Response to Doug -- Chapter 1
(sorry about the multiple posts; such division seemed like a good idea at the time)
I don't see the OT worship as quite so continuous with the NT as you and Frame do (I would not, for instance, call Israel the Church, though I would happily admit the former is a type of the latter). Still, I think that God's calls to unified worship in Israel are there for the good of the church, as well, and it's easy to see that the pattern of "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" versus the central altar of the one true God persists in the problem of many deceiving spirits and one true Christ. We arrive at similar points from different paths, except insofar as the specifically earthly manifestation (e.g. unity of place) is concerned--but that seems like a big "except" for Frame's argument, to me.
I think it's interesting that you're seeing "obsession with" where Frame sees "inattention to" purity of doctrine and practice. I'm conflicted on the point, and it's here that I agree with you that even with best intentions we are far from the point where we could begin to "tear down this wall."
On the one hand, "failure to seek reconciliation" is a failure of doctrinal and practical purity. On the other hand, that failure is often a consequence of a belief on both sides that reconciliation would compromise their doctrinal or practical purity. That belief may even be justified--criticisms of some recent attempts to reconcile evangelicals with Rome seem, to me, to be justified (though not their intemperate nature). At a much more local level, what are we to do when one church has, for example, a habit of remarrying divorcees while another holds to the view taught by Christ, that to remarry when one is divorced (I would grant the exception for adultery, in many cases) is to commit adultery? In modern America with its greater than 50% divorce rate, can we doubt what the practical consequences of two such churches existing side-by-side would be, or that the result of their "agreeing to disagree" while pursuing joint teaching efforts would be that only the broader view would remain?
But if there are hundreds of such issues, where the more "popular" view is wrong, how are we to avoid endless schism?
I find myself thinking of something J. I. Packer writes in his 'Fundamentalism' and the Word of God, concerning the existence of such divisions in the one Body. Essentially, Packer views these as each bearing witness to some parts of the truth that would otherwise disappear from the Body. Since the Body exists in this mortal age as a conglomerate of what I like to call "screwed-up people trying to get it right," it seems inevitable that there will be some "loss" in our transmission. The existence of various groups that have "obsessed" over some point or other ensures that those truths persist in the Body, so that there remains hope that one day some groups will regain those truths from the groups that kept a witness to them. Whether those patterns of truth ("we must preserve this teaching of Christ") and error ("we must excoriate all those who don't see it") can be matched up enough to help these groups merge is, as you say, hard to see from here.
Finally, on the matter of the use of the word "church" and "body" in the NT: I would say we have here a microcosm/macrocosm usage. Every local church is a whole church to be built together, as every believer's body, and every body of believers, is the Temple where the Spirit resides and Christ presides, and at every level from the body of the believer, through the local church, through all those who communicate, through all those who believe at any moment in this age, through all those who believe at all times and in all places, who will stand together in the End--the commands and promises of Christ are scalable, with appropriate measures of hope and calls for obedience to each. I think Paul's usage in the Corinthian epistles, where he seems to be keeping up a running pun between "your body" as the body of the believer and the body of believers, is a great example of this, and it's part of why I think Frame's tendency to read this "flat" as referring to a single, all-the-living-believers "church" is a little unfortunate.
I don't see the OT worship as quite so continuous with the NT as you and Frame do (I would not, for instance, call Israel the Church, though I would happily admit the former is a type of the latter). Still, I think that God's calls to unified worship in Israel are there for the good of the church, as well, and it's easy to see that the pattern of "every man did that which was right in his own eyes" versus the central altar of the one true God persists in the problem of many deceiving spirits and one true Christ. We arrive at similar points from different paths, except insofar as the specifically earthly manifestation (e.g. unity of place) is concerned--but that seems like a big "except" for Frame's argument, to me.
I think it's interesting that you're seeing "obsession with" where Frame sees "inattention to" purity of doctrine and practice. I'm conflicted on the point, and it's here that I agree with you that even with best intentions we are far from the point where we could begin to "tear down this wall."
On the one hand, "failure to seek reconciliation" is a failure of doctrinal and practical purity. On the other hand, that failure is often a consequence of a belief on both sides that reconciliation would compromise their doctrinal or practical purity. That belief may even be justified--criticisms of some recent attempts to reconcile evangelicals with Rome seem, to me, to be justified (though not their intemperate nature). At a much more local level, what are we to do when one church has, for example, a habit of remarrying divorcees while another holds to the view taught by Christ, that to remarry when one is divorced (I would grant the exception for adultery, in many cases) is to commit adultery? In modern America with its greater than 50% divorce rate, can we doubt what the practical consequences of two such churches existing side-by-side would be, or that the result of their "agreeing to disagree" while pursuing joint teaching efforts would be that only the broader view would remain?
But if there are hundreds of such issues, where the more "popular" view is wrong, how are we to avoid endless schism?
I find myself thinking of something J. I. Packer writes in his 'Fundamentalism' and the Word of God, concerning the existence of such divisions in the one Body. Essentially, Packer views these as each bearing witness to some parts of the truth that would otherwise disappear from the Body. Since the Body exists in this mortal age as a conglomerate of what I like to call "screwed-up people trying to get it right," it seems inevitable that there will be some "loss" in our transmission. The existence of various groups that have "obsessed" over some point or other ensures that those truths persist in the Body, so that there remains hope that one day some groups will regain those truths from the groups that kept a witness to them. Whether those patterns of truth ("we must preserve this teaching of Christ") and error ("we must excoriate all those who don't see it") can be matched up enough to help these groups merge is, as you say, hard to see from here.
Finally, on the matter of the use of the word "church" and "body" in the NT: I would say we have here a microcosm/macrocosm usage. Every local church is a whole church to be built together, as every believer's body, and every body of believers, is the Temple where the Spirit resides and Christ presides, and at every level from the body of the believer, through the local church, through all those who communicate, through all those who believe at any moment in this age, through all those who believe at all times and in all places, who will stand together in the End--the commands and promises of Christ are scalable, with appropriate measures of hope and calls for obedience to each. I think Paul's usage in the Corinthian epistles, where he seems to be keeping up a running pun between "your body" as the body of the believer and the body of believers, is a great example of this, and it's part of why I think Frame's tendency to read this "flat" as referring to a single, all-the-living-believers "church" is a little unfortunate.
posted by pgepps at 6/19/2005 06:07:00 PM
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