Chapter 5 - Denominations:Why We Love Them

I was slightly - well, a little more than slightly - disappointed by this chapter.

Given the history and pervasiveness of denominations, Frame really should have given them a better deal in this chapter. Instead, it was a string of "Everything they can do, a United Church Government could do better." Maybe so. But I doubt that a deeply convicted Baptist/Presbyterian/Episcopalian/Lutheran will buy this - or feel that their loyalties or their strengths as denominations have been given their proper due.

Denominations *do* provide a doctrinal and governmental center for their congregations. They can provide a pool of support and resources that can help a single congregation do things they could not on their own. Could a UCG do the logistics on a greater scale? Well, yeah. No brainer there. But you have to *get there* first. And Frame's arguments in this chapter are, to put it charitably, rather circular.

Take, for instance, his discussions over what would be a major stumbling block to any such enterprise - the question of who gets baptized and when. (I'm not even going to touch the subject of *mode* - I don't care where the water is applied or in what quantity.) To quote Frame:

Personally, I think uncertainty in this area is tolerable. I will say more about that in a later chapter.(BURTTD - I agree, and I too will have more to say on this at the proper time.) But what I think is rather unimportant. The important question is, how does God want us to resolve such questions? And the only answer can be, through the courts of the one true church. Only such courts are fully qualified to judge which side is right, and only such courts are fully qualified to determine the limits within which the church may tolerate error.

Uh, I think not. You aren't going to get a "court of the one true church" until you solve this issue. If this issue is going to be resolved, it will have to be done on a *local, congregational, and ecumenical* level, and by the time Frame's "courts" came into being, this question would have already been dealt with.

Also, many convicted denominationalists will find his "dual loyalty" system to be contradictory. I am to be loyal to my denomination (pg. 61), and work for its eventual abolition (pg. 62), and yet this means I will be a better whatever-denomination-I-am (pg. 63). The problem is, if these groups are going to come together, EVERYBODY is going to have to give on some points of doctrine and practice. And that means we are going to have to put unity over our denominational loyalites. Frame's outlook, IMHO, just does not give the impetus that will be required to overcome these differences.

On the good side, now the book will turn a corner and look at more practical theological and liturgical matters. I am hopefull (still) that there will be some good starting points to be found in the coming chapters.

Interminable delays

Well, they will have an end, so that was hyperbole. Nonetheless, I am likely to be away from my 'Net connection for the next three days or so. Will post on Chapter 5 as soon as I'm able--it's a meaty one.

Cheers,
PGE


UPDATE: Delays continue. Will try to post on Chapters 5 & 6 ASAP, but will be in Australia beginning tomorrow. I'm sorry to say my schedule is likely to be massively disrupted for the next month or so, between a trip to Australia and some pending surgery. PGE

Response to Doug--Chapter 4

You note, in response to Frame's list:

1. Denominationalism has greatly weakened church discipline. The hypothetical example he gives could be all too real. Without a sense of mutual belonging to a greater Body, or a shared vision of responsibility to that Body, such a situation could easily happen – and does. One could argue that sociological factors (such as our individualism, drive for growth uber alles, etc), also feed into this problem.

This is my personal vote for "number one problem of denominations." It is the same problem as comparison-shopping, really, as all of these amount to a replacement of submission with selection in our relationship to the church. (I'll get to your number one in a moment.)

In a previous post, I used a similar example, that of a church which remarries divorcees who were refused marriage by a neighboring church. I am still looking for the suggestion which improves on this situation; in any scenario I can foresee, the church with the popular view will simply assimilate the less popular, but more biblical, church--effectively annihilating the witness to that particular truth in that culture. We have to have more than "abolish denominations" in play, if we wish to avoid that; yet it is clear that the status quo, in which the adulterer can simply "shop around" until he finds a "tolerant" and "inclusive" church that "accepts" him and shows him "unconditional love," is unacceptable.

Now, as to your number-one problem with denominations, regarding the maldistribution of gifts in the Body (among the denominations):

The problem is that we’ve essentially divided the Body up by its functions, as Paul explicitly warned us in I Corinthians 12 NOT to do.

I basically agree, with a caveat insofar as I still think that God will give the local church what it needs. The question is, though, are we using everything He's given us? Or are we hiding and distorting certain things to fit our frameworks and distinguish ourselves from others?

I think there's something in that side of the critique, though, especially where the old "It takes evangelistic unction to make orthodoxy function" sort of problem crops up. I know that, as a non-Calvinist intellectual, it's frustrating to me to find myself compelled to consult Reformed, Catholic, or Orthodox sources for well-reasoned historical judgments about doctrine, while at the same time having to systematically disagree with key elements of their arguments. Where are the great dogmatists on "my side"? The sad answer is, virtually nonexistent. The temptation to "join the club" doctrinally in order to get in on the discourse is strong; the temptation to reject the discourse altogether so I "don't rock the boat" is, on the other hand, also strong. It's no wonder I've seen Christians from non-liturgical traditions running off to Rome or Antioch to replace that tension with "ours is the one, true church" pride.

Is the answer to create a "one, true church"--as Frame seems to think it is--though? You and I seem to agree it isn't. So how can we insure that our local churches are not suppressing the Lord's work in their members?

Chapter 4 - Response to Peter

Seeing as we are just wrapping up Part I of the book, I think it is just a little too soon to tell whether Frame doesn't have a post-demolition solution in mind.

The question is, what will that solution be, and how 'practical' it is (for non-Presbyterians, that is... ;-} )

Chapter 4 -- Comparative Damages

[sorry for the delay. Uh, blame the heat. Or the busy weekend. Or Harry Potter. Or Trogdor the Burninator. Gotta blame it on somethin' . . .]

I am happy that Doug got the jump on me. His way of responding to a chapter makes a better lead-in than mine, and I hope he'll take advantage of my sloth to get in the last word, too. I'll use my response to Doug to get into the particulars, more.

I tend to, having read the text, choose some one piece to gnaw on (Doug digests, I ruminate). In this case, it's surprisingly tiny; I'm interested in the form of the argument encapsulated in his concluding remark for this chapter, and with what it may reveal about Frame's approach--and what we may have to deal with as we engage the topic further:

There may be other problems of denominationalism which I have not mentioned. But after this survey, can anyone seriously say that denominationalism does not cause practical problems for the church? Can anyone deny that there would be considerable benefits in abolishing denominations?

Let us assume that we answer Frame's first question with a resounding "No!" Does it follow that we must answer with the expected "No!" to the second?

I'd like to reframe (no pun intended, professor) the argument just a bit. In order to build a new multibillion dollar stadium, the city of Los Angeles has just bulldozed hundreds of old apartment buildings. Those apartment buildings included one that was an amazingly important architectural treasure (unlikely, but this is my hypothetical, OK?); they also included a number that had been "condemned" by way of suspicious fires set by shady fellows in zoot suits. Now, a mediocre sports team (let us say that Los Angeles just acquired, oh, the Astros) is holding forth in a very expensive stadium that barely pays the rent, while exacerbating the housing shortage.

Now, can anyone seriously say that this urban renewal project does not cause practical problems for the city? I should hope we would answer, "No!" And can anyone deny that there would be considerable benefits to demolishing the stadium?

Well, of course, we certainly could deny that. And we might be right. Especially if the stadium were demolished, say, by shady fellows in zoot suits dynamiting it in the night, leaving smoking rubble all over the place. Or terrorists nuking it during a game. Or even the city fathers deciding to raze the place in favor of a housing project (housing projects run by city governments being generally describable in terms of Dante's famous poem--and no, not the Paradiso).

In other words, we can admit that we arrived at the status quo in a bad way, for bad reasons, with bad results, and we may still be rightly convinced that merely abolishing the status quo conveys no benefits. The question is, "How can we do better?" and not merely, "When will we do something?"

And that is what Frame has yet to answer, and until he does so his belaboring the "bad, bad, bad" denominations is much like telling humans that aging is bad.

Sure it is. But what else can we do?

Chapter 4 - What's Really so Bad About Denominationalism?

Here we get to the heart of Frame’s beef with denominationalism. He presents us with a laundry list of the practical/ecclesiastical results of the dark side of having divided and mutually competitive denominations. That underlining is important, as will be seen in my comments. I’ll hit them one by one, in the order Frame sets them out.

1. Denominationalism has greatly weakened church discipline. The hypothetical example he gives could be all too real. Without a sense of mutual belonging to a greater Body, or a shared vision of responsibility to that Body, such a situation could easily happen – and does. One could argue that sociological factors (such as our individualism, drive for growth uber alles, etc), also feed into this problem.

2. Church membership means very little today. Here I would give more weight to the social and economic factors than the denominational differences. The cultural expectations of the “sovereign individual” and the breakdown of community make meaningful church membership a hard struggle, no matter what denomination. Of course, some denominations make it harder than others…

3. Imbalance of Spiritual gifts. This is the real rub for me. I’ve often wondered, “Why are the Charismatics so crazy, the Methodists so wishy-washy, the Reformed such uptight snots?” The problem is that we’ve essentially divided the Body up by its functions, as Paul explicitly warned us in I Corinthians 12 NOT to do. If you’re smart, you go to a Reformed church. If you care about the poor, you go to a Methodist church. If you like expressing your emotions, you go to a Charismatic church. And without the other emphases around to drag you back to the center, you start to carry your strengths to their extreme conclusions – Charismatics abandon tradition, Methodists abandon doctrine, and the Reformed abandon (or anathematize) everyone and seal themselves off from the church and the world in a tight doctrinal cocoon. There’s no real impetus for people with disparate gifts to stay in one congregation and do the hard work of living together and tempering their gifts with the gifts of others – it’s SO much easier to go to a church in a denomination where everybody already thinks like you do. If we actually had to live and work together, we’d probably find that we’re not so far apart as we believed – and that denominations aren’t as important after all.

4. The church lacks common courts to resolve disputes. Yeah, in a perfect world it might be nice if there were a central, God-ordained authority to “lay down the law”, as it were – to give final answers to all these questions. Then again, it might not. Given that we’re sinful beings, after all, such authority structures tend towards corruption. Even Catholics admit that the Church before the Reformation was in a royal mess. What they won’t admit is that such messes are par for the course in human affairs, and that no structure or denomination will ever get a “get out of total depravity free” card dropped down to them from heaven. I sometimes wonder if Frame would admit that, too… In any event, this is way too far from where we are now or can reasonably expect to be.

5. Denominationalism hardens existing divisions. Again, in this point Frame seems to think that having a central authoritative court would mollify the effects of sin and political conflict, and yet somehow not be affected by those same ills. Or the subject of infant vs. believers’ baptism. Yes, a united church may have come up with a solution by now – then again, it may not have. If we’re going to deal with the problems of the division of the Body here and now, bemoaning what could have been won’t help. The question is, can we come up with a Biblical understanding of Baptism here and now that can express the concerns of both paedobaptist and credobaptist, and allow both to worship and work together in one congregation in good conscience? That’s the question we need to be asking, and answering…

6. Denominational division makes reconciliation more difficult. Well, yeah. If you emotionally invest in an institution based on a “stand on principle” or “defending the Gospel”, that is going to make reconsideration of the basic issues that caused the division much more difficult. That’s just basic psychology.

7. Denominationalism creates unholy alliances. This is more the fault of the persons involved than the denomination itself. If I insist on being an Episcopalian in spite of their slide to apostasy, simply because I was born an Episcopalian and I deeply need that sense of identity, then I have made the Episcopal church an idol. And who is more at fault – the idol, or the idolator?

8. Denominationalism compromises the church's witness to the world. Reformed types *hate* this line of argument (“it smells of Romanism!”), but if we’re honest, we have to admit it’s true. What does it say about our concern for Christ’s admonition for unity when we have all these denominations? And when we spend so much time either fighting - or what may be worse, ignoring – each other?

9. Denominationalism leads to creedal stagnation. This will probably be the biggest obstacle towards working for local unity- especially among strong evangelical Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reformed types. The crucial differences in practice – baptism, communion, church government, etc – are carved in stone for these people, and while they will loudly proclaim their submission to sola scriptura “in principle” (as Frame would say), in practice their creeds set the agenda. Unless we are willing to submit our creeds to Scripture – and not just the way *we* read it, but the way *all* our brothers and sisters read it – the divisions will remain.

10. Denominationalism leads to distorted priorities. This is just a kind way of saying that for some people, “the Church” = “our denomination”. Again, this is something that is often expressed more in practice than in principle, but the charge stands.

11. Denominationalism leads to superficiality. This is closely related to the point above, and I would have expressed it more as “Denominationalism leads to narrow-minded theological parochialism”. While I am more familiar with the Reformed expressions of this sin (there are some TR’s who would probably rather cut their own throats than read Yoder or Hauerwas), I’m sure such parochialism can be found elsewhere as well. And again, this is just an expression and reinforcement of the “groupthink” I deplored in point 3.

12-13. Parochialism. To distinguish these points from point 11 above, I would call it “regional/cultural parochialism”. And we in America are *especially* guilty of this. It took my reading of Philip Jenkins’ *The Next Christendom* - and my joining an Anglican church sponsored by the See of Rwanda – for it to really sink in that the fate of the Church universal is by no means centered on the fate of American evangelicalism. Or that the way we do things in America today can have little to do with how the Church has done things for the past 2000 years or so. The question is, do we really believe that those who do not exactly believe as we do, or worship in the same manner we do, are just as much a part of the Body as we? Do we, really?


14. Denominationalism provokes unhealthy competition. I already alluded to this in my response to the initial points. Again, it’s a “church chicken/cultural egg” argument in my book, but there’s no question they feed off of each other.

15. Ungodly pride and snobbery. We’re all guilty of this. “We are the pure – we are the theologically correct.” “We are the holy – we are the ones anointed by the Holy Spirit.” “We are the obedient – we care for the poor and downtrodden.” “We are the faithful – we stand against liberalism.” This is a problem that will always be with us. And this is a problem that only Christ can cure.

Response to Doug--Chapter 3

I guess it just *seemed* longer. Maybe if I expand my bullet points . . .

I think you tag the problem we're all stuck wrestling with at the tail end of your post this week:

Of course, from the ECUSA's perspective (and that of its mainline allies) it is "schismatic" - but when apostates call you schismatic, it ought to be seen as a badge of honor. And there are ten times as many Anglicans outside the white Western nations as there are Episcopalians left within them. Who, pray tell, are the real schismatics here?

"Will the real schismatics please stand up?"

"The real schismatic has left the building."

When the Apostle John wrote, "They went out from among us, that it may be seen that they were not of us," he was writing as an Apostle to a particular church or group of churches. When we come to decide among churches, without any apostles handy to do the judging, what can we hope for?

Of course I support the idea of the ECUSA being disfellowshipped. They are not only tolerating but promoting impenitent sin in their leadership--corruption is rarely so easy to identify. By "disfellowshipped," though, what do I mean? Should we reject any member of an ECUSA church as a communicant in our churches?

I think that we'll have to get a lot better at handling church discipline in our local churches before we'll be ready to do more than case-by-case judgment in these matters.

I'm very interested in what's going on with your AMiA church, Doug. Do keep bringing that in. From time to time, I may draw on my church here in Japan for examples, too.

"Schism? Who needs another -ism?"

Chapter 3 - Response to Peter

Your post had 870 words - Chapter 3 had about 1500. Not quite as long as the chapter, but not bad for a reply, either. ;-}

I think you hit the nail on the head re: Frame's Presbyterian background coloring his arguments. That's one reason why I kept bringing up the Anglicans in my post - any discussion of hierarchical unity (which Frame wants so much) is going to hit the shoals of this conflict really early. Not to mention the instinctual aversion to "one church government" that is bred in the bones of many protestants. Among many of this sort, ANY talk of doctrinal charity or ecumenical outreach is merely "the first step back to Rome". Frame talks about the church still attempting a pre-451 ecclesiology, but I suspect many of the more strident protestants (the "TR's" in particular) have an ecclesiology that has never dealt with anything post-1517...

If nothing else, after this book is done we ought to more closely look at your points 1-8, and try to nuance some sort of answer to problems 9 & 10. This is the information age, is it not? How hard would it be for the congregations in a single town to set up a sharing network, to communicate on such cases and coordinate their actions? It's a step in the right direction, even if everybody doesn't sign on to it at once. I know some communities have similar measures in dealing with marital counseling, so it's not totally unprecedented...

Chapter 3 - Toward a Post-Denominational View of the Church

This week's chapter is short and somewhat eclectic. I'll just hit the highlights of what came to my mind as I read it.

Authority - church vs. denomination. Frame says that "the church has through its officers a real authority over believers. Has God granted such authority to denominations? I would say that denominations have authority insofar as they do reperesent the authority of the church (that is difficult to ascertain) and insofar as we voluntarily grant this authority to them in our membership and officers' vows. But this is very different from the authority of the church as such..."

Frame really needs to develop or nuance this if he's going to really convince people. At the local levels this is hardly a point for contention at all, as there is ample agreement that there are local leaders for local congregations (however the names of the officers and the division of labor between them may change). There may be more room for maneuver as you go "higher-up" in the denominational structure, but then again... I for one can't think of any major denomination that does not believe that it's organizational structure is non-biblical, let alone anti-biblical. You may be able to make a case for this being true for Baptist churches, but I can't imagine the Anglican church saying, "Yeah, there's no biblical basis for a hierarchical structure of ruling bishops, but we just organize ourselves this way because it works for us." It will be interesting to see what Frame makes of this in his chapter on church government later on.

Lack of diversity of spiritual gifts within and among denominations. This is a salient point for me, and as Frame will return to it in the next chapter, I will hold my comments until then.

Schisms and moving between denominations. I think that he is correct in theory, but the root problems we face today are of a different sort - the lack of covenant and community bonds that make such switches so easy. I've seen that problem first-hand, and I've also seen attempted solutions that go to far in the opposite direction (making a "church covenant" that is even more binding in practice than a denominational confession!). The church I belong to now is trying to walk a tightrope between these two extremes.

As this church is also an Anglican Mission in America church, this has also afforded me an interesting perspective on the issue of "schism" and "fellowship". Is the AMiA a new denomination? Yes and no. It's "new" in the sense that it did not exist 5 years ago - it's not in the sense that it does not have it's own independent government but places itself under the existing (orthodox) Anglican sees from other parts of the world. Of course, from the ECUSA's perspective (and that of its mainline allies) it is "schismatic" - but when apostates call you schismatic, it ought to be seen as a badge of honor. And there are ten times as many Anglicans outside the white Western nations as there are Episcopalians left within them. Who, pray tell, are the real schismatics here?

What to say? Chapter 3 (and a post that may be longer than it)

I'm having a hard time deciding what to say about chapter 3. I can only assume Frame conceived of this as a transition between sections, because it's rather light on substance. Nonetheless, I'll try to chew on what I can. Here's the broad statement that would best summarize the chapter, I think:

We need an ecclesiology that makes some careful distinctions between the attributes, powers and gifts of the church, on the one hand, and those of particular denominations, on the other. We should no longer develop doctrines of the church which are written as if the schisms had never taken place, or as if we were still living before A.D. 451.

I guess it must be my Independent Baptist background, but I'm initially inclined to react to this by saying, "Of course. Who does that? Oh, wait, you're *Presbyterian*. Got it."

That is, it's true. It's dead obvious, in fact. Which is why it's so stunning that the church as a whole hasn't quite glommed on to it yet.

At the same time, independent or "free church" ecclesiology has been grappling with this for centuries, now, sometimes more successfully than others. Taking Frame at his word that (a) denominations should be de-privileged and (b) ecclesiology should not pretend that the church functions now in the manner it might have functioned in some alternate, schism-free reality, I would arrive at the following basic teachings:

• 1) there are churches, and there is the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church."
• 2) in Christ, all of the local bodies *are* one Body.
• 3) in the world, the Body *exists as* many local bodies. (that is, there *is no* magisterium)
• 4) the test of membership in the Body of Christ is confessed faith in Christ, baptism, and submission to the discipline of some local church.
• 5) the local body should only have as members those who are members of the Body.

Among the implications of these teachings would be:

• 6) members in good standing of any local body are also in communion with any other local body.
• 7) members who reject the discipline of one local body should not be received by another.
• 8) impenitence in the face of church discipline for sinful behavior would be one sort of rejection of discipline; impenitence in the face of church discipline for false teaching would be another.

However, there arises the complicating factor which seems to give rise to Frame's difficulty in analyzing the various Protestant splits in Chapter 2:

• 9) local bodies which pervert the Gospel, baptize unbelievers, or discipline falsely compel those they excommunicate to sin in remaining outside the church or to join other local bodies.
• 10) local bodies which pervert the Gospel, baptize unbelievers, or discipline falsely compel other local bodies to evaluate whether the prospective members or the church they left are schismatic.

Now, given these "givens" it may seem that we must either throw up our hands in despair and embrace both members of our church (before one can leave), or erect a hierarchy which can, by some measure of worldly force (whether financial, social, or political) settle all cases which arrive at stage (9&10). I think, however, that this is premature. If we accept that unity is a positive good in the church, albeit (as I still think) a secondary one, a fruit of first-order goods such as love for the brethren and devotion to the Gospel's spread, then the above could be viewed as a *negative test* for necessary division. That is, when we look at the believers and the churches around us--when it comes to cases--do we, in fact, see that the divisions which exist are based on points 9 & 10? Are they *currently* so, even if they may have been *historically* so at some time?

Many times, I think our answer will be "no." And where that is the case, it is not "compromise" in any shameful sense to encourage one body to reach out to another. This is the great failure of the sort of Independent Baptist churches I grew up in, methinks: they fail to treat the above as *negative tests*, and instead require that churches affirmatively demonstrate that they are "of like faith and practice" before they will interact fruitfully with them or receive their members. This is a defensive reaction typical of separatists, who are always a hair's breadth away from being properly schismatic (I disagree that independent churches are schismatic for leaving a denomination, on grounds Frame should approve: that denominations have no spiritual authority) and have often, and egregiously, crossed right over it. That Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and other denominationalists have done no better in no way excuses those who have done bad enough.

I suggest that the way out is not, as Frame's Presbyterian commitments lead him to expect, through a unity-building hierarchy; rather, it is through a revival of love for the brethren and zeal for the Gospel in our local churches, coupled with a thorough de-privileging of denominations. Can that be? On a grand scale, probably not.

In your church? Well, have you tried? Have I? What would it look like if we did?