Poking the Pyro hornets nest

There are some corners of the blogosphere where making a certain kind of comment, even if it is a legitimate point or question, is going to invoke a Pavlovian response from some people. I apparently questioned a shibboleth in suggesting that the Gospel, not the local church, is the hope of the world as part of a comment re: a book review by Tim Challies.

So here is the sequence of events. I posted this comment:

Looks like an interesting book. I am a lot more interested in the solutions someone proposes instead of the problems they point out. Everyone can look around and see there is something wrong. The question becomes what do we do about it? Often the answer is more of the same, only better. Rarer is the answer that asks the really hard questions that go beyond superficial stereotypes and pat responses.

(I would quibble with “local church really is the hope of the world”. The Gospel is the hope of the world and the local gathering of the church is the result of the Gospel.)

To which Frank Turk of Pyromaniacs fame took umbrage and posted this comment:

I don’t follow Tim around the way I probably should, given the scope of his influence. However, anyone who wants to quibble about the value of the local church in God’s eyes and therefore how we should seek to see it is simply a theological malcontent. Going primitive and saying “well, it’s really the Gospel which is the hope of the world” ignores that the Gospel has to live someplace. It’s not merely the philosophical daisy-freshness which we might accidentally sniff — or even the scent of death for that matter.

The Gospel does have a necessary consequence in this world which is both already the Kingdom and also not yet — and that is the local church which lives together, worships together, and raises up its members (of diverse gifts) to maturity. That is the fount of the Gospel to the world; that ios the place — the only place — from which is can be truly and seriously be declared.

I didn’t find being called a “theological malcontent” troubling but I found that last sentence objectionable. Since I am unable to let stuff like that go I replied:

Frank,

A theological malcontent? Well, I have been called worse. We could use a few more theological malcontents and a few less rigid traditionalists in the church to shake the Body of Christ out of its apathy.

“The Gospel does have a necessary consequence in this world which is both already the Kingdom and also not yet — and that is the local church which lives together, worships together, and raises up its members (of diverse gifts) to maturity. That is the fount of the Gospel to the world; that ios the place — the only place — from which is can be truly and seriously be declared.”

That is ridiculous on its face. Did Phillip not “truly and seriously” declare the Gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch? Did Peter not “truly and seriously” proclaim the Gospel on the day of Pentecost because he did so outside of the local church? What about Peter in the house of Cornelius or Paul preaching the Gospel to Lydia by the riverside? Were those not “truly and seriously” Gospel declarations because they didn’t take place in the context of the “local church”? You seem to suffer from the same recency bias that is so prevalent that sees the tradition bound definition of the local church to be the way it has always been and should be.

There appears to be a reversal of the order here. The local church is a result of the Gospel, not the fount of the Gospel. The rigid traditionalist sees the local church as the answer to almost any ill in the church and in many ways has made an idol of the local church, making of it simultaneously both more and less than was intended. Chanting “the local church” over and over like a mantra is not going to help unless we are willing to ask the hard questions and be willing to accept the unsettling answers. It is not a denigration of the local church to place it under the Gospel, it is simply the recognition of the proper and Biblical role of the gathering of the Body of Christ. The Gospel will spread with or without the local church but invariably the spread of the Gospel will result in a local gathering of the church. The local church is not the answer to all of our problems, the Gospel is and if you can’t understand that, might I suggest you don’t quite understand the purpose of the local gathering of the church in the first place.

Interesting stuff. I know in posting that I am inviting a firestorm, but I am weary of people repeating the same canards over and over as if repetition equals truth. Let’s see some interaction with the Scriptures before we fall back on tradition yet again.