supper with their brothers and sisters in Christ, to hear the Scriptures read, to encourage and be encouraged to live lives worthy of the gospel? These are the essential and original reasons. Or, do people attend a church event because of the music, the speaker or the wide array of services provided for children, teens, singles and other affinity groups?

I am not a reformer. I am not an iconoclast. I simply want to spend my energy on things that really matter.  And I wish that more churches would do the same.

The Church is Our Mother

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What is the church? The New Testament calls the church by many names: “the assembly (or church) of God,” “body of Christ,” “the bride of Christ,” “the people of God,” “the family of God,” “the temple of God,” and “the pillar and foundation of the truth.” Each of these designations points to a certain quality of the thing that came into being as a result of the resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. None of these names captures the entire being of this thing we most often call “church.” Not even all of them together can create perfect insight into the nature, life and end of church. And simply thinking or saying the names apart from real participation and empathetic involvement in the life of the church cannot impart an adequate understanding the living reality of church.

In today’s post I want to consider another designation for the church, “the Mother of the faithful.” This name for the church is not found in the New Testament. For some, this absence alone makes the term questionable. And Protestants may shy away from a name that is used prominently by the Roman Catholic Church. But neither of these reasons can bear scrutiny. Paul calls himself “the father” of the Corinthians (1 Cor 4:15). And he speaks of the Galatians as his children “for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you” (Gal 4:19). And for those who think the term “mother” is exclusively a Roman Catholic designation for the church, listen to a theologian whose Protestant credentials are impeccable, John Calvin:

“But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Mt 22:30). For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.1.4).

In the paragraphs that follow, Calvin enlarges and details the ways in which the church mothers her children. It is through her voice that we hear the gospel. Whether we read the words of the apostles in the New Testament or hear it in the persons of our parents, traveling evangelists or the ordinary ministry, the church gives birth to us in the faith. She evangelizes, teaches, nurtures, guides and disciplines us until, as Calvin so aptly puts it, we are “divested of mortal flesh.”

The living community of Christians, the faithful people of God, is the means by which each new generation and each person hears the gospel and sees it embodied in real life. Whether we are born to Christian parents or are converted as adults directly from the ignorance of paganism, we depend on the living community of faith, which exists in unbroken, living continuity with Jesus Christ and his apostles. And as John Calvin emphasizes, our relationship to our mother is lifelong. To quote him again, “For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars.” No one is strong enough to live as a Christian apart from the church. The passions of the flesh are too strong, the voices of the world are too alluring and the winds of teaching are too deceptive. We are too forgetful, too lazy, and too distractible. We need to hear the word preached. We need to participate in the sacraments, confess our sins, voice our faith and receive the church’s discipline. We can’t see ourselves objectively and we easily find excuses for our faults.

The 3rd century bishop and martyr Cyprian of Carthage famously said, “Outside the Church there is no salvation” and “you cannot have God for your father unless you have the church for your mother.” In one sense these sayings are self-evident. If the church is the people of God, the mother of the faithful, the family of God and the elect, then outside there is no salvation and no sonship. Put another way, outside the birthing, nurturing, caring, teaching, guiding and correcting embrace of our mother there is no safety and no certainty. There is only danger, abandonment and loneliness. Apart from our mother, we wander as orphaned children in a cold world.