Thinking of how to set up a discussion for a seminary course that contrasts what churches require for membership and what God requires for a person to be in His Church. What do you think about this set up? ... thought it might be helpful to get feedback before it went any further.
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Protestant groups make a strong connection between their beliefs and the Bible. The sixth of the 39 articles of the Anglican Church (1563) reads that "Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation, so that whatever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any one, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." The Methodist tradition followed suit in its Disciplines (e.g., the Methodist Episcopal Church of 1784; the African Methodist Episcopal Church of 1816; etc.). And this statement made its way into the The Discipline of The Wesleyan Church as well.
In practice, however, the "reading" and "proving" of things in Scripture has resulted in an immense variety of beliefs and practices among Protestant groups. This last century has suggested some fundamental reasons why. The default mode of reading the Bible seems to be a strange mixture of anachronistic interpretation, failing to recognize differences between how the words strike us and how they would have struck their original audiences, and this largely without realizing it. A person might think they are simply believing or requiring things that can be "proved" from Scripture when in fact they may be "contemporizing" the meaning, seeing things in the text that were not originally there. Alternatively, they might apply Scriptures to today that arguably do not apply directly to our context.
The second potential misstep is one of application. For example, the Wesleyan Discipline has some general statements in relation to modesty. Although these are stated generally, fifty years ago they would have kept from Wesleyan membership a woman who did not wear long enough dresses or who cut her hair short. In conservative groups that separated from Wesleyan and other holiness churches, such requirements remain at least implicit and sometimes explicit membership requirements even today.
Can a requirement that a woman should not cut her hair or should not adorn herself with fine gold be required on the basis of Scripture? Yes, arguably they can, if one applies 1 Corinthians 11 or 1 Peter 3 directly to today. But does long hair on women or the absence of any jewelry mean the same thing today that it did in the first century? Most American and European Christians would say it does not, as is evident from the way most Christian women dress today. These are, then, potential instances where not taking into account the cultural distance between ourselves and the biblical texts has at least potentially led to misapplication of Scripture in relation to membership, even though requirements could in theory be "proved" from Scripture.
But far more requirements, ones that are considered very important to believe or do, are very difficult to prove from Scripture. The second potential misstep is one of interpretation. For example, the Wesleyan Church has struggled of late over the issue of whether to require all its members to abstain completely from alcohol. In years past, reading modern concerns into the ancient words, Wesleyans had argued that the Bible, properly understood, did not in fact allow for any drinking of alcohol. This is the dynamic we mentioned above, practiced by Christians throughout church history, of "contemporizing" the meaning of the biblical text to reinforce and embody what a particular group senses to be its identity at a particular point in time--or its sense of how the gospel plays out at a given place or time.
We do find verses that rail against the evils of drunkenness. So my forefathers and mothers extended such passages to the first drink. After all, you can never get drunk if you never take a first drink. Then they reinterpreted "naughty verses" that did not easily fit into their paradigm. We say that wine back then wasn't like the strong drink we have in our supermarkets. And maybe, just maybe, the Greek word oinos referred to unfermented wine. We find a group of people we consider scholars to go to work to see if they can finesse the evidence to support the conclusion we want them to reach.
When these sorts of dynamics first come into view, the first impulse is to adjust membership requirements to the real list, the boiled down, absolute list. So we will allow our women to cut their hair and follow their consciences as to what modesty might mean today. Perhaps we start a movement to allow our members to drink alcohol as long as they do so in moderation.
But perhaps we have still missed the underlying principle. Even if there were some bottom line set of principles that we can abstract from the concrete admonitions of Scripture, they would still have to be played out concretely in the varied contexts of today. We are often open to the idea that some biblical injunctions do not apply to today because of cultural differences--so our women may not veil themselves any more as in 1 Corinthians 11. But it is a virtual certainty that there will also be things we cannot do today that they could do in biblical times, playing out the cultural principle. It is thus possible that there are modern contexts where it is not appropriate for Christians to drink, even though believers could in Bible times. There will likely be things that Christians in New Zealand or Nicaragua should not do that American Christians can... and visa versa.
Our goal cannot be, in the end, to model church membership on all the exact specifics of the way some portion of those in the Bible looked or even believed! They differed from each other in how they looked and believed, in terms of all the specifics (not denying that we might find a common core among New Testament believers). By the same token, the transfer of biblical requirements to the many different contexts of today will also result in varied expectations, not only meaning the differences between Singapore, Moscow, and New York City, but also the differences between New York City and a place like Marion, Indiana.
No doubt some will object strongly to the notion of membership at all. Does not God decide who is in His Church? Who are we to put requirements on others once we recognize that any list we create is bound to be laden with the idiosyncrasies of passing culture?
In many respects, this is a great thought. Would we really turn away anyone from our doors who was truly seeking God with all their heart? Don't we want to recognize humbly that we do not have a corner on God's mind and, indeed, that our tradition may not be correct on everything?
On the other hand, whoever preaches, whoever teaches, whoever has a "word from the Lord" is going to make truth claims. At some point, we will find disagreement among those who call themselves God's children. Groups meet together because they have some common vision or understanding, something that binds them. A group that was non-committal on everything about which Christians disagree would be a truly bland group indeed, with little to teach and little to do. Church groupings embody a kind of vitality that a vanilla, boiled down core could never have.
And in practice, few of us are going to go start--or attend--a house church. That means we are stuck with existing churches and denominations. And even non-denominational churches stand within traditions. They will almost certainly baptize in a certain way, preach that you should or should not do certain things. Do they believe in speaking in tongues or not? Do they believe in eternal security or not? What do they think evangelism means? How is the church's leadership structured? Answers to these sorts of questions identify the influences of Christian traditions on a church, whether it is connected to other churches or not.
So if there are clear limits to the churches in which we find ourselves, then in practice we simply do not have the authority to decide fully who can be a member of our church and who cannot. These are more givens. The vast majority of believers are located in specific churches in specific denominations and traditions with specific understandings. This will never go away, no matter how much momentum the house church movement gains.
A second practicality has to do with leadership. It is a wonderful theory to consider anyone in your church a member who attends and makes some sort of confession of Christian faith. But who do you allow to lead the church? Who can bring a word to the congregation and who will steer those words when they seem to go off track? If a group holds certain beliefs or practices dear as central to their identity, how will they keep them from disappearing when individuals from other traditions start worshipping with them or broader cultural influences take hold? Should they even be worrying about such things?
The title of this piece proclaimed it a case study in local church membership, based on The Wesleyan Church. This church has been wrestling with these sorts of issues now for a couple decades. On the one hand, it was earlier a denomination of relatively small churches, and small churches hold their unique identities well. Membership requirements were extensive, delving into the minutia of a believer's life and playing out various artifacts of its nineteenth century origins, things like prohibitions on dancing or playing cards.
The last few decades have seen a pruning of some of these many particularities, sometimes because the general populace--including church leaders--had come to ignore them. What is the point of having a statement about not going to movies when your general officials themselves go to movies? It trivializes the instructions we do value. At some points changes were made because of increased maturity in biblical understanding. For example, the New Testament does not equate the Jewish Sabbath with Sunday, so there is no biblical basis for prohibiting a Christian from buying and selling on Sunday (though ironically we might have been justified in forbidding it on Saturday).
In recent times, however, a point of real growth has taken place because of the dynamics of our larger churches. These churches have attracted many believers from other traditions. They worship with us. They give tithes and offerings to us. They are clearly believers. Will we really tell them that they are not members of our church because they drink moderately, which is clearly allowed biblically? Will we keep them from voting on whether to start a Christian school because they believe a person cannot lose their salvation--especially when they want to give $10,000 toward that new wing?
This tension has caused some changes in the way The Wesleyan Church structures its membership. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, it is impossible to claim that only those who look, believe, and behave the way we do are truly Christians. Clearly there are many believers out there who are our brothers and sisters but who simply disagree with us on the particulars of our faith and practice. They are part of God's Church, but history has left it difficult for them to be members of my church. How can a tradition, embodied in a local church, remain true to its identity as a witness to a certain understanding, and yet acknowledge all those who truly confess faith within its halls to be Christians?
The Wesleyan Church has struggled with this tension. Its current solution is not perfect, but it is an honorable attempt to be faithful to these two principles. On the one hand, it has what it calls "community" membership. In theory, anyone who confesses faith in Christ and manifests the most basic common understandings of what that means in belief and practice, can be such a member. These individuals fully participate in the life of the local congregation as members.
On the other hand, we have another category called "covenant" membership. It is identification with the Wesleyan tradition and the conglomeration of churches that form The Wesleyan Church. It pertains to the highest level of leadership in the local church as well as representation to bodies beyond the local church.
The matter of alcohol is a case in point. There are many American Christians who have a vibrant faith yet drink moderately. The Wesleyan Church, however, has historically chosen to be abstinent as a statement against the consequences that often result from drinking in broken lives and uncontrolled actions. And so we now have community members who drink moderately, while Wesleyan leadership binds itself--beyond the biblical requirements--not to drink at all.
As the world "flattens," it becomes increasingly hard for Christian traditions to separate themselves from one another and go off to their own little enclaves. The result is that our children know Christians from other denominations and fellowships. Indeed, they know people from other religions. We will increasingly have to defend our specific identities in ways we did not fifty years ago. And each group will have to work out how to be who they are without denying that there are other believers out there with significantly different understandings and practices--with all of us looking at the same Bible.
Showing posts with label church membership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church membership. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Saturday, May 02, 2009
2.4 Getting In: Church Membership
Here is now the final installment of the second chapter of my proposed book, Generous Ecclesiology. The previous posts include:
Chapter 1: The Myth of the Ideal Church
1.1 The Good Old Days
1.2 The "Platonic" Church
1.3 The Incarnated Church
Chapter 2: Getting "In"
2.1 Baptism
2.2 The Holy Spirit
2.3 Confirmation
Now 2.4: Church Membership:
In a very real sense, everything in this chapter thus far has been about getting into the (Christian) people of God, about becoming a Christian. The people of God in this sense cannot be identified with any visible body or group. While we can safely assume that the body of Christ will always meet visibly in groups, the true church in its most significant sense is an "invisible" church. Its members presumably span most if not all Christian groups and denominations, while not all who meet in these fellowships will truly be members of the people of God.
Certainly not all Christian groups function with this understanding, even if they might give it lip service. Especially in the past, various groups have at least acted as if only those in their group would "go to heaven." Indeed, many groups have explicitly taught this idea. Thankfully, the last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase in generosity toward Christians in other groups.
For example, the Roman Catholic Church would now recognize that many non-Catholics are Christians, even if they are "separated brothers and sisters." Prior to Vatican 2 in the early 1960s, the official view was that "there is no salvation outside the church," which at that time they understood to mean only the Roman Catholic Church. Prior to Vatican 2, the Roman Catholic Church taught that anyone who was not baptized Roman Catholic could not truly escape God's eternal condemnation. Ironically, while the Catholic Church has since changed its evaluation of Protestants, many Protestants today still have not extended the same generosity to them in return. Many Protestants embarrassingly would still ask, "Are you Catholic or are you a Christian?"
Today, many if not most Christians have come to recognize that there will be far more people in the kingdom than just those who are a part of their group. To think anything different boggles the mind. It would not only require us to have some sense of God predetermining who would be a Christian, which of course some Christian groups do believe. But it would also require us to think that God made sure that such chosen people were largely born into a particular Christian group at this particular point in history. It is no surprise that the groups that believe this sort of thing today are almost always small groups.
For example, there is a particular denomination that believes you must be baptized in the name of Jesus only for your baptism to count. Further, if you do not speak in tongues, you cannot truly have received the Holy Spirit. In effect, if you have never spoken in tongues and have not been baptized in a way that rejects belief in the Trinity, you have virtually no chance of being saved.
But now consider. This particular group did not exist before 1917. Church history has left no trace of any groups prior to the 1900s who both spoke in tongues and were modalists (non-Trinitarians). It thus boggles the mind to think that those in this group who think this way could be correct about what God requires for salvation. It would mean that no one born before around 1900 was saved--and only a relatively number since!
Nevertheless, many Christians today continue to think and act like the requirements for membership in their group coincide with what God requires for a person to be a Christian. For example, any number of Christian groups require you to be rebaptized their way if you are to be a part of their group. The Roman Catholic Church still will not allow you take communion unless you become Roman Catholic.
We can often understand the reasoning behind such exclusion, and we will argue that it is not necessarily wrong for a church to have special expectations for its particular members. But it seems even more important that we do not confuse the traditions and understandings of our particular group with what God requires of a person to be a part of the true people of God, the invisible church that spans all visible denominations. Every Christian group is likely wrong on some things and right on others, and it is impossible for us to know which is which!
So a person must have received the Holy Spirit to be a Christian. That seems to be the one absolutely essential ingredient for a person to be "in" the invisible, universal (truly catholic) church. But discerning who has the Spirit and who does not is hardly something that we as human beings are able to do with complete certainty. And a local church must surely be more than a collection of individual Christians who all have differing understandings of faith and practice. Things happen when people come together with common identities and purposes. If the church is meant to do something for God, God presumably expects us to do it together.
So unless Christianity truly boils down only to one-on-one, inward looking relationships with God, churches should group themselves around commonalities of some sort. Indeed, it seems inevitable that they will do so. For this reason, "denominations"--whatever we call them--are not only potentially good things. They are virtually necessary if the church is to do anything. Groups of Christians with common vision seem essential for the church's mission to take place.
And history seems to have smashed to bits our idealistic Protestant hopes that all Christians will end up on the same page if they only follow the Bible. It hasn't happened in 500 years of earnest trying! Indeed, Protestant groups have only multiplied without measure in the attempt. The notion that following the Bible alone will lead us to a common set of beliefs and practices seems decisively disproven by history. Denominations, groups of believers with distinct beliefs and practices, would seem to be an inevitable reality, despite their faults.
Throughout history, Christians have grouped themselves on the basis of different commonalities. It is typical for many Protestants to think of such common ground only in ideological terms, as if Christians group themselves into churches only on the basis of common beliefs. But this is only one way that Christians find common ground. For example, the Anglican Church includes a great variety of belief and practice under its umbrella. [1] The common ground has more to do with its worship than with specific beliefs or behaviors.
Other Christian groups find their common ground in a particular set of behaviors or practices. I was curious to hear recently of a group whose theology is very similar to my own tradition but that preferred to look outside our tradition for education. It preferred to send its children to a college whose external behaviors were more in line with theirs, even though that college's beliefs differed significantly from theirs. They apparently considered certain dress and social standards more important to their identity than sharing a common theology. [2]
The idea of a non-denominational church thus does not really get us away from specific Christian traditions. Such churches almost always reflect a particular tradition or mixture of traditions. They baptize a certain way. They have opinions about how the leadership of the church should go and about whether women can be pastors or not. They take positions on issues of sexual practice that go beyond anything clearly indicated in Scripture.
The closest it would seem we could come at this point in history to a non-denominational church would be something we used to call "inter-denominational." There is no pure or ideal church we can or should try to pattern ourselves after when it comes to specifics. The things that most distinguish Christian groups from each other often have to do with gaps the New Testament has left behind, things about which an incarnated church must make decisions. We have to decide how our group will baptize or if we will allow for multiple forms of baptism. We have to decide what we will do when we meet, whether someone will speak, who will lead if anyone, and so forth.
And if we are to have an impact on this world, our world, we will have to make decisions that involve spiritual judgment that goes far beyond the thoughts of the early church. Does your fellowship teach against abortion? The attempts to tie a Christian position on this issue solely to biblical passages consistently involve using the Bible's words in ways they were never meant originally. There may very well be a specific Christian position on this issue, but the Bible does not explicitly give it. Concrete churches must find their way under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, hopefully with the church at large eventually reaching some kind of collective consensus.
It was this way with the Trinity. Since the 400s, the vast majority of Christians have believed that Jesus is "of one substance with the Father, begotten, not made." [3] But show me the verse where the Bible clearly says such specifics about Jesus' divinity! On countless other issues the invisible church has not reached such a consensus. And on some issues--like the celibacy of ministers--the consensus has almost reversed these last 500 years.
The bottom line is that much, much more is involved in what we believe and practice than the Bible alone. God apparently means for it to work this way because this is the way it has always worked. Perhaps it has to work in this way, given the fact that the gospel has to play out in countless different times and places.
All these things seem to imply that belonging to a local or denominational church will never simply be a matter of what is required to be a Christian. The more "inter-traditional" a group is on a particular issue, the less clear its identity and purpose will be. So a group makes decisions about its understanding of Scripture. A group makes decisions about how the gospel plays out in its context. The result is a sense of membership in that group that is perfectly legitimate, even though it is not the same as what God requires for a person to be "in" the true Church.
The tension between "what is essential" and "what my group requires" is a difficult one, especially the more established a tradition is. For example, it is almost unimaginable that the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church will make any major changes to the major expectations and processes of belonging to them. Their practices have over a thousand years of history behind them. A newly founded house church, on the other hand, can practically invent itself however those in its fellowship choose.
In theory, a local church should probably try to include as "members" all those who are members of the body of Christ. Although we cannot always tell for certain who is truly "in" and who is not, we should probably err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion. At the same time, this ideal will regularly come into conflict with the broader church's understandings of proper Christian belief and practice, especially if that local church belongs to a network of churches in a particular Christian tradition.
What if, for example, a collection of churches traditionally questions whether tongues as they are practiced in charismatic churches are the tongues of the New Testament? Then let's say a tongues speaker begins to worship in this denomination. Let's say there is no question that the tongues speaker is a true believer. Then he or she is a member of the universal church and should be considered truly "in" the local congregation. But at the same time, the church leadership wishes to guard the understanding of their broader church tradition as concerns tongues. And perhaps they have reason to think the practice of tongues in their worship would create great division in the congregation.
Of course to a charismatic, this example seems to involve ignorance of what the Bible teaches on tongues. But every group has its blind spot. Paul lays down a rule in more than one place that the unity and edification of the church trumps my freedom to act in accordance with what I think I know (1 Cor. 8-10; Rom. 14). Church splits are an all too common feature of Protestant history, as disagreements over the meaning of Scripture have played themselves out time and time again.
What if a church tradition in a particular context does not believe a Christian should drink alcohol in that context? Then what if a believer joins them who is clearly a Christian but only drinks moderately? The person is "in" the body of Christ and should be considered "in" the local congregation. But at the same time, the church leadership wishes to guard the understanding of their broader church tradition in relation to drinking and discourage its members from following this person's practice.
Again, to many Christians the whole question seems silly. Didn't Jesus turn the water into real wine, not unfermented grape juice? Although they are almost certainly wrong, many groups don't think so. And even beyond this biblical question, there is the question of living out the gospel in a new context that is much different from the biblical ones. Playing out the gospel in a new context not only means that at times we will be able to do things various groups in the Bible were not able to do. But it may also at times mean we should not do things various groups in the Bible did. [4]
No doubt we could find some issue that creates these sorts of conflicts for just about any Christian tradition. What should a Baptist church do with a person worshipping in their fellowship who was baptized as an infant but does not want to be rebaptized? What should a Pentecostal church do with a person worshipping with them who does not wish to seek the gift of tongues? These groups have their particular beliefs and practices, yet they need to consider their fellow worshipper a full member of the body of Christ.
In the end, it seems appropriate for individual churches and groups of churches to bind themselves to their particular understandings of Scripture and particular understandings of how it plays out in a particular context. They should maintain a generous attitude toward those of other fellowships and continually seek correction and guidance from the Holy Spirit. But it is appropriate for Christians to come together with common goals and purposes. It is appropriate for denominations to set up structures that will perpetuate and sustain their understandings.
In wrestling with these issues, one denomination even set up two senses of membership. [5] Those who fellowship with a local congregation are considered full members of that congregation, "community members," as long as they hold to the most basic Christian understandings of that group. But then the denomination expects a greater commitment to the specific beliefs and practices of its tradition if one is to be involved in church leadership or with the denomination on a level beyond the local church. They call it "covenant" membership.
Such a structure is awkward, beyond any doubt. Should we not accept anyone God has accepted? Certainly we should. But there are so many matters of Christian identity and purpose beyond being "in" that a church can hardly be or do anything for Christ unless it has a far more delineated identity than mere Christianity. On the one hand, there is no clear ideal or New Testament church to get back to on so many defining issues. On the other hand, an "anything goes" approach gives no clear direction or mission for the church.
This current situation has resulted from the growing awareness of ourselves at the end of the twentieth century. Christians have became more and more aware of the traditional forces on their understandings and practices. As the world flattened, it became more and more difficult for us to suggest with any credibility that our little group had everything figured out. Ours was the group that really understood the Bible.
For some, such an awareness has lead to outright pluralism, where all claims to truth are equally valid--or perhaps more accurately, equally invalid. But there is another way. We can affirm our understandings and practices with humility and love. We can believe our understandings of the church are the best as far as we know while acknowledging and loving those who feel equally convinced of other understandings. God will sort us all out in the end.
We leave this question of church membership with some basic principles that probably give us a sense of the church of the future. First, it will be humble and generous towards other churches. It will realize that it is not the Church but only a church. It is almost certainly both right and wrong on many things.
Second, it will make distinctions between what it views as clear essentials and what it sees as less clear aspects of its tradition. It will try to recognize the historical forces that have led it to what it believes and practices at that point in time. It will stick closely to things it believes are really important and sit more loosely to areas where it stands in most tension with the rest of Christendom.
Thirdly, it will network generously with other Christians and other Christian churches. It will fully acknowledge that it can learn from them and indeed can come to see itself more clearly through their eyes. It will join with other churches in common areas of purpose and vision.
Finally, it will love equally those who worship in its fellowship who agree with its tradition and those who do not. It will consider all equal members of the body of Christ, even those who might disagree with key elements of its traditional identity. At the same time it is legitimate for it to set up mechanisms by which its particular understandings and practices are preserved.
[1] There are evangelical Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics, charismatic Anglicans, sea of faith Anglicans who do not believe God is a being, etc.
[2] Then of course there are inclusive churches whose defining characteristic is their inclusiveness. No matter who you are and what you believe, you are in, as long as you do not think that anyone is out. Any belief and practice is fine except for a belief that does not allow for all different beliefs and practices. Although this approach to Christianity will no doubt be increasingly popular in the days to come, it does come at a price.
For one, it is a departure from two thousand years of Christian faith, in which certain claims about God and Jesus have stood at the center of all reality. To say that it doesn't matter whether those claims are literally true or not is a fundamental denial of them. If there is a God with certain expectations, then it does matter whether you believe them or not. If it doesn't matter what you believe, then there is not a God with such expectations. You cannot have it both ways.
[3] A line from the Nicene Creed of AD381.
[4] An easy example is polygamy, which certainly is not prohibited in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, monogamy is assumed in several places, but no prohibition is ever made of polygamy in relation to most Christians. Overseers and deacons in the church are to be "the husband of one wife" in 1 Timothy 3, which probably means one wife in their entire lifetime.
[5] My own parent denomination, The Wesleyan Church.
Chapter 1: The Myth of the Ideal Church
1.1 The Good Old Days
1.2 The "Platonic" Church
1.3 The Incarnated Church
Chapter 2: Getting "In"
2.1 Baptism
2.2 The Holy Spirit
2.3 Confirmation
Now 2.4: Church Membership:
In a very real sense, everything in this chapter thus far has been about getting into the (Christian) people of God, about becoming a Christian. The people of God in this sense cannot be identified with any visible body or group. While we can safely assume that the body of Christ will always meet visibly in groups, the true church in its most significant sense is an "invisible" church. Its members presumably span most if not all Christian groups and denominations, while not all who meet in these fellowships will truly be members of the people of God.
Certainly not all Christian groups function with this understanding, even if they might give it lip service. Especially in the past, various groups have at least acted as if only those in their group would "go to heaven." Indeed, many groups have explicitly taught this idea. Thankfully, the last fifty years have seen a dramatic increase in generosity toward Christians in other groups.
For example, the Roman Catholic Church would now recognize that many non-Catholics are Christians, even if they are "separated brothers and sisters." Prior to Vatican 2 in the early 1960s, the official view was that "there is no salvation outside the church," which at that time they understood to mean only the Roman Catholic Church. Prior to Vatican 2, the Roman Catholic Church taught that anyone who was not baptized Roman Catholic could not truly escape God's eternal condemnation. Ironically, while the Catholic Church has since changed its evaluation of Protestants, many Protestants today still have not extended the same generosity to them in return. Many Protestants embarrassingly would still ask, "Are you Catholic or are you a Christian?"
Today, many if not most Christians have come to recognize that there will be far more people in the kingdom than just those who are a part of their group. To think anything different boggles the mind. It would not only require us to have some sense of God predetermining who would be a Christian, which of course some Christian groups do believe. But it would also require us to think that God made sure that such chosen people were largely born into a particular Christian group at this particular point in history. It is no surprise that the groups that believe this sort of thing today are almost always small groups.
For example, there is a particular denomination that believes you must be baptized in the name of Jesus only for your baptism to count. Further, if you do not speak in tongues, you cannot truly have received the Holy Spirit. In effect, if you have never spoken in tongues and have not been baptized in a way that rejects belief in the Trinity, you have virtually no chance of being saved.
But now consider. This particular group did not exist before 1917. Church history has left no trace of any groups prior to the 1900s who both spoke in tongues and were modalists (non-Trinitarians). It thus boggles the mind to think that those in this group who think this way could be correct about what God requires for salvation. It would mean that no one born before around 1900 was saved--and only a relatively number since!
Nevertheless, many Christians today continue to think and act like the requirements for membership in their group coincide with what God requires for a person to be a Christian. For example, any number of Christian groups require you to be rebaptized their way if you are to be a part of their group. The Roman Catholic Church still will not allow you take communion unless you become Roman Catholic.
We can often understand the reasoning behind such exclusion, and we will argue that it is not necessarily wrong for a church to have special expectations for its particular members. But it seems even more important that we do not confuse the traditions and understandings of our particular group with what God requires of a person to be a part of the true people of God, the invisible church that spans all visible denominations. Every Christian group is likely wrong on some things and right on others, and it is impossible for us to know which is which!
So a person must have received the Holy Spirit to be a Christian. That seems to be the one absolutely essential ingredient for a person to be "in" the invisible, universal (truly catholic) church. But discerning who has the Spirit and who does not is hardly something that we as human beings are able to do with complete certainty. And a local church must surely be more than a collection of individual Christians who all have differing understandings of faith and practice. Things happen when people come together with common identities and purposes. If the church is meant to do something for God, God presumably expects us to do it together.
So unless Christianity truly boils down only to one-on-one, inward looking relationships with God, churches should group themselves around commonalities of some sort. Indeed, it seems inevitable that they will do so. For this reason, "denominations"--whatever we call them--are not only potentially good things. They are virtually necessary if the church is to do anything. Groups of Christians with common vision seem essential for the church's mission to take place.
And history seems to have smashed to bits our idealistic Protestant hopes that all Christians will end up on the same page if they only follow the Bible. It hasn't happened in 500 years of earnest trying! Indeed, Protestant groups have only multiplied without measure in the attempt. The notion that following the Bible alone will lead us to a common set of beliefs and practices seems decisively disproven by history. Denominations, groups of believers with distinct beliefs and practices, would seem to be an inevitable reality, despite their faults.
Throughout history, Christians have grouped themselves on the basis of different commonalities. It is typical for many Protestants to think of such common ground only in ideological terms, as if Christians group themselves into churches only on the basis of common beliefs. But this is only one way that Christians find common ground. For example, the Anglican Church includes a great variety of belief and practice under its umbrella. [1] The common ground has more to do with its worship than with specific beliefs or behaviors.
Other Christian groups find their common ground in a particular set of behaviors or practices. I was curious to hear recently of a group whose theology is very similar to my own tradition but that preferred to look outside our tradition for education. It preferred to send its children to a college whose external behaviors were more in line with theirs, even though that college's beliefs differed significantly from theirs. They apparently considered certain dress and social standards more important to their identity than sharing a common theology. [2]
The idea of a non-denominational church thus does not really get us away from specific Christian traditions. Such churches almost always reflect a particular tradition or mixture of traditions. They baptize a certain way. They have opinions about how the leadership of the church should go and about whether women can be pastors or not. They take positions on issues of sexual practice that go beyond anything clearly indicated in Scripture.
The closest it would seem we could come at this point in history to a non-denominational church would be something we used to call "inter-denominational." There is no pure or ideal church we can or should try to pattern ourselves after when it comes to specifics. The things that most distinguish Christian groups from each other often have to do with gaps the New Testament has left behind, things about which an incarnated church must make decisions. We have to decide how our group will baptize or if we will allow for multiple forms of baptism. We have to decide what we will do when we meet, whether someone will speak, who will lead if anyone, and so forth.
And if we are to have an impact on this world, our world, we will have to make decisions that involve spiritual judgment that goes far beyond the thoughts of the early church. Does your fellowship teach against abortion? The attempts to tie a Christian position on this issue solely to biblical passages consistently involve using the Bible's words in ways they were never meant originally. There may very well be a specific Christian position on this issue, but the Bible does not explicitly give it. Concrete churches must find their way under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, hopefully with the church at large eventually reaching some kind of collective consensus.
It was this way with the Trinity. Since the 400s, the vast majority of Christians have believed that Jesus is "of one substance with the Father, begotten, not made." [3] But show me the verse where the Bible clearly says such specifics about Jesus' divinity! On countless other issues the invisible church has not reached such a consensus. And on some issues--like the celibacy of ministers--the consensus has almost reversed these last 500 years.
The bottom line is that much, much more is involved in what we believe and practice than the Bible alone. God apparently means for it to work this way because this is the way it has always worked. Perhaps it has to work in this way, given the fact that the gospel has to play out in countless different times and places.
All these things seem to imply that belonging to a local or denominational church will never simply be a matter of what is required to be a Christian. The more "inter-traditional" a group is on a particular issue, the less clear its identity and purpose will be. So a group makes decisions about its understanding of Scripture. A group makes decisions about how the gospel plays out in its context. The result is a sense of membership in that group that is perfectly legitimate, even though it is not the same as what God requires for a person to be "in" the true Church.
The tension between "what is essential" and "what my group requires" is a difficult one, especially the more established a tradition is. For example, it is almost unimaginable that the Roman Catholic or Orthodox Church will make any major changes to the major expectations and processes of belonging to them. Their practices have over a thousand years of history behind them. A newly founded house church, on the other hand, can practically invent itself however those in its fellowship choose.
In theory, a local church should probably try to include as "members" all those who are members of the body of Christ. Although we cannot always tell for certain who is truly "in" and who is not, we should probably err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion. At the same time, this ideal will regularly come into conflict with the broader church's understandings of proper Christian belief and practice, especially if that local church belongs to a network of churches in a particular Christian tradition.
What if, for example, a collection of churches traditionally questions whether tongues as they are practiced in charismatic churches are the tongues of the New Testament? Then let's say a tongues speaker begins to worship in this denomination. Let's say there is no question that the tongues speaker is a true believer. Then he or she is a member of the universal church and should be considered truly "in" the local congregation. But at the same time, the church leadership wishes to guard the understanding of their broader church tradition as concerns tongues. And perhaps they have reason to think the practice of tongues in their worship would create great division in the congregation.
Of course to a charismatic, this example seems to involve ignorance of what the Bible teaches on tongues. But every group has its blind spot. Paul lays down a rule in more than one place that the unity and edification of the church trumps my freedom to act in accordance with what I think I know (1 Cor. 8-10; Rom. 14). Church splits are an all too common feature of Protestant history, as disagreements over the meaning of Scripture have played themselves out time and time again.
What if a church tradition in a particular context does not believe a Christian should drink alcohol in that context? Then what if a believer joins them who is clearly a Christian but only drinks moderately? The person is "in" the body of Christ and should be considered "in" the local congregation. But at the same time, the church leadership wishes to guard the understanding of their broader church tradition in relation to drinking and discourage its members from following this person's practice.
Again, to many Christians the whole question seems silly. Didn't Jesus turn the water into real wine, not unfermented grape juice? Although they are almost certainly wrong, many groups don't think so. And even beyond this biblical question, there is the question of living out the gospel in a new context that is much different from the biblical ones. Playing out the gospel in a new context not only means that at times we will be able to do things various groups in the Bible were not able to do. But it may also at times mean we should not do things various groups in the Bible did. [4]
No doubt we could find some issue that creates these sorts of conflicts for just about any Christian tradition. What should a Baptist church do with a person worshipping in their fellowship who was baptized as an infant but does not want to be rebaptized? What should a Pentecostal church do with a person worshipping with them who does not wish to seek the gift of tongues? These groups have their particular beliefs and practices, yet they need to consider their fellow worshipper a full member of the body of Christ.
In the end, it seems appropriate for individual churches and groups of churches to bind themselves to their particular understandings of Scripture and particular understandings of how it plays out in a particular context. They should maintain a generous attitude toward those of other fellowships and continually seek correction and guidance from the Holy Spirit. But it is appropriate for Christians to come together with common goals and purposes. It is appropriate for denominations to set up structures that will perpetuate and sustain their understandings.
In wrestling with these issues, one denomination even set up two senses of membership. [5] Those who fellowship with a local congregation are considered full members of that congregation, "community members," as long as they hold to the most basic Christian understandings of that group. But then the denomination expects a greater commitment to the specific beliefs and practices of its tradition if one is to be involved in church leadership or with the denomination on a level beyond the local church. They call it "covenant" membership.
Such a structure is awkward, beyond any doubt. Should we not accept anyone God has accepted? Certainly we should. But there are so many matters of Christian identity and purpose beyond being "in" that a church can hardly be or do anything for Christ unless it has a far more delineated identity than mere Christianity. On the one hand, there is no clear ideal or New Testament church to get back to on so many defining issues. On the other hand, an "anything goes" approach gives no clear direction or mission for the church.
This current situation has resulted from the growing awareness of ourselves at the end of the twentieth century. Christians have became more and more aware of the traditional forces on their understandings and practices. As the world flattened, it became more and more difficult for us to suggest with any credibility that our little group had everything figured out. Ours was the group that really understood the Bible.
For some, such an awareness has lead to outright pluralism, where all claims to truth are equally valid--or perhaps more accurately, equally invalid. But there is another way. We can affirm our understandings and practices with humility and love. We can believe our understandings of the church are the best as far as we know while acknowledging and loving those who feel equally convinced of other understandings. God will sort us all out in the end.
We leave this question of church membership with some basic principles that probably give us a sense of the church of the future. First, it will be humble and generous towards other churches. It will realize that it is not the Church but only a church. It is almost certainly both right and wrong on many things.
Second, it will make distinctions between what it views as clear essentials and what it sees as less clear aspects of its tradition. It will try to recognize the historical forces that have led it to what it believes and practices at that point in time. It will stick closely to things it believes are really important and sit more loosely to areas where it stands in most tension with the rest of Christendom.
Thirdly, it will network generously with other Christians and other Christian churches. It will fully acknowledge that it can learn from them and indeed can come to see itself more clearly through their eyes. It will join with other churches in common areas of purpose and vision.
Finally, it will love equally those who worship in its fellowship who agree with its tradition and those who do not. It will consider all equal members of the body of Christ, even those who might disagree with key elements of its traditional identity. At the same time it is legitimate for it to set up mechanisms by which its particular understandings and practices are preserved.
[1] There are evangelical Anglicans, Anglo-Catholics, charismatic Anglicans, sea of faith Anglicans who do not believe God is a being, etc.
[2] Then of course there are inclusive churches whose defining characteristic is their inclusiveness. No matter who you are and what you believe, you are in, as long as you do not think that anyone is out. Any belief and practice is fine except for a belief that does not allow for all different beliefs and practices. Although this approach to Christianity will no doubt be increasingly popular in the days to come, it does come at a price.
For one, it is a departure from two thousand years of Christian faith, in which certain claims about God and Jesus have stood at the center of all reality. To say that it doesn't matter whether those claims are literally true or not is a fundamental denial of them. If there is a God with certain expectations, then it does matter whether you believe them or not. If it doesn't matter what you believe, then there is not a God with such expectations. You cannot have it both ways.
[3] A line from the Nicene Creed of AD381.
[4] An easy example is polygamy, which certainly is not prohibited in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, monogamy is assumed in several places, but no prohibition is ever made of polygamy in relation to most Christians. Overseers and deacons in the church are to be "the husband of one wife" in 1 Timothy 3, which probably means one wife in their entire lifetime.
[5] My own parent denomination, The Wesleyan Church.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Top Five Church "Membership" Myths
1. The early church did not have church membership.
If I have to pick true or false, I pick false for this one. There were definite expectations of the small churches (40-50 would have been very large indeed for a house church) of the early church. They differed from assembly to assembly. Jerusalem assemblies were drastically different from the assembly at Corinth, for example. You could get kicked out, as 1 Corinthians 5 indicates, along with other passages.
2. Everyone who comes to my church should be a member.
If I have pegged myth #1 correct, then #2 is a myth too. The New Testament and later Christianity distinguish between those who have become part of the people of God and those who do not. This does not preclude a "seeker sensitive" add on for our times. After all, 1 Corinthians 14 speaks of unbelievers coming into the assembly.
But unbelievers are not a part of the body of Christ. They are not members of the church.
3. Membership should be restricted to what the Bible requires and forbids.
I'm going to say that this is partially true in one sense and yet false in other senses.
a. It is first false because the Bible was not written to address the 21st century church. Read it. It says it was written to people who lived 2000 to 3000 years ago. Their world was quite different from our world. Doing what they did then doesn't do the same thing now.
b. So we have issues that the Bible says nothing about. The Bible says squat about abortion--don't kid yourself with the obscure verses people use that had nothing to do with abortion originally. They had words for such things in the ancient world. They're not in the Bible.
But that does not automatically mean that abortion is okay. It's about time we grew up in our hermeneutic and became a little more mature than the blind application and voodoo interpretive methods most people use.
c. The third claim I want to make here is the most important under this point. It is a good thing for there to be pockets of Christendom with unique identities within the body of Christ. Reducing the universal church to one bland set of ideology and practice is tantamount to telling the whole body of Christ just to be an eye or an ear.
For one thing, we will never agree on a singular biblical theology. This is a pipe dream. This side of the kingdom of God, Christians will always have distinct perspectives on what God requires and what is true when it comes down to specifics. It was this way even in the early church, although Acts softens the disagreements in its presentation.
It enriches the church for us to hold the core Christian faith and certain core practices in common while being diverse in our more particular understandings and practices. It enriches the church for the Brethren in Christ to practice foot washing and for the Wesleyan Church to be teetotalers. It enriches the church for Reformed folk to emphasize the sovereignty of God, the Wesleyans to emphasize victory over sin, and the Roman Catholics to emphasize good works.
Our particularity is legitimate in at least two respects: 1) we have no real choice but to see certain things as we see them and 2) certain traditions of particular groups constitute identity and are worthwhile to affirm as who we are in the body of Christ.
d. In what respect, then, is this statement true? I would say that it would be magnificent if we had a way to affirm "membership" of our local congregations even when these individuals do not believe the way we do or practice Christianity the way we do.
In my perfect world, Wesleyans would identify core Christian beliefs and practices that we required of community members. We would say, we recognize you fully as a Christian like us, not one bit less than we are. You affirm the Apostle's Creed. You follow those of the Ten commandments continued by the New Testament as manifestations of love of God and neighbor. You are not Wesleyan, but you are fully Christian.
4. The particulars of the Wesleyan Church (insert your denomination) are what the Bible requires.
Give it up. This is naivete to the height. It is appropriate for us to have a unique identity, but let's not pretend for one minute that we are the little group that just happens to have all the right interpretations, beliefs, and practices. We think we have it right on a vast many issues where we think other groups have it wrong. But we are bound to have some blind spots somewhere.
And for now we are some of the Nazirites of the body of Christ--we don't drink. Let's not pretend that this question is as simple as "what the Bible says." The Bible bids us not to be drunkards and that's about it. It is perfectly legitimate for us not to do a whole host of things--or to do a host of things--that the Bible does not require us to do or not do.
So it is perfectly legitimate for us to have covenant membership, especially when we move beyond the local congregation to the leadership of the church both local and global. In fact, if we do not have such distinctions on these levels, we will melt away into non-existence or, like non-denominational churches, go with the mindless flow of our local attendees, all under the false pretense of just reading the Bible and doing what it says. Yeah right.
5. It is wrong for there to be denominations.
In many respects I have already addressed this myth throughout above. There were distinct idea and practice groups in the early church. The Jerusalem church had a different theology and practice than Paul's churches. Apollos probably gave different advice on certain issues than Paul did. John of Revelation would not have taken Paul's tact on meat offered to idols.
The late middle ages are a testimony to what happens when everyone must believe the same. The 20000 denominations are a testimony to the absurdity of thinking we just get our beliefs from the Bible alone.
I'm calling for a more sophisticated ecclesiology, one that I think could mesh with the Wesleyan Church's division between community and covenant members. I think we've kind of stumbled on it. But I think we could actually "write the book" on 21st century ecclesiology here!
If I have to pick true or false, I pick false for this one. There were definite expectations of the small churches (40-50 would have been very large indeed for a house church) of the early church. They differed from assembly to assembly. Jerusalem assemblies were drastically different from the assembly at Corinth, for example. You could get kicked out, as 1 Corinthians 5 indicates, along with other passages.
2. Everyone who comes to my church should be a member.
If I have pegged myth #1 correct, then #2 is a myth too. The New Testament and later Christianity distinguish between those who have become part of the people of God and those who do not. This does not preclude a "seeker sensitive" add on for our times. After all, 1 Corinthians 14 speaks of unbelievers coming into the assembly.
But unbelievers are not a part of the body of Christ. They are not members of the church.
3. Membership should be restricted to what the Bible requires and forbids.
I'm going to say that this is partially true in one sense and yet false in other senses.
a. It is first false because the Bible was not written to address the 21st century church. Read it. It says it was written to people who lived 2000 to 3000 years ago. Their world was quite different from our world. Doing what they did then doesn't do the same thing now.
b. So we have issues that the Bible says nothing about. The Bible says squat about abortion--don't kid yourself with the obscure verses people use that had nothing to do with abortion originally. They had words for such things in the ancient world. They're not in the Bible.
But that does not automatically mean that abortion is okay. It's about time we grew up in our hermeneutic and became a little more mature than the blind application and voodoo interpretive methods most people use.
c. The third claim I want to make here is the most important under this point. It is a good thing for there to be pockets of Christendom with unique identities within the body of Christ. Reducing the universal church to one bland set of ideology and practice is tantamount to telling the whole body of Christ just to be an eye or an ear.
For one thing, we will never agree on a singular biblical theology. This is a pipe dream. This side of the kingdom of God, Christians will always have distinct perspectives on what God requires and what is true when it comes down to specifics. It was this way even in the early church, although Acts softens the disagreements in its presentation.
It enriches the church for us to hold the core Christian faith and certain core practices in common while being diverse in our more particular understandings and practices. It enriches the church for the Brethren in Christ to practice foot washing and for the Wesleyan Church to be teetotalers. It enriches the church for Reformed folk to emphasize the sovereignty of God, the Wesleyans to emphasize victory over sin, and the Roman Catholics to emphasize good works.
Our particularity is legitimate in at least two respects: 1) we have no real choice but to see certain things as we see them and 2) certain traditions of particular groups constitute identity and are worthwhile to affirm as who we are in the body of Christ.
d. In what respect, then, is this statement true? I would say that it would be magnificent if we had a way to affirm "membership" of our local congregations even when these individuals do not believe the way we do or practice Christianity the way we do.
In my perfect world, Wesleyans would identify core Christian beliefs and practices that we required of community members. We would say, we recognize you fully as a Christian like us, not one bit less than we are. You affirm the Apostle's Creed. You follow those of the Ten commandments continued by the New Testament as manifestations of love of God and neighbor. You are not Wesleyan, but you are fully Christian.
4. The particulars of the Wesleyan Church (insert your denomination) are what the Bible requires.
Give it up. This is naivete to the height. It is appropriate for us to have a unique identity, but let's not pretend for one minute that we are the little group that just happens to have all the right interpretations, beliefs, and practices. We think we have it right on a vast many issues where we think other groups have it wrong. But we are bound to have some blind spots somewhere.
And for now we are some of the Nazirites of the body of Christ--we don't drink. Let's not pretend that this question is as simple as "what the Bible says." The Bible bids us not to be drunkards and that's about it. It is perfectly legitimate for us not to do a whole host of things--or to do a host of things--that the Bible does not require us to do or not do.
So it is perfectly legitimate for us to have covenant membership, especially when we move beyond the local congregation to the leadership of the church both local and global. In fact, if we do not have such distinctions on these levels, we will melt away into non-existence or, like non-denominational churches, go with the mindless flow of our local attendees, all under the false pretense of just reading the Bible and doing what it says. Yeah right.
5. It is wrong for there to be denominations.
In many respects I have already addressed this myth throughout above. There were distinct idea and practice groups in the early church. The Jerusalem church had a different theology and practice than Paul's churches. Apollos probably gave different advice on certain issues than Paul did. John of Revelation would not have taken Paul's tact on meat offered to idols.
The late middle ages are a testimony to what happens when everyone must believe the same. The 20000 denominations are a testimony to the absurdity of thinking we just get our beliefs from the Bible alone.
I'm calling for a more sophisticated ecclesiology, one that I think could mesh with the Wesleyan Church's division between community and covenant members. I think we've kind of stumbled on it. But I think we could actually "write the book" on 21st century ecclesiology here!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
General Conference 4: Major Decision on Membership
Aside from electing JoAnn Lyon as General Superintendent, the major decision of the conference was in favor of modifying some rules on church membership. My denomination has wrestled with this issue for years and, although I believe once again it has made the right decision, this is an issue that begs for further clarity and refinement.
The issue, in my opinion, is the recognition that there is a difference between the particulars of Wesleyan identity and the particulars of Christian identity. On the one hand, it is perfectly appropriate for the Wesleyan Church to have a distinct identity with distinct beliefs and distinct practices. We believe in victory over sin. We don't drink alcohol. The universal church needs parts of the body to emphasize various pieces of the Christian puzzle more than others.
But there are also Christians who attend our churches who have, for example, a different definition of sin and a different understanding of Christian theology. And there are people who are every bit as holy as any Wesleyan who has ever lived, who drink alcohol in moderation and do so in full obedience to every word of the Bible on the subject.
The search for wisdom these last years is to recognize fully that we must affirm without reservation the equal spirituality of those in the last paragraph to us without negating the importance of our distinct voice among Chrisendom.
The resolution was to require "covenant" membership of ministers, board members, trustees, delegates, nominating committee members, lay leaders, Sunday School superintendents, etc. At the same time, community members can vote on all issues presented to the local church except votes on the reception of covenant members.
A key amendment--a compromise that helped the resolution pass--was the removal of a requirement for all local churches to recognize community membership and community members from other churches. It remains the prerogative of local churches to decide whether they will use the category or not.
Drinking was clearly the focal issue here. Can we have people in our congregations who drink voting on all church matters except the reception of covenant members? For churches with community membership, the answer is now yes.
P.S. Student membership is back (formerly called junior membership in days of yore)!
The issue, in my opinion, is the recognition that there is a difference between the particulars of Wesleyan identity and the particulars of Christian identity. On the one hand, it is perfectly appropriate for the Wesleyan Church to have a distinct identity with distinct beliefs and distinct practices. We believe in victory over sin. We don't drink alcohol. The universal church needs parts of the body to emphasize various pieces of the Christian puzzle more than others.
But there are also Christians who attend our churches who have, for example, a different definition of sin and a different understanding of Christian theology. And there are people who are every bit as holy as any Wesleyan who has ever lived, who drink alcohol in moderation and do so in full obedience to every word of the Bible on the subject.
The search for wisdom these last years is to recognize fully that we must affirm without reservation the equal spirituality of those in the last paragraph to us without negating the importance of our distinct voice among Chrisendom.
The resolution was to require "covenant" membership of ministers, board members, trustees, delegates, nominating committee members, lay leaders, Sunday School superintendents, etc. At the same time, community members can vote on all issues presented to the local church except votes on the reception of covenant members.
A key amendment--a compromise that helped the resolution pass--was the removal of a requirement for all local churches to recognize community membership and community members from other churches. It remains the prerogative of local churches to decide whether they will use the category or not.
Drinking was clearly the focal issue here. Can we have people in our congregations who drink voting on all church matters except the reception of covenant members? For churches with community membership, the answer is now yes.
P.S. Student membership is back (formerly called junior membership in days of yore)!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Conversation 2: Wesleyans and Membership
Tom: So what were you saying about the Discipline Monday, Jane? Something about things being in strange places?
Jane: Yeah, to start off with, it's very difficult to change things like the Articles of Religion or covenant membership requirements because things not only have to pass the General Conference by two-thirds majority, they have to pass a two-thirds majority of all the districts in the North American General Conference, as well as other full General Conferences like the Caribbean and Philippine conferences. They have a status equal to the North American General Conference when it comes to the World Wesleyan Fellowship.
Matt: I think that's a good thing. A rogue general conference can't do away with the virgin birth, because it would never pass muster with the church at large.
Mary: And I think that makes the drinking issue somewhat of a moot point. Things like this don't change unless the church does its homework, gets buy in, gets widespread support. When the church has made significant changes in the past on issues like divorce and tongues, it has commissioned four year studies.
By the way, you still haven't convinced me that drunkenness in the Bible just refers to alcoholism.
Tom: So what were you thinking, Jane?
Jane: Well, because of the way it's set up, it's fairly easy to add things to the membership requirements that people feel strongly about. Just a few years ago, we added the idea that marriage was between one man and one woman, for example.
Matt: But it's really hard to take things out.
Jane: Right. So we still have as a membership requirement that Wesleyans will have family devotions every day. But we don't have any statement on abortion in the membership requirements.
Matt: Isn't there a statement on abortion in the "special directions," the place where we used to have stuff on social issues like dancing and going to movies?
Jane: Yes, but not in the membership commitments.
Mary: Are you telling me a person could be a member of our church and have an abortion?
Jane: They could be a member and perform abortions.
Jack: But they can't drink, and they have to have devotions with their families every night.
Matt: It's what happens as we change as a denomination over time. Some things become more important issues; other things recede into the background.
Sally: If I and my friends were to write the membership stuff today, we'd probably put in some things about taking care of the environment and taking care of the poor.
Jack: Try to get my generation to pass that! We don't see things like that as sin.
Sally: We will (smiling)... when we're in charge in a few years.
Jack: I tell you, we shouldn't have anything as membership requirements that isn't basic Christianity, not one thing more than the Bible itself requires of all people.
Matt: But what about things like polygamy and slavery? The Bible never mentions abortion. I don't think Paul or Jesus would have approved of it, but they never say anything about it. No verse in the Bible says anything about it.
Sally: What about the Trinity? I guess Christians worked on that question for almost 400 years after the New Testament was done.
Tom: Actually, I think the issue of polygamy raises a good question, Matt. What do we do when we bring the gospel to a culture where polygamy is accepted? Do we require new converts to divorce two of their wives?
Mary: We should at least have them pick one and stop having sex with the others.
Sally: Tough luck for two of them. What have we actually done in those situations? Keep them out of leadership but keep their families intact as they are?
Tom: I'm not sure any of us in this room are in a position to really understand what we're talking about, let alone that we should be deciding all these sorts of things for them.
Jack: Sure we can.
Matt: Spoken like a true Boomer (smiling).
Tom: But when it comes to things like drinking. If our stance on drinking is weird to some people in our larger churches now and to the younger generation, you can imagine how odd it is to Wesleyans in Australia.
Jane: It seems to me that several different things are going on. On the one hand, half the Wesleyan Church today is like the Wesleyan Church of the past, a group culture where membership requirements mirrored a fairly monolithic "culture." We wouldn't allow men to go around without their shirts because that's what most of us looked like.
Sally: And my generation doesn't get any of that. We think that we need to blend in, make friends with others. We don't think Christians should look different than other people, as if we're better than they are.
Mary: Then how will anyone know you're even a Christian?
Matt: This is way too complex to hammer out in a few minutes.
Jane: I think it's too complex to hammer out in a General Conference. Someone needs to do some serious study of the assumptions in our current membership structure--things those who designed the Discipline may not have even realized they were assuming.
Jack: What makes a person a member? Is it attending and being a Christian?
Mary: Or is it our historical understanding of what the Bible teaches, including special understandings we have on things like drinking?
Matt: Or is it less absolute and more a matter of what we as a group affirm, without claiming that other groups are less Christian because they do things differently?
Tom: And let's not forget that we are no longer a monolithic group. I personally think membership requirements should be more "local" than universal.
Matt: ... because the universals of the gospel play out differently in different contexts.
Sally: I personally think they should revisit membership requirements every other decade or so, because things change so quickly.
Jane: Maybe they could write that into the Discipline.
Matt: We'll see soon enough whether anything changes.
Jane: Oh things will continue to change... it always has... whether officially or unofficially.
Jane: Yeah, to start off with, it's very difficult to change things like the Articles of Religion or covenant membership requirements because things not only have to pass the General Conference by two-thirds majority, they have to pass a two-thirds majority of all the districts in the North American General Conference, as well as other full General Conferences like the Caribbean and Philippine conferences. They have a status equal to the North American General Conference when it comes to the World Wesleyan Fellowship.
Matt: I think that's a good thing. A rogue general conference can't do away with the virgin birth, because it would never pass muster with the church at large.
Mary: And I think that makes the drinking issue somewhat of a moot point. Things like this don't change unless the church does its homework, gets buy in, gets widespread support. When the church has made significant changes in the past on issues like divorce and tongues, it has commissioned four year studies.
By the way, you still haven't convinced me that drunkenness in the Bible just refers to alcoholism.
Tom: So what were you thinking, Jane?
Jane: Well, because of the way it's set up, it's fairly easy to add things to the membership requirements that people feel strongly about. Just a few years ago, we added the idea that marriage was between one man and one woman, for example.
Matt: But it's really hard to take things out.
Jane: Right. So we still have as a membership requirement that Wesleyans will have family devotions every day. But we don't have any statement on abortion in the membership requirements.
Matt: Isn't there a statement on abortion in the "special directions," the place where we used to have stuff on social issues like dancing and going to movies?
Jane: Yes, but not in the membership commitments.
Mary: Are you telling me a person could be a member of our church and have an abortion?
Jane: They could be a member and perform abortions.
Jack: But they can't drink, and they have to have devotions with their families every night.
Matt: It's what happens as we change as a denomination over time. Some things become more important issues; other things recede into the background.
Sally: If I and my friends were to write the membership stuff today, we'd probably put in some things about taking care of the environment and taking care of the poor.
Jack: Try to get my generation to pass that! We don't see things like that as sin.
Sally: We will (smiling)... when we're in charge in a few years.
Jack: I tell you, we shouldn't have anything as membership requirements that isn't basic Christianity, not one thing more than the Bible itself requires of all people.
Matt: But what about things like polygamy and slavery? The Bible never mentions abortion. I don't think Paul or Jesus would have approved of it, but they never say anything about it. No verse in the Bible says anything about it.
Sally: What about the Trinity? I guess Christians worked on that question for almost 400 years after the New Testament was done.
Tom: Actually, I think the issue of polygamy raises a good question, Matt. What do we do when we bring the gospel to a culture where polygamy is accepted? Do we require new converts to divorce two of their wives?
Mary: We should at least have them pick one and stop having sex with the others.
Sally: Tough luck for two of them. What have we actually done in those situations? Keep them out of leadership but keep their families intact as they are?
Tom: I'm not sure any of us in this room are in a position to really understand what we're talking about, let alone that we should be deciding all these sorts of things for them.
Jack: Sure we can.
Matt: Spoken like a true Boomer (smiling).
Tom: But when it comes to things like drinking. If our stance on drinking is weird to some people in our larger churches now and to the younger generation, you can imagine how odd it is to Wesleyans in Australia.
Jane: It seems to me that several different things are going on. On the one hand, half the Wesleyan Church today is like the Wesleyan Church of the past, a group culture where membership requirements mirrored a fairly monolithic "culture." We wouldn't allow men to go around without their shirts because that's what most of us looked like.
Sally: And my generation doesn't get any of that. We think that we need to blend in, make friends with others. We don't think Christians should look different than other people, as if we're better than they are.
Mary: Then how will anyone know you're even a Christian?
Matt: This is way too complex to hammer out in a few minutes.
Jane: I think it's too complex to hammer out in a General Conference. Someone needs to do some serious study of the assumptions in our current membership structure--things those who designed the Discipline may not have even realized they were assuming.
Jack: What makes a person a member? Is it attending and being a Christian?
Mary: Or is it our historical understanding of what the Bible teaches, including special understandings we have on things like drinking?
Matt: Or is it less absolute and more a matter of what we as a group affirm, without claiming that other groups are less Christian because they do things differently?
Tom: And let's not forget that we are no longer a monolithic group. I personally think membership requirements should be more "local" than universal.
Matt: ... because the universals of the gospel play out differently in different contexts.
Sally: I personally think they should revisit membership requirements every other decade or so, because things change so quickly.
Jane: Maybe they could write that into the Discipline.
Matt: We'll see soon enough whether anything changes.
Jane: Oh things will continue to change... it always has... whether officially or unofficially.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Wesleyan Church Membership
Next year is the quadrennial General Conference of The Wesleyan Church. I'm not sure what all the resolutions will be that the various districts will send. This summer will be when they will pass on them. A General Conference committee will then decide which ones to recommend to the General Conference, although all will be mentioned and an opportunity for anyone to resurrection a non-recommended resolution will be given.
One issue that I'm sure will inspire resolutions from multiple districts (I'm predicting from California and Michigan at least) is church membership. The pressures of our day have already led us to modify our approach to church membership some. When Christian groups were fairly isolated from each other and had a strong sense of group identity, it was natural that they would all have very particular requirements for church membership. In a church of 40 where visitors are unusual, becoming a member of the church can involve requirements that are highly specific to that group.
But there are a lot of larger Wesleyan churches now. I think I heard someone say recently that about half of our denomination attends smaller churches and the other half attend churches of over 200 or 300. [correct data welcomed!] In churches like these there is a natural flow of people from broader Christianity. These individuals are often "Christian book store-ish" in doctrine, vaguely Baptist, and they usually come from traditions where you're a member if you attend.
Here comes the conflict. "Entire sanctification, what?" "I don't get drunk but I do have an occasional glass of wine." "What do you mean I can't vote on the pastor--I've been here every Sunday for the last year."
But the conflict is also cultural. The spirit of the times is moving strongly against centralized denominations. It's the age of the non-denominational church. On the one hand, we should fight against the incorrect Barna notion that you don't need a visible church to be where you should be with God. This is the trend to see the woods as as good a church as somewhere you can meet with other Christians. The early Christians wouldn't have comprehended this. After all, when Paul sent people away from the visible church, he was delivering them over to Satan. No longer does the ear despise the eye--the ear has left the body to do its own thing. This is a diseased understanding of the church we should resist.
On the other hand, current Christian culture correctly recognizes that there is only "one body." Almost no one would say that the Baptists aren't going to heaven or that you have to believe and act exactly like the Wesleyans to be saved. We've already come to believe that we are only a very small part of the body of Christ.
But if we acknowledge that we are only a very small part of the church universal, then how can we deny membership to other Christians? It is for this reason that the Wesleyan Church now has two levels of membership--community membership (those who attend) and covenant membership (those who embrace the particulars of the Wesleyan Church, can vote on the pastor and hold positions of leadership). The standards of community membership are much more "common Christianity" than the covenant standards.
But this set up still seems somewhat awkward, so various Wesleyan leaders continue to strive for some sort of system that
1. recognizes all those who are truly Christians as members, even if they don't believe or practice some of the particulars of the Wesleyan tradition
and
2. maintains a full committment to specific Wesleyan beliefs and practices, which are also entirely legitimate.
The diversity of the body of Christ in itself enriches the body. And if we allowed all the churches to melt together to some vague and blurry commonality, the result would be a gray, tasteless muck. And there are many aspects of the Wesleyan Church's beliefs that I will gladly argue are far more accurate to the Bible than certain Lutheran or Baptist ideas.
The question is whether both of these principles can be maintained at the same time. If we have to choose, I think it is more important to retain the most important parts of number 2 over number 1. There are other parts of the body of Christ preserving number 1. What will happen to the places where we are right if we abandon the fort to some broader doctrinal melting pot?
One proposal I've heard has one category of membership, but requires anyone who would participate in church leadership to commit to the more particular specifics of the Wesleyan tradition. The new element is the idea that such leaders would have to reaffirm their commitment to it every year. In a way, that's a higher standard than any members have to hold to now! This becomes not another level of membership, but a way to maintain our unique identity in the body of Christ.
This proposal might work, especially if we strengthen just a tad the power of the district to give final word on local church votes. They currently have that power anyway, I believe. But a restatement of it might be the missing element in this proposal. That way if a congregation became beligerent to the Wesleyan tradition, there would be clear lines of authority to prevent a coup.
What do you think?
One issue that I'm sure will inspire resolutions from multiple districts (I'm predicting from California and Michigan at least) is church membership. The pressures of our day have already led us to modify our approach to church membership some. When Christian groups were fairly isolated from each other and had a strong sense of group identity, it was natural that they would all have very particular requirements for church membership. In a church of 40 where visitors are unusual, becoming a member of the church can involve requirements that are highly specific to that group.
But there are a lot of larger Wesleyan churches now. I think I heard someone say recently that about half of our denomination attends smaller churches and the other half attend churches of over 200 or 300. [correct data welcomed!] In churches like these there is a natural flow of people from broader Christianity. These individuals are often "Christian book store-ish" in doctrine, vaguely Baptist, and they usually come from traditions where you're a member if you attend.
Here comes the conflict. "Entire sanctification, what?" "I don't get drunk but I do have an occasional glass of wine." "What do you mean I can't vote on the pastor--I've been here every Sunday for the last year."
But the conflict is also cultural. The spirit of the times is moving strongly against centralized denominations. It's the age of the non-denominational church. On the one hand, we should fight against the incorrect Barna notion that you don't need a visible church to be where you should be with God. This is the trend to see the woods as as good a church as somewhere you can meet with other Christians. The early Christians wouldn't have comprehended this. After all, when Paul sent people away from the visible church, he was delivering them over to Satan. No longer does the ear despise the eye--the ear has left the body to do its own thing. This is a diseased understanding of the church we should resist.
On the other hand, current Christian culture correctly recognizes that there is only "one body." Almost no one would say that the Baptists aren't going to heaven or that you have to believe and act exactly like the Wesleyans to be saved. We've already come to believe that we are only a very small part of the body of Christ.
But if we acknowledge that we are only a very small part of the church universal, then how can we deny membership to other Christians? It is for this reason that the Wesleyan Church now has two levels of membership--community membership (those who attend) and covenant membership (those who embrace the particulars of the Wesleyan Church, can vote on the pastor and hold positions of leadership). The standards of community membership are much more "common Christianity" than the covenant standards.
But this set up still seems somewhat awkward, so various Wesleyan leaders continue to strive for some sort of system that
1. recognizes all those who are truly Christians as members, even if they don't believe or practice some of the particulars of the Wesleyan tradition
and
2. maintains a full committment to specific Wesleyan beliefs and practices, which are also entirely legitimate.
The diversity of the body of Christ in itself enriches the body. And if we allowed all the churches to melt together to some vague and blurry commonality, the result would be a gray, tasteless muck. And there are many aspects of the Wesleyan Church's beliefs that I will gladly argue are far more accurate to the Bible than certain Lutheran or Baptist ideas.
The question is whether both of these principles can be maintained at the same time. If we have to choose, I think it is more important to retain the most important parts of number 2 over number 1. There are other parts of the body of Christ preserving number 1. What will happen to the places where we are right if we abandon the fort to some broader doctrinal melting pot?
One proposal I've heard has one category of membership, but requires anyone who would participate in church leadership to commit to the more particular specifics of the Wesleyan tradition. The new element is the idea that such leaders would have to reaffirm their commitment to it every year. In a way, that's a higher standard than any members have to hold to now! This becomes not another level of membership, but a way to maintain our unique identity in the body of Christ.
This proposal might work, especially if we strengthen just a tad the power of the district to give final word on local church votes. They currently have that power anyway, I believe. But a restatement of it might be the missing element in this proposal. That way if a congregation became beligerent to the Wesleyan tradition, there would be clear lines of authority to prevent a coup.
What do you think?
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