Anabaptism is not the answer

Well, unless the question is “Which faith tradition in the last 1500 years looks the most like the early church?” I make no secret of my admiration for much of what the Anabaptists stood for, how they lived their lives and how they viewed the church. As with any movement, there is a real danger of going too far in my admiration. There is much that we can learn from the Anabaptists, much to glean from how they viewed things that run counter to our traditions (which is why, in my humble opinion, they get slammed so severely by so many evangelicals who have never read a thing about them). I also recognize that the Anabaptists were flawed sinners like me and every other Christian who has ever lived. The original Anabaptists and their modern progeny have much to praise but likewise they have much to be cautious about. I try to remember when praising the Anabaptists that they have their flaws and that we should not seek to “become Anabaptists”. Anabaptism is not the answer, but Anabaptism does help point us to the answer.

This is true when examining any movement in the church. History is replete with movements that spring up, often die out and are looked back at with nostalgia. It is easier to look longingly at the days gone by than it is to ask the hard questions for today, the “good old days” syndrome where the past always seems better than the present.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than among the Reformed. Ah for the glory days of Calvin’s Geneva! If we can only plant more Reformed churches, or convert existing churches to become Reformed. If only we can have more Reformed seminaries and more Reformed conferences. If only less educated Christians would just read more books by Reformed authors. If only we could just get everyone to be Reformed, things would be better. The blogosphere is chock full of evangelists for Reformed theology. What is forgotten or ignored is that so much was left “unreformed” in the Reformation, chiefly the practices and theology of the church. Now don’t get me wrong. I cherish the great Reformed theologians, past and present. What the Reformation recovered from Rome is nothing less than the recovery of the Gospel itself. It can be easy to forget that in the two thousand years since the cross, more than half of that time the Gospel was denied by “the church” and the faith was reduced to empty rituals controlled by power hungry popes. The Reformers risked not just reputation and livelihood but their very lives to take a stand and declare the Gospel of God in the face of violent Roman opposition. So there is much to learn and appreciate from the Reformed but being “Reformed” is not the goal.

How about another stream of the faith? The group we gather with is part of the Plymouth Brethren tradition although you would be hard pressed to ever hear that uttered. We enjoy meeting as we do because we love the people we gather with and because the meetings are so open and participatory. In marked contrast with the incredibly loud church services that typify evangelicalism, our gatherings are quiet and simple. Brethren Assemblies across the world meet in open, unscripted meetings where we break bread every week and every brother has an opportunity to speak. We gather in simple buildings for the most part with little of the pageantry and pizzazz of modern evangelical churches. Having said that, there are concerns in this movement. Even an unscripted meeting can become very rote. We may not have bulletins but we do things in a particular pattern each week. Not as much where we gather but there are aspects of pride and legalism that crop up among the Brethren. We are still far less of a community than we should be. There is a lot to love about the assemblies that come under the umbrella of the Plymouth Brethren but converting the entire church to this movement is not the goal.

When I say we need to be careful when looking at every faith tradition in the church, do I really mean every one? Even the early church? Yes. Recall that Paul rebuked Peter for his fear of eating with Gentiles in front of his fellow Jews. The church in Corinth had all sorts of troubles. The church in Galatia? Don’t get me started! We should not seek to emulate every aspect of the early church because there were plenty of problems. Where we should turn to the early church is for guidance in the key principles of how the church should function as well as warnings about how things can go wrong. When we read the words of Paul and Peter and James and Luke and especially Jesus Christ, we see what the church is all about and how it should behave. In this quest we can learn much from the Anabaptists and the Reformers even though they were at odds in the Reformation period and spoke pretty critically of each other. We can learn a lot from the Plymouth Brethren and from modern Anabaptist movements. The Puritans have much to teach us as well. Ultimately though all of these movements are useful only inasmuch as the help us to be more faithful to Scripture and none of these movements were perfect in that respect. We can and should be discerning and take what is helpful and discard what it not without regard to which faith tradition it comes from. Just because something was written by a Reformed writer doesn’t mean it is right and just because something is written by an Arminian doesn’t mean it is wrong.

The church would be a lot healthier if we would all look outside of our pet faith tradition and humbled ourselves to learn from those we might disagree with. One thing I have especially been blessed by over the last couple of years is exposure to authors and ideas that I would have recoiled from as not being “Reformed” a few years ago. As I have moved away from the idea that being “Reformed” is the pinnacle of the Christian experience, I have actually come to cherish the very real contributions of Reformed writers even more, in spite of their flaws.

Christians living off the grid

This was interesting. CNN did a report on Christians living “off the grid” to various extents. The report, Unplugged Christians living off the grid, profiled a few fairly extreme examples of Christians who are seeking to remove themselves from the world. The people profiled practice a lot of what you would expect: homeschooling, self-sufficiency, house church, eschewing worldliness. Lots of anti-government rhetoric, more aimed at the welfare state than the apocalyptic “one world government” types. There was some kookiness like the guy who legally changed his name to “Pro-Life”. That is kind of odd.

I will admit that I have a great deal of sympathy for some aspects of this movement. It is hard to not look around in disgust at the way things are going and seek to withdraw completely. The world has taken up comfortable residence in the church and most Christians (myself included) are far more worldly than is healthy. Having said that, many Christians have lived in various times and places that were far worse as far as immorality and government oppression goes (does the name Nero ring a bell?) with an effective witness, so withdrawal is not the only option.

My biggest concern is that in withdrawing from the world, it becomes pretty hard to be a witness to the world. There is a delicate balance. It is easy to become overly worldly and in doing so you start to look and act like the world to such an extent that your witness is lost. I think that is the more applicable danger for the church today. On the other hand, you can be so withdrawn from the world that you likewise cease to be a witness. We are called to be salt and light in the world but also to be distinct from the world. Balancing that can be hard and frankly I understand the urge to withdraw completely with "better safe than sorry" as your motto.

It seems that the proper balance is to seek to live peaceably in a world that is lost and opposed to the Gospel, even though that means discomfort, persecution and even death. Christians live for this time among the weeds of the world as explained in the parable of the wheat and tares. There are going to be unbelievers all around us and that is to be expected. Our role is to witness to the lost through the Gospel proclaimed in Word and lived out in Christian community. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be living distinctly different lives, that we shouldn’t seek to carve out the worldliness and live more simply in our homes and in the church. I think there is much to commend in a lifestyle that looks intentionally different than the rest of the world and I think you can accomplish that without completely withdrawing from the world that we are called to evangelize.

What do you think? To what extent, if any, should Christians withdraw ourselves from the world?

Bad theology or disunity

This was interesting, John Piper was asked which grieves him more: disunity or bad theology. It is a short clip, listen to his answer.



What do you think?

I think that for many of us, we would rather be disunified than tolerate theological aberrations. Better to block a brother in Christ who is wrong about Doctrine A than to be unified with someone we disagree with. Thus we have denomination after denomination, hundreds of different flavors of churches that agree on 95% of doctrine but keep themselves separate because of this point or that. Eschatology, baptism, music styles, single or plural elder. We have all sorts of reasons to create barriers to fellowship. Now I would certainly agree that someone who denies keys of the Gospel is not someone we should be in fellowship with. Frankly most of what divides us are not issues that rise to the level of Gospel denial. I am pretty sure most of us get that mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are outside of the Christian faith. What divides believers though, that is where we have a problem. I struggle with this and I have pointed that out on this blog. There was a time when I thought it was my mission in life to convert as many people to "Reformed theology" as possible. Theological correctness was the cornerstone of the church. Here is the problem with that....

Disunity is bad theology

I don't care how many theology books you have read or how many times you have gone to the right theology conferences. I don't care how many Spurgeon quotes or Calvin quips you post on Facebook and Twitter. If you don't love your brother, your theology is bad and if you say you love your brother but refuse to be in fellowship with them over a pet doctrine, you are a liar.

Which grieves me more: bad theology or disunity? Both because they are one and the same.

Freedom

Today is Memorial Day in the United Sates and as a people we are going to be remembering those who died fighting for America.

Let those of us who know and are known by Christ remember that our freedom was not won or preserved by those buried under a field of crosses in Normandy Cemetery in France, as noble and heroic as their sacrifice was. Our freedom was won on a single cross on Calvary. Our declaration of independence is not found on a parchment in Washington, D.C., it is in the words cried out by our Savior "It is finished!"

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:36)

Kind of random but...

I bought my wife a new headcover and she is pretty pleased with it, so I thought I would pass on the vendor. It came from Garlands of Grace and they have some pretty nice headcovers for sale. I got her a longer one made from a lightweight chambray that is more of an "everyday" covering. It is made very well and fits very nicely. So if you are in the market, you should check out Garlands of Grace!

(if you are curious, this is the headcovering I bought her from their Etsy store)

Has Michael Horton gone the way of John Piper?!

Very interesting. Michael Horton, dean of the "Truly Reformed" and host of The White Horse Inn is going to appear on a panel hosted by *GASP!* Rick Warren at the Saddleback Conversation Gathering. The panel is part of The Lausanne Global Conversation and the topic is The Future of the Global Church. Horton will appear as a panelist alongside a number of other participants. It should be an interesting conversation but I have to ask....

I wonder if Horton will get the same grief as John Piper?

Best of the week entry 6

Comes from Dave Black at 10:03 AM today. Just a simple but profound quote:

Jesus never apologized for calling His disciples to make a clean break with the clinging attachments of this present world.

I know I struggle with many attachments to this present world. What are you clinging to?

Best of the week entry 5

Comes from David Platt writing about the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force. Setting aside the idea of needing a task force to encourage Christians to carry out the Great Commission, I liked what he had to say about changing the priorities of the church where he serves. From the post, Dr. David Platt: Why I Wholeheartedly Support the GCRTF Report … and More:

Now the Southern Baptist church I pastor is tempted to do everything except for what Jesus told us to do. Jesus never told us to construct church buildings, start programs, or organize Sunday School. He never told us to host conferences or events. Instead, he told us to get the gospel to all the nations. Therefore, as a church we have stopped construction on buildings, we are removing programs, and we are reorganizing our structure so that we can more intentionally focus his church on what he said is most important. Now not everything we do is directly for the unreached. For example, many of our families are selling their houses and moving into a low-income area in Birmingham to spread the gospel there. But inner-city Birmingham is not the end goal. We are going into different parts of Birmingham so that we can mobilize that many more people to take the gospel to 6,000 people groups who haven’t heard it. That is what Jesus has commanded us to do.

That is great stuff. It is encouraging when you see Christians stepping back from churchianity to ask hard questions about why we do what we do.

(HT: Dave Black)

Best of the week entry 4

Comes from Ed Stetzer and features a brief video of Steve Timmis, one of the authors of Total Church. Here is the video:

Dwell London - Steve Timmis from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

My favorite line was from Ed on the the traditional role of most Christians in Gospel proclamation is “Pay, pray and get out of the way”. Ain't that the truth!

What I found interesting is that these guys are ministering in Western Europe, which according to Steve Timmis has 400,000,000 people and only 5% church attendance. Their response is to saturate England with communities of Christians. The model of offering lots of big church buildings for people to choose from to attend on Sunday no longer works in Europe (maybe it never did) and it is quickly becoming the same way in America. We need to figure out how to reach people beyond unlocking the doors on Sunday morning and waiting to the lost to show up.

Best of the week entry 3

Comes from Desiring God and is part of a series on prosperity preachers. In this entry, the concern is Uphold the Value of Suffering. I am reprinting the whole post:

The New Testament not only makes clear that suffering is necessary for followers of Christ, it is also at pains to explain why this is the case and what God’s purposes in it are. These purposes are crucial for believers to know. God has revealed them to help us understand why we suffer and to bring us through like gold through fire.

In Let the Nations Be Glad, in the chapter on suffering, I unfold these purposes. Here I will only name them and say to the prosperity preachers: Include the great biblical teachings in your messages. New believers need to know why God ordains for them to suffer.

1. Suffering deepens faith and holiness.
2. Suffering makes your cup increase.
3. Suffering is the price of making others bold.
4. Suffering fills up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions.
5. Suffering enforces the missionary command to go.
6. The supremacy of Christ is manifest in suffering.

I love that. The idea that God promises to bless us with security, money and health in this life flies in the face of what Scripture teaches us. You should check out the whole series on prosperity preachers and if you know anything about Piper you have a pretty good idea where he comes down on the topic!

Best of the web entry 2

The next post comes from Dan at Cerulean Sanctum and is titled Indoctrinating for Heaven or Hell. Dan takes on the milquetoast expectations we so often instill in Christians. Here is his take on what we portray the Christian life as:

When we look at the American Church today, we have to ask just what kind of indoctrination we are receiving. By and large, the message coming out of our churches sounds like this:

Jesus loves you, even though you sometimes sin. You can rest in His grace and not be worried about doing things for Him except to read your Bible and pray. Show up on Sundays and to the occasional church event. If you are young, go to a good college and get a degree that ensures a solid job working for a reputable company. Find a good-looking Christian mate from among the right kind of people, buy a house, and have 2.2 kids. Make sure those kids are loaded with activities and skills so they can get into an even better, more expensive college. Live in the right neighborhood with the right kind of people who can help you advance in life and build your career. Go on vacations and enjoy yourself. Give some money every once in a while to worthy causes. And most of all, be happy with your Christian experience, even if you sometimes wonder whether it’s really all it’s cut out to be.

Seriously, isn’t that the indoctrination most of us Christians receive from childhood until the day we die?

Read the rest of the essay to see the reality of what we should be telling people. Good stuff, sobering and frank.

Best of the week entry 1

Just an excellent post from Alan Knox, Living In the Shadows. Alan argues that much of what we do in the church is reflective of the Old Testament shadows instead of the fullness we find as the church in Christ...

Given my background, it is easy to switch back to thinking that there are holy days on which holy men do holy things in holy places. But, when this begins to cloud my understanding, I live in the shadows and not the reality of Christ. In Christ, all of God’s children are holy people; every day is a holy day; all opportunities to serve are holy offerings; and any place we are is a holy place, because we are the temple in which God dwells.

When do we live in the shadows? When we find ourselves asking questions like these: Should you do that on Sunday? Is there an ordained minister available to do that? Should they be doing that in the church [building]? Why is that person preaching [or teaching, or baptizing, or serving the Lord's Supper]?

These questions indicate a shift back into the shadowy thinking of the Old Testament. Today, in Christ, we have the realities available to us; we do not need the shadows.

Very good stuff. It is easy to slip into this mode and it is likewise very easy to justify our traditional practices in the shadows of the Old Testament that have already been fulfilled.