Members only?

Moving forward with Dr. Clark’s case…

Where the argument from Dr. Clark strays into really dangerous territory is the application of his beliefs on the requirement and validity of church membership in the right sort of church.

Basically this comes down to submission, not to Christ, but to those who have gone thought some sort of ordaining process which varies from church to church (although no doubt Dr. Clark would assure you that his denomination is the one that does it right and all others are in error) who administer and oversee the membership process. According to Dr. Clark, that apparently only occurs in rightly structured institutional churches. Never mind that the modern ordination process does not appear anywhere in the Bible. We are given qualities to seek in men who are called to be elders, but we see nothing about seminary education, ordination interviews, etc.

What are the marks of a legitimate church? Correct teaching and preaching the Word of God. Observing the sacraments properly. Fellowship among the saints. Prayer. Praising God through hymn signing perhaps? Church discipline.

Do any of these require an institutionalized organization? Does any of this require a seminary degree? Does any of this require that the individual has gone through an ordination ceremony?

Dr. Clark seems to think so…

“If Jesus did institute the Holy Sacraments, however, if he really said, “This is my body…take, eat….do this in remembrance of me” and if he commanded the visible, institutional church to administer baptism to converts and to their children (Acts 2:39), then these are not mere options or second blessings but essential to the life of the Christian and to the life of the Christian Church.”

When it comes to theology, Dr. Clark has in basketball parlance “mad hops” because he makes pretty impressive leaps of logic. Acts 2:39 commands THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH to BAPTIZE INFANTS? He just slips in stuff like that, stuff that is completely unwarranted by the text assuming perhaps that people will not check into it.

Before I fly off the handle, what does Acts 2:39 say?

For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." (Act 2:39)

So where do we get from that a) an institutional church or b) infant baptism? The people Peter is preaching to are not an orderly assembled Reformed/Presbyterian congregation. They are the people Peter preached to on the day on Pentecost. Indeed in verse 38, which paedobaptist conveniently leave out normally, we read…

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Act 2:38)

Repent and be baptized. Not join a local Reformed congregation and baptize your infants and catechize them (although I am in favor of catechizing children). Repent and be baptized. Peter commanded them to do this after they “were cut to the heart” (Acts 2:37) and convicted of their sins, a necessary condition that is impossible for an infant or even a very small child. The promise is not just a present promise, but a promise for future generations as well but it is not guaranteed to infants just because their parents are Christians.

So what we have from Dr. Clark is simple prooftexting, plucking a verse out of its natural context and applying his own theological bent to it. When you start to look before and after verse 39, you see a far different picture than the one that Dr. Clark is portraying to defend his church traditions. But that doesn’t dissuade Dr. Clark in his quest to prove that not only do you have to be a member, on the membership rolls of a church, it must be membership in the right kind of church, i.e. one that baptizes babies.

Likewise the Lord’s Supper. Where is the Scriptural evidence that the Lord’s Supper can only be rightly administered in an institutional church? If Christians gather in my home and we break bread and drink wine in observance of the Supper and in declaration of the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26), is that somehow less legitimate if it doesn’t happen in an institutional church, by a guy who has gone through an ordination ceremony, with a table and white tablecloth? All Paul says is that we should observe the Lord’s Supper when we come together as the church, and from that we have created a system where that means in an institutional church, a leap of logic unsupported by the text.

The really disturbing part of this whole argument pops up in this quote….

By analogy, the church invisible is composed of those who are, have been, or shall be, members of a visible church. if you’ve never sworn membership vows and confessed a common faith with a congregation, you are not a member of the visible church and if you’re not a member of the church visible, by definition, you are not a member of the church invisible. The former is a prerequisite for the latter.

Read that again slowly. If you are not a member of a congregation, by necessity you are also not a member of the invisible church. You will see in my final post that Dr. Clark defined the invisible church as: When we speak of the church invisible, we’re speaking of that great congregation of the elect considered across time and space. So in essence, failing to be in a local congregation is tantamount to being outside of the Body of Christ, His elect.

Now I agree that we are commended as believers to not forsake gathering together, to be in fellowship and communion with other believers for teaching, fellowship, prayer and breaking bread. But the assumption that we have to be formal members (a concept absent in Scripture) in an institutional church (also absent) is taking enormous liberties with the text.

The radical implications of this view are the topic for my final post on Dr. R. Scott Clark’s “On Churchless Evangelicals”