When I started this blog, I said to a friend that if I was going to write on issues of church and Christian community, then I wanted to put up a disclaimer that I wouldn’t be typing one darn word (I didn’t really say “darn”) about denominations. It’s not that I am against denominations, I am a pastor in one. It’s just that when people start talking church, they usually skip right past the local one and go head long for the foibles, divisions and disappointments of the larger “governing bodies” (as we Presbys call them.)
But, since yesterday was Reformation Sunday, it seems only appropriate to bring this series on the “spiritual discipline of staying put” to a close with some random thoughts for when to know when it’s time to go. In this case, I am not talking so much about individuals leaving (I spent some time on that in an earlier post) but when churches split from denominations or when churches themselves split asunder.
So, painful as it may be to consider, what can we learn from the reformation about when a church shouldn’t stay put.
1. Let’s start by saying that it shouldn’t be this way. Even we Protestants who sang our lungs out to celebrate Martin Luther nailing the 95 theses to the door in Wittenberg in 1517, need to acknowledge that it would have been way better if he hadn’t needed to. Maybe it’s because I was raised Roman Catholic but I really do believe (as the Reformers did) that 3rd century teacher Cyprian was correct when he said, “He cannot have God for his father, who has not the Church for his mother." (De Unit., c. vi).
2. One bad split begets another. That’s the biggest lesson of history and easily proved by simply thumbing through your local phone book under “churches.” When churches split, usually an entire generation of ministry is consumed with reorganizing, restructuring, realigning and then more often than not, another split comes on the heels of the first. So, we should be far more devoted to “reforming” then reorganizing, if we can be.
3. In the Reformation, Luther, et. al. weren’t interested in going anywhere. They wanted to reform the church that they were in according to the Scriptures, not start a new one. (Of course, they got themselves kicked out by doing so, which is different and I think better than leaving, frankly.)
4. All this said, our focus however is not church unity at any cost. It certainly wasn’t Luther’s or he would have kept his 95 theses to himself. Our focus, like Luther’s, need be to live “convinced by the testimony of the holy scriptures” (as he famously confessed in 1521 at the Diet of Worms) in all of our actions and beliefs. Of course, this won’t be easy or even easy to agree on. But the “marks of the church” as the reformers understood them begin with a commitment to the Scriptures. And ultimately this is the issue at stake in most church splits: The authority of the Scripture. Indulgences in the 16th century and homosexuality in the 21st are really the symptom, not the issue. The issue is the Scriptures. When church leaders abandon scripture behind, churches split. (See Mark Roberts’ excellent blog series on the current woes in the Episcopal Church.)
5. IF ultimately we end up splitting or leaving, it should be for one reason and one reason only: The witness of Christ will be better served by our splitting. I know that this is a difficult pill to swallow, but I believe that there are times when honorable separations serve the witness of God far better than the schisms and political power struggles that have so marked the church. In my denomination, we believe that there are times when individuals may need to leave the church, and have even added a footnote to our constitution that reminds people that in cases where we disagree we should be prepared “after sufficient liberty modestly to reason and remonstrate, peaceably withdraw from our communion without attempting to make any schism.” (See footnote in PCUSA Book of Order G-6.0108b. However, we still haven’t given provisions for congregations to do the same thing without losing their properties, so this all ends up being quite messy.) What I think that this means ultimately today is that before we head out the door to start our own church around our own ideas, take half the congregation to follow a new leader, form a new denomination, or start down the rode to a painful church split, we need to ask bigger questions than what any of us want or desire. We need to submit to God and seek what is best for Christ's witness even in our splitting.
So, once again, I am agreeing with Abba Anthony in that even in our organizational lives, we should "not easily leave" the place that we find ourselves in. Indeed, unless we are faced with a clear scriptural rationale that would ultimately help the witness of the church, the more often than not, we should aim to stay put.
(Well, this is kind of a depressing end to what was otherwise a fun series to start off this blog. So, I’ll offer one more post on staying put tomorrow.)
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