Chapter 6: God's Plan for ReunionChapter 7: Denominations in Perspective

In these chapters the argument of the book turns a corner and starts looking at ways unity can actually be worked towards. At least, at some point they'll be looked at. We're still getting there.

Chapter 6 is a recap of Frame's central thesis - that God desires us to work towards greater unity with other believers - and offers encouragements for those who may find that task a bit daunting.

Several points he makes in reply to those who find the concept of working towards unity at odds with their understanding of eschatology are worth repeating here:

(3) The normal scriptural pattern is what scholars call the "already and not-yet:" that is, the blessings promised in the New Heavens and New Earth are already present in seed form. Salvation, for instance, is both future and present (and past) in the New Testament. Therefore, even if complete unity is delayed until the return of Christ, we ought to be able to see the beginnings of that unity in the church today. (4) Scripture presents the New Heavens and New Earth as a guide for our decisions here and now. If we truly look forward to the righteousness of the last days, we should be seeking it now (Matt. 6:33; 2 Pet. 3:13ff.; 1 John 3:2,3). So if we really look forward to the reunification of God's people, we should be seeking it here and now.

Or, as I would phrase it, we're going to be united with all believers in the new creation anyways, so why not get some practice in now? And if that unity really isn't a priority for us, then do we really understand what the New Creation is going to be all about?

Frame then goes on in chapter 7 to list some key circumstances that help promote unity, and the common thread in most of them is worth examining. The circumstances he lists that particularly interest me are the military chaplaincy and missions (foreign and domestic). All these are at the sharp intersection between the church and the world. When the chips are down and you're in the front lines of the battle, does it really matter whether the guy in the foxhole next to you is from your exact regiment? Or does it matter more that you're both fighting in the same army, against the same enemies? In circumstances like that, the commonalities of all believers in Christ count more than the secondary disagreements. And people are often surprised at just how much they do have on common.

I must also note here that while I agree overall with his example of the neighborhood Bible study, *now*, I don't think it has much force of persuasion for those who don't already buy the main thesis. In my TR days, I would have seen such a Bible study as *the place* to air out theological differences and insist that everyone believe the "right" one. But now that I have a view of the Bible that is closer to Frame's than Robbins', I no longer think that that was very wise.

So, if I may draw some practical conclusions from these chapters (which Frame doesn't do so much), it would be these...

1) read the Bible more as a story, a narrative of the history of salvation, than as a bank of prooftexts to back up our tradition's systematic theology. See the Bible as the story of all believers, the story of the chuch, and see what it has to say to all of us in that regard.

2) concentrate more on the things we have in common, rather than the differences. Okay, so we don't fully agree on monergism vs synergism, premillenialism vs postmillenialism, immersion vs sprinkling, elders vs pastors. What does that leave us? Only the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Cross, the Resurrection, the Great Commission, the Parousia, Baptism, the Lord's Supper... need I go on? Many people think that if you don't fight for the particulars, you're against all theology in general. I think that is is more of a symptom of our systems being so tightly constructed that if you don't agree to the whole thing, you're out the door. A little perspective (and a little humility and charity) might go a long way.

3) start getting out more into the trenches. Learn to fight *alongside* other Christians instead of just *against* them.

Chapter 5 - response to Peter

Now it's my turn to play catch-up.

Despite my increasingly hectic schedule as my grad program comes to an (hopefully not tragic) end, I think the two-chapter a week pace from here on out will work. I'll start with 6 & 7 on Sunday evening, PST.

The real problem about Frame's answer (the UCG and it's 'courts') is, as I think we've both hit upon, it's a circular argument. Frame thinks that such an institution would resolve the basic theological and praxical (is that a word? it is now) differences that separate the denominations. But you're never going to get denominations to voluntarily surrender themselves to such an organization with those issues unresolved. It's like a temporal paradox loop.

I was impressed with Peter's analysis tying this thing back to the present communions of Rome/Orthodoxy and the Protestant denominations. (Although, as a member of an Anglican church, I may be forced to take some small issue with his allergy to hierarchies in general... :-} ) I think it amply demonstrates the folly of trying to work this sort of unity out from a "top-down" standpoint. The question is, how can it be done locally, congregationally, from a "bottom-up" perspective? I'm *hoping* that Frame's book will have some more to say on this than it has up to this point. We'll start to see this Sunday.

Chapter 5 -- Response to Doug

Long time no see! I'm, er, back. . . .

I think our paths are more-or-less exactly together on this point:

[Regarding Frame's assertion that issues such as paedo/credobaptism must be solved by "the courts of the one true church"--Doug, did you note the weird plural, there?] 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.

Exactly. I can't get from multi-denominational hierarchy to mono-denominational hierarchy (at which point the meaning of "denomination" would finally collapse into "catholic" again) without first either solving or overruling all the denominational problems. Surely, there should be some areas in which we could cooperate this way, and I guess those for whom the existence of denominations is non-negotiable will have to keep on trying that.

What I don't understand is the need to do the back-and-forth of "destroy denominations" while embracing a strategy which requires strengthening them. It seems grossly unlikely that, say, a Presby-Lutheran mondo-denomination would feel the need to cooperate with, say, the Methodists that a small-town Baptist church feels to cooperate with the Methodist church across the way. Since when has strengthening a hierarchy ever improved total cooperation?

Seems to me that churches, absent the denominational ties that bind them, would be much more inclined to cooperate with other churches--some based on proximity (and leading to the combination of churches which, while their denominations own their leadership and their facilities, will never happen) and some based on similarity of emphasis, goals, or vision (which will help strengthen and preserve the various gifts in which various groups excel).

Chapter 5 -- Reiteration (gougatsu ato)

Five months (that would be finals, a trip to Australia, surgery, three weeks hospitalized, and starting a new college teaching job) ago, we had just reached Chapter 5. We agreed to start doing two chapters at a time, to speed things up (posting speed, not reading speed, being the chief difficulty, here). I suggest that, since Chapter 5's already under weigh (or "underway"), and since Chapter 6 starts a new Part of the book, we do 6 & 7 together, and so forth. . . .

So, Chapter 5. I'm also a bit underwhelmed here, but so far that's been my reaction to a lot of the argumentation in the book. I keep hoping for more, because Frame has better stuff than this; perhaps the really meaty stuff is going to come later. I can't help thinking, though, that the prolegomena is more than half the argument, in a case like this, and I think he's failed to make his premises clear and unobjectionable; for me, the same objections keep repeating in each chapter, until he addresses them.

Let me grab two chunks as focii for discussion:

But as we've seen, God did not establish a zoo, but a church. His plan for dealing with estrangements is not amicable divorce, but mutual discipline within the church (Matt. 18:15-20; 1 Cor. 5) (which can, to be sure, sometimes lead to excommunication when a really serious problem cannot otherwise be overcome).

When the denominations are most true to their traditions, they are most ecumenical.

Here is my problem with Frame's analysis, as someone from an Independent Baptist background, who, like other independents and congregationalists of all stripes (including Free Presbyterians), is more sharply critical of denominations than Frame, but from an entirely different angle: Frame's critique of denominationalism is really just another turn of the denominational wheel. Acting on his analysis, it seems to me we will necessarily just re-create the conditions which led to the denominationalism of the present.

Frame is right that "God did not establish a zoo [where "harmony" is the product of barriers between natural enemies/competitors], but a church." He is right that "amicable divorce" is not an option in church discipline: there is reconciliation, and there is excommunication, and in between is a state of sin for any party not actively seeking reconciliation. This demands our attention and our repentance.

However, Frame seems to me to be mistaken when he believes that a hierarchical One True Church (or, as Doug's been calling it, Unified Church Government--I really want a GUT acronym, but can't get there) with "courts" (what is it with Presbyterians and the judicial metaphor?) is the answer. He seems to be self-defeating when he teaches that the denominations themselves are a middle ground between isolated churches and the One True Church; if that is the case, then it is the unification of denominations, which requires their strengthening and enlarging until some absorb/merge with others, until finally only one remains, with only the excommunicated outside. . . .

But wait, from the standpoint of Rome or Antioch, that's exactly what there is today.

And further, from the standpoint that produces the Lutheran and Reformed and Episcopal denominations, Frame's midway strategy--let denominations grow and dialogue, and eventually they'll work out their differences and merge--is exactly what's underway. Granted, in some cases, it's been a more fissiparous process than they'd hoped, but that's still the calculated goal: we'll be true to our confessional tradition, and sooner or later they'll get it right and join us.

This won't help to "destroy denominations," unless we really believe that (a) all such historical differences can be worked out through some heretofore unexampled dialogic phenomenon or (b) one denomination really is in possession of such worldly power as would enable it to enforce a "join or be excommunicated" decree meaningfully. Case (a) is the hope of ecumenists in the less positive sense; case (b) is the hope of, well, medieval Roman Catholics and, if the stories are true, the 20th-C Russian Orthodox.

More to the point, this puts hope where there's no basis for hope: in the legitimacy of denominational hierarchies above the local churches. Frame clearly (as a committed Presbyterian must, I suppose) believes that supra-church hierarchies are manifestations of the church. I remain, Baptistically and Biblically, quite archly skeptical on the point.

That a local church may organize its affairs in any number of ways, I have no doubt. That it might choose to cooperate with other churches in any number of ways, I have no doubt. That the churches are under obligation to cooperate and to communicate with each other, I have so little doubt that I'm happy to join Frame in his desire to lead our churches in repentance on the point. That any offices exist outside the local church, which have authority over the local church, I have grave doubts.

Christ did not establish any denominational hierarchies. Not only did He not establish many (as Frame argues), He did not even establish one. He sent out His own Apostles, who on the basis of that special sending formed churches, who communicated and cooperated by sending messengers from one to another (including, as even the Twelve acknowledged, sending the Apostles out from particular churches to particular churches--though Christ's special commission to certain Apostles was still a unique grace to the church). Those churches are His Church, their members are His members, and there is no need nor call nor promise for anything else.

When the churches disagreed, they did not consult "courts" or denominational higher-ups. They sought, simultaneously, two forms of guidance: Apostolic authority (available today only in Scripture form) and the conscience of the whole church. They formed their conscience by, in addition to seeking right authority, sending elders from each church to a council, where the matter was given due deliberation.

Now, if Frame wants to suggest that a council of the churches (which are The Church) equals a denominational hierarchy, that's his prerogative. What seems clear to me, though, is that the existence of modern denominational structures--with offices, finances, bylaws, parachurch organizations, schools, seminaries, and often even political entanglements--is the chief barrier to the cooperation of the churches as The Church. That should be Frame's point, given the force of some of the stronger arguments up to now.

He seems too unwilling to cross his own denomination, though, and so tries to argue that we can defeat denominationalism by . . . being better denominationalists.

When the denominations are most true to their traditions, they are most ecumenical.

Call me a skeptic on that one.