Who defines the church?

Pop Quiz!

Where did the following definition of a legitimate church come from?

Those criteria include that it has a recognized creed and form of worship; a formal code of doctrine and discipline; a membership not associated with any other church or denomination; ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed studies; and holds regular religious services.

Think about it for a second.

Our Lord? Nope.

The apostle Paul? Nope.

Peter? Nope.

That definition comes from the Internal Revenue Service. I saw this linked from a post by Kevin DeYoung yesterday and it apparently shows that the IRS has a better understanding of the church than many Christians.

Are you kidding me? Creed, doctrine, discipline, membership, ordained ministers, regular religious services–that’s the most impressive display to come from tax collectors since wee Zacchaeus climbed in that sycamore tree.

While we don’t want to leave the defining of “church” to the IRS, and it appears there is wiggle room with their 14 criteria, it is nevertheless instructive to see that the world sometimes understands what a church is supposed to be better than the Christians do.

Zing! Or perhaps not. I will certainly affirm that the IRS and the Federal government as a whole has the right to determine the tax status of any organization and if it defines a “church” as it does above, so be it. I am not really in favor of local church organizations seeking tax favored status from Caesar and this is partly why but that is a discussion for another day. Let’s look at the definition of a “church” from the IRS that Kevin seems so enamored with.

a recognized creed: If by recognized creed you mean Jesus is Lord, then amen! If recognized creed means adherence to one of the historical creeds of the Protestant reformation or some other formally codified listing of doctrinal stances, those are absent from Scripture. I think any gathering will naturally come to this point but it is hardly the defining characteristic of a valid expression of the church.

form of worship: I don’t think it is self-apparent that early Christian gatherings were “worship services” in any sense that we use that phrase today and certainly there was no order of worship or liturgy anywhere in Scripture. Not only is a rigid order of worship absent, it in fact it seems evident that in places like 1 Corinthians 14 that the expectation was that the meetings would be open and participatory. Paul’s caution in 1 Corinthians 14 is not a call to adopt a liturgy but rather a caution to keep things orderly while the brothers are praying or bringing a lesson or a revelation. It is more “take turns” than it is “follow this bulletin”

a formal code of doctrine and discipline: A formal code of doctrine? See above about the creeds. Somehow the early church functioned without the Three Forms of Unity or systematic theology texts. As far as discipline, discipline was something that involved disfellowship for an unrepentant sinner (1 Cor 5) and when a brother had to be confronted, it was the offending party who went to him and only at the end of the process did he bring the elders with him or go before the church with the problem. It was not an "pastor as enforcer" model.

a membership not associated with any other church: Well, since “church membership” in the way we are speaking of here, i.e. a formal membership declaration that I am part of this church and divided therefore from all other local bodies of believers, is found nowhere in Scripture (something even vocal advocates of church membership will admit), I don’t see how the presence or absence of that has any bearing on the legitimacy of a local church.

ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed studies: This is perhaps the least supportable of the criteria. The presence of a professional religious leader, someone who has competed the prescribed studies (i.e. seminary) is so foreign to Scripture that it boggles the mind that anyone thinks this is a valid criteria of a legitimate church. No doubt the apostles were literate men, at least it appears that way, and some of them (namely Paul who studied under Gamaliel, Acts 22:3) had formal education but none of them had anything like a seminary education with classes on how to exegete passages and prepare and deliver a sermon.

holds regular religious services: If by “regular religious services” you mean that the church lived their lives together, daily sharing meals (Acts 2:46) I guess I am OK with that but that of course is not what the IRS means. Rather this means regularly scheduled gatherings where people come to observe a religious ceremony. Again, not in Scripture. The church as we see it described in the earliest days functioned as a family and a community, not a club for like-minded people to get together once a week.

In total, what the IRS is describing is a cultural feature of Western civilization that is valid for all sorts of organizations. In other words, this definition would hold true for a traditional Christian “church” whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant. It would hold true for a mormon church or Seventh Day Adventist church. In fact this definition of "church" is so vague and so antithetical to Scripture that we should be concered where our defintion matches it. If we can describe our church the same way a Muslim can, isn't that cause for concern rather than celebration?

Kevin DeYoung finds in instructive that the IRS understands the church better than Christians. I find it instructive that Kevin finds so much affinity for a secular definition of “church” that is unsupportable in Scripture.