A Call for a New Reformation in the church: Membership, schmembership

Time for a dogmatic overstatement! The very institution of local church membership has become essentially meaningless. My reason for saying this is multifold but it starts out of the gate with my contention that formal church membership in a local church has no Scriptural support. I am not convinced at all by references to 1 Corinthians 12: 12-31 where it seems to me that Paul is making an analogy between the different members of our (physical) body and comparing it to the different members of the Body of Christ. I don’t see how we can make the leap from the use of the word “member” and apply it to a tradition of membership rolls in local organizations.

The key for me is verse 13: For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Cor 12: 13. Then Paul goes on to speak of members of that body. We certainly are all members, but not because we have our names on the rolls of a local church but because we are baptized into that one Body, the Body of Christ. Nor are references to lists of widows getting a distribution at all convincing and to suggest that the one confirms the other (lists of widows in need and formal membership lists) is ridiculous. Really, what we see is just the opposite. Christians A, B and C in membership at First Baptist and Christians X,Y and Z in membership at First Presbyterian are not members of the same local bodies but they are all members of “The Church”. In fact they share something with one another that many people in “membership” in their respective bodies do not share, that is being members of the Body of Christ. I am far more concerned with my standing in the Body of Christ than I am with my, or anyone else’s for that matter, standing in a local church organization.

But even beyond that (as if we can or should get beyond the lack of Biblical support), the practical working out of the system of membership has failed to achieve any useful purpose. I make that claim for two main reasons:

First, in any given church a substantial portion of the membership is unregenerate. That is a bold claim. I stand by it wholeheartedly. I base that in part on my experience, which granted is limited to less than a decade as a Christian, and in part on the methods by which we enable church membership. In paedobaptist churches, infants are brought into the covenant community by virtue of having parents who are believers. Little wonder that many of those darling infants being sprinkled turn out to be unbelievers and go to judgment lost in their sins. It is not because the church failed to catechize them or take them to Sunday evening services. It is because they are not elect and there was never any way that they were going to come to faith. In spite of that reality, thousands of churches keep sprinkling babies in a misguided attempt to maintain a sentimental church tradition. Credobaptist churches are often little better, baptizing young children and adults alike after they “make a decision” and pray a prayer. In a well-meaning but misguided quest to carry out the Great Commission, they are inviting people into a local church body as members and giving them a false assurance of salvation. Given the two headed monster of infant baptism and “decisional evangelism”, it is little wonder that the membership rolls of local churches are full of people who never go to a particular church (I would be willing to bet that our names are listed as members in at least two Baptist churches we haven’t attended for some time) or worse people who have never exhibited Biblical faith and repentance but think that they have based on baptism as an infant or praying a “sinners prayer”.

Second, the most common and probably most Scriptural objection is that without membership how can we have Biblical church discipline? That objection makes two major assumptions. First it assumes that if you are not formal members in a local church, then you cannot be disciplined. Second it assumes that in churches with formal membership lists, discipline of any sort actually happens. I think that both of these assumptions are highly suspect and faulty. I would argue that any Christian can be disciplined by whatever assembly they are part of. If they are a Christian they will accept loving discipline from the church. I am far more apt to listen to rebuke from men who I respect as mature brothers in Christ because they are my brothers than I am from someone who is in a position of contrived ecclesiastical authority but shows no sign of humble servant leadership. For discipline to be Biblical it is not required that a man with a seminary degree and a formal ordination be leading it. If Joe or Josh, men who are pastors but not “my pastor” rebuke me, or men like Rick or John who are not “pastors” at all rebuke me I would listen to their words. I may still not heed their words, but I at least will consider them!

On the flip side, in those churches that do have formal church membership rarely enforce church discipline. In some it is just not practical. How can someone in a church with 500 members effectively discipline members? Even in smaller churches, there is often little or no church discipline. There are a number of reasons for this but I think ultimately it comes down to this: if you are going to welcome into membership unregenerate people either by baptizing them as infants or leading them to make an emotional “decision”, then you are going to have little basis upon which to discipline them. Are you going to discipline a pagan for acting like a pagan?

Really, what does being a member of a local church do for you? There is no Scriptural mandate for it. You get to vote on the budget. You get to teach Sunday school (even though many “members” are unregenerate and not apt to teach, and some “non-members” or “regular attenders” are regenerate and are apt to teach. But I digress. ). You can submit to church discipline, which you should do regardless of your membership status. But local church membership seems to me to be contrived and worthless. There is nothing that supporters of church membership cite that cannot be accomplished without church membership.

The idea of formalized church membership with lists goes hand in hand with infant baptism as holdovers from Roman Catholicism. I may do more on this linkage later as time permits, but there is a great deal of background information that points to infant baptism and membership lists as being mechanisms invented by Rome as a means of control. In the good old days, if you were not a member of the Roman Catholic church you were outside of the body of Christ. In other words, membership in good standing in the visible local body was a prerequisite for being a member of the universal church, the Body of Christ (hmmm, now where have I heard that argument before). That is a strongly worded and vaguely supported statement, so I will have to beg your forbearance until I can dig my church history books out to gather support for it.

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”

Membership matters

I wrestled a little before I started to write this response to Dr. R. Scott Clark. I consider Dr. Clark a brother in Christ despite our disagreements over doctrinal issues. After thinking it through, I decided that his three posts on “churchless evangelicals” demanded an answer. Dr. Clark is one of the loudest and most widely read advocates of what I consider to be an extreme and overly narrow definition of “Reformed” as well as the church. Dr. Clark’s arguments carry some weight in Christian circles and in my humble opinion as one without any letters designating academic achievement after my name, I find much of what Dr. Clark has written to be incorrect and quite frankly slandering the witness of millions of Christians who don’t subscribe to his theories on ecclesiology. I also recognize that in the big picture, I am kind of a small fish and not many people care what I think about what someone with academic credentials and published books and papers has written. But I felt that a response was still warranted. Trying to engage via comments on his blog was not feasible. It is hard to carry on a conversation in a blog comment format, I hate it when people go to blogs and post enormous comments, the comment section is for comments not for comprehensive responses, and quite frankly Dr. Clark has some followers who tend to respond to comments with vitriol that is unhelpful and often they obscure the argument with lengthy diatribes. So here is the next part of my response to Dr. R. Scott Clark and his post “On Churchless Evangelicals”.

In my first post, The fruits of hyper-confessionalism, I dealt with Dr. Clark’s assertion that churches that don’t baptize infants are not valid churches. Now that I have dealt with that assertion, I want to move on to the rest of Dr. Clark’s arguments in “On churchless evangelicals”. The next area to examine has to do with the requirements for and the necessity of church membership that Dr. Clark lays out.

The glaring issue in Dr. Clark’s argument is a matter of definition: Who or what is the church?

Is the church an organization? Is church “membership”, formalized in lists, a Biblical precedent and command? Was it intended that we have a hierarchy in the church, with professionalized clergy, membership lists and all of the accompanying issues that go along with those features? Is that what we see in the New Testament?

The problem boils down to this. Dr. Clark is linking a visible expression of the church with the institutionalized Christianity of 2009, or at least the nascent institutional Christianity of the 16th and 17th century when the Reformed confessions were written. In other words, a highly liturgical and organized church that has requirements for “membership” and follows the Reformed confessions is the purest form of the visible church we see. But is that what we see in the Word? The Bible speaks of the church in several ways, both in terms of a local, visible gathering of believers (and there is a big difference between that and the formalized, institutionalized flavor of church we see today) as well as the more broad, general use of the term which indicates the Bride of Christ, all of the elect in every place, at every time. But to Dr. Clark, these two aspects of the church are for all intents and purposed inseparable and to try to view them separately is foolishness.

“It’s easy to show the foolishness of speaking about the church invisible in the way that so many do, as if it’s possible to be an “invisible” Christian, as if it’s possible to be a part of the church catholic without being part of the church visible and militant.”

Let’s examine some of Dr. Clark’s arguments in favor of the preeminence of the visible expression of the church.

“The evidence is overwhelming that the apostolic and early post-apostolic church was highly organized. For example, there is positive evidence of record keeping (membership lists) in the NT church. The problem in the daily distribution of bread in Acts 6:1 assumes some sort of record keeping of eligible widows. In 1 Timothy 5.9-16 Paul speaks explicitly about a list of names of Christian widows who were eligible for financial assistance from the Church. He even lays out the qualifications to be on the list. If the Church kept such lists for financial aid, can we reasonably assume that these widows were not on a membership roll? Moreover we cannot help but notice that again Paul’s instructions regarding widows presupposes some sort of organized visible body of Christ who administered this aid to its members.”

Talk about an enormous leap. Being aware of local Christian widows in need, perhaps even writing their names down to ensure they are not forgotten, equates to church membership with a formal admission process, new member classes, etc.? Dr. Clark appeals to Scripture to support his claim, so let’s look in turn at the Scripture Dr. Clark cites. First Acts 6:1…

Acts 6:1
Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.

OK, so from this we are supposed to see formal church membership? We don’t see anything about lists, about membership, about new member classes, anything at all that indicates membership. Hmm, maybe the next Scripture he quoted will shed more light on the issue…

1 Timothy 5: 9-16
9 Let a widow be enrolled if she is not less than sixty years of age, having been the wife of one husband, 10 and having a reputation for good works: if she has brought up children, has shown hospitality, has washed the feet of the saints, has cared for the afflicted, and has devoted herself to every good work. 11 But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when their passions draw them away from Christ, they desire to marry 12 and so incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith. 13 Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not. 14 So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. 15 For some have already strayed after Satan. 16 If any believing woman has relatives who are widows, let her care for them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it may care for those who are truly widows.

Is it just me or do we still not see membership lists anywhere but in Dr. Clark’s parenthetical comment? What of those who are not widows? Where is the evidence that those who are not widows are on any lists? Dr. Clark asks the question: “If the Church kept such lists for financial aid, can we reasonably assume that these widows were not on a membership roll?” . Let me turn that around and ask a more realistic question: Just because we see a list of widows, in a unique situation because of their need for support, so that they are not forgotten in the daily distribution can we assume that anyone else is on a list when the Bible makes no mention of it? In fact, we see that we should NOT record younger widows, “enroll” them on the lists (v. 11). So were young widows not members of the church? Of course not. In an age without email and blackberrys or telephones, it makes sense for the church to write down a list of widows who receive daily food distributions to make sure no one got missed and perhaps to ensure that only those who have a legitimate need get fed. But to take that and make the leap that we are required to have a “membership” in a local body is extremist and inaccurate. When Dr. Clark breathlessly asserts that : “The evidence is overwhelming that the apostolic and early post-apostolic church was highly organized.” , I have to raise my hand and ask where the overwhelming evidence is? Is that the overwhelming evidence, lists of widows older than 60 who are eligible to receive aid=a mandate and requirement for Christians to be on the membership rolls of a local church?

Reading further into his argument…

“When Jesus instituted the keys of the kingdom (Matt 16) he gave them to officers (apostles) to whom he gave spiritual authority to bind and loose. When he instituted church discipline he authorized particular congregations to confront sin, and to take steps to correct it (Matt 18). It is not possible to “tell it to the church” if, in this instance, “church” means “the church considered in its invisible aspect. The background to the word “church” there is the OT term for the visible covenant assembly gathered in formal session.”

That sounds dangerously like mormonism, with authority and keys passed on through apostolic succession. I thought we had done away with a professional priesthood in the church. More…

“To whom were the gospels written? They were written to local congregations in particular places. To whom were the epistles written? They were written to particular congregations in particular places. How does one write an epistle directly to the church of all times and places? They are God’s inspired, infallible, inerrant Word, but that Word was given by the Spirit, through human authors, in a particular time and place. The Word speaks to the church of all times and places but it does so from a a particular time and place. The only way to hear that Word, in its original setting, was to be in a congregation.”

Even that is foolishness. Were the Gospels written to local congregations? Luke is addressed to Theophilus, an individual. I am not Theophilus, so does that mean Luke (and Acts) don't apply to me? Mark and Matthew are not written to any particular audience. John was written, according to John 20: 30-31, that we might believe. Does that make sense if it was written to the believers in a local church? I suppose there are some historical evidences or early church traditions that support that idea that I an unaware of , but looking at what the text says, I can't see that the Gospels were written specifically for a local church body.

It is true that the epistles were written to particular local bodies, often local bodies with particular issues that needed to be addressed like the Judaizer issue in the church in Galatia. Paul didn’t have a blog where he could jot down his teaching and get comments and questions from the church throughout the world. But the teaching, while mailed to a local body and addressing particular problems, has universal implication and application. As far as this question: “How does one write an epistle directly to the church of all times and places?”, well this is how you do that:

1 Corinthians 1: 1-3
1:1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul writes 1 Corinthians to the church in Corinth as the recipient of the letter but also to all Christians everywhere, “together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”. I assume that Dr. Clark is familiar with 1 Corinthians 1, so I can only assume that he either intentionally ignored that intro when he stated dogmatically that it is unthinkable that the epistles were written to the church everywhere for all time or he is so wedded to his church traditions that he cannot see what Paul plainly wrote here.

In my zeal to show where this sort of thinking is wrongheaded, it may be taken to mean that I see no place at all for a visible gathering of the Body. Is there a visible church? Or course there is. Is that where much of the teaching takes place, where the body gathers for prayer, for the breaking of bread and for fellowship? Of course, and praise God for that gathering! Does that fact, taken in light of the Scriptural evidence in places like Acts 2:42, lead one inexorably to assert that only in a highly structured, organized church with membership lists, paid clergy and adherence to a 17th century confession do we see a valid expression of a 1st century church? Hardly. I would argue the opposite, the more formalized, the more institutionalized, the more centralized and hierarchical the church has become now and throughout the ages, the more mischief we see and the less the church looks like the gathering of the Body and more like a civic organization with church trappings. That is where Dr. Clark and many other champions of institutional Christianity stumble, they cannot get past their own church traditions and because of that they assume that their model of the local church is the only valid church expression, and indeed is the properly assembled New Testament form despite any evidence to support it and plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Unfortunately, that bit of misapplication has even greater implications in Dr. Clark’s overall thesis regarding the value of church membership. That is where I want to look next now that I have set the table with Dr. Clark’s “overwhelming evidence” of highly organized church membership.

A call to repentance

The Southern Baptist Convention this past week at it's annual meeting passed a resolution on regenerate church membership. It is not as strong a resolution as I would have liked, a resolution like the one proposed again by Tom Ascol of Founders Ministry, but it is a start and a recognition. It is not just the Southern Baptist Convention that is need of repenting over church membership, but as the largest and perhaps most public of the conservative denominations, the SBC takes the lead for good or ill on many issues. If we are going to covenant with someone in membership in a local church, we need to a) make as sure we can that they are a Christian! and b) hold the accountable to the body. Membership in a local church is the focal point of the Christian life and when we take it too lightly we do harm to the church as a whole. A good start, but certainly it is just a start.