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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 1993

THE CHURCH

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Members Only Michael Horton

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The Marks of Worship Rick Ritchie

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The Worshiping Community Kim Riddlebarger

One People or Two

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Paul Castellano

Corporate Worship

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Rich Gilbert

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TV Church Robert Godfrey

Finding a Church

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Michael Horton

Book Review

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The Open Church and Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail

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e all kno~ someone who tells us, "I don't need to go to church. I worship God in my own way." In this issue, we will explore the idea of the church as it is instituted by God and understood in the modern world. But we must begin at the beginning, with the question, Do you have to go to church to be saved?

Granted, biblical material on this subject is thin.

But that is only because early Christians, pressed on all sides by the threat of death, "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking ofbread and to prayer." (Acts 2:42) Becoming a Christian in the ancient world was a dangerous step-one worth dying for, possibly. People joined the body of Christ, not out of convenience, or to find a mate, but to give common confession to the Savior in Word and sacrament, in fellowship and in prayer.

During the more severe persecutions, some Christians questioned the prudence of being too overtly involved in the church when their activities were carefully scrutinized by the powers that be.

Many even left the faith altogether, caving in to immense social and political pressure. Called the lapse (Latin for "fallen"), these folks were much in the mind of the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews: "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another."

The church, then, is the ordained institution for growth and maturation in Christ. Without it there are no ordained means ofgrace. In the church we are instructed, encouraged, nurtured, corrected, and comforted. There we receive the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion in the name of Christ. And only in the church do we regularly hear the proclamation of God's Word by servants who are suited to the vocation by their education and calling.

The Nicene Creed repeats Paul's reference to "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," when it declares, "I believe in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church." Calvin called this the invisible, or universal,

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church. There are many unregenerate members of the visible church who are not members of the invisible church. It is an error to say that one is a Christian because he belongs to the visible church.

However, it is quite true to say that apart from belonging to the invisible, universal church, one cannot be saved.

What happens when we are converted? Popular American evangelism often treats potential converts as individuals who need to accept Christ so they can have a happier, healthier life. Rarely is conversion presented as something that engrafts the new believer into the body of Christ, the True Vine. Opposing the individualist approach, the Bible speaks of being "baptized into one body." When someone trusts Christ, his relationship to God, and to all those who are Christians, changes.

I hear someone saying, "Wait a minute, I thought you said that we can't say so,and,so is a Christian because he belongs to a particular visible church. So why is belonging to a church essential?"

To answer that question I must expose what I think is the philosophy underlying the low opinion of the church many hold today. One reason people have a low view of the church is that organized religion has been more inept, corrupt, and unhelpful in recent history than usual. But there is a deeper, more pervasive cause at work here: the heresy of gnosticism.

Gnosticism was a late,first, and early,second, century mixture of classical pagan mysticism and Christianity. Judaism's emphasis on the value of matter has historically distinguished it from paganism.

The body is not an evil prison,house of the soul, as paganism declares, but a unique creation of God. Salvation comes not by escaping this earth or human institutions, but by making one's way through history, as on a pilgrimage. Christianity, the efflorescence of biblical revelation, confirmed the Judaic emphasis by affirming Christ's humanity as well as his deity, and his bodily resurrection as a down,payment on our own. In the New Testament, God uses water (baptism), wine and bread (communion), ink and paper (the

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Bible), a physical institution (the church), and creeds and conf e s s io n s (doctrine) as means of knitting us together in Christ. h e ancient Gnostics saw no more need for these visible, physical, earthly elements than do their successors today. Gnostics believe the Spirit is all, important. Worship is spiritual and inward. When that belief is questioned, the standard answer is that to worship otherwise is unspiritual, earthly, carnal, or externaL This heresy led many in the early church to question the importance of meeting regularly. After all, if the Spirit is everywhere, why can't I worship God on the beach? Why do I need all these external things like water, wine, bread, paper and ink, and an institution? After all, don't we remind people Sunday after Sunday, "The church is not a building"?

Philip Lee, in his book Against the Protestant Gnostics notes that, "Ancient gnosticism loathed the patriarchal and authoritarian qualities of official Christianity. From the gnostic point of view, the structure and discipline of the Church stifled the spirit." Against the Gnostics,Qfhis day, Calvin wrote, "Without the Church there is'n o truth, God is a liar, and ... everything contained in His word is false." In his commentary on Ephesians Calvin adds, "He errs who desires to grow by himself.... Just so, if we wish to belong to Christ, let no man be anything for himself: but let us all be whatever we are for each other." Gnosticism breeds narcissistic individualism, but Christianity promotes mutual commitment to Christ, not only through the internal unity of the Spirit, but also through the external unity of Word and sacrament, fellowship, prayer, creeds and confessions. "What is crucial for American Protestantism is a clear understanding and a stubborn assertion of the truth that when Christians are born

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position, free of this

world's concerns, isolated from pain and trauma by a spiritual water bag." Lee concludes, "As opposed to the patristic and Calvinistic picture of the Church as a mother who nurses, comforts, scolds, punishes, in short, loves her children into a healthy maturity, the present image of Church is that of an organization that cashes our checks, mails us notices and newsletters, but otherwise leaves us to' our own devices." Calvin went so far as to concur with St. Cyprian: "One cannot take God as His Father without having the Church for his mother."

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Reformers agreed that we should seek the reformation of the church, not its abandonment or destruction. This view differed from that of the Roman Catholics and the Anabaptists. The Roman Catholics insisted that the visible church of Rome was infallible, and therefore incapable of requiring doctrinal reformation. The Anabaptists argued that the institutional church ought to be abandoned entirely, along with the world and most other earthly associations. Against the mere externalism and NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1993.

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authoritarianism of medieval Rome, the reformers asserted that all baptized believers are priests, not only the ordained clergy, and that the church is the whole body ofChrist. But against the mere internalism and individualism of medieval sects, the reformers declared that because all believers are priests, they have a duty to one another. And that duty is fulfilled in the universal, that is, catholic, institution Christ founded in Abraham. For nearly two millennia, believers have "devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." (Acts 2:42)

~us,

we come full circle to our original question.

Can a person be saved without joining a church?

Now that we have a better handle on the philosophy behind the low view of the church in American Protestantism, we can answer the question, Does the Bible require church attendance? Without doubt, the answer is "Yes!" Think of the numerous calls to discipleship in which Jesus called people away from the.ir labors to learn from him and fellowship with him and each other. St. Paul insists that we are not merely baptized into Christ, but into his body, which is the church.

In Reformed thought, there is a distinction and an inseparable connection between the visible and invisible church. One cannot claim to be a member ofChrist's universal body unless he is also in fellowship with a local congregation of that body. As the marks of the true church are the Word rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered, church discipline rightly exercised, so the marks of the true Christian are the Word believed, the sacraments received, and deference to legitimate discipline. (Church discipline as a necessary mark of a true church has been a distinguishing feature of the Reformed, rather than Lutheran, side of the Reformation tradition.) Thus the Belgic Reformed confession maintains, "We believe that since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of those who are saved and there is no salvation apart from it, no one ought to withdraw from it, content to be by himself, regardless of his status or condition."

By custom, Christians have met on the first day of the week. This is by very early custom, since it was apparently practiced by the apostles. (Acts 20:7; Rv 1:10) Even if it is granted' that there is no biblical command to meet on Sunday, there is clear biblical command for regular meeting. And if Sunday is the accepted time for normal engagement in these commanded activities, it stands by inference that 4

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regular church attendance at a properly instituted congregation is commanded if we are to be Christ's disciples.

This is the rule, but there are exceptions to every rule. The end of church attendance is not legalistic adherence to a "perfect attendance" record at the end of the year, but regular instruction, fellowship, and reception of Holy Communion. Without these activities, we die on the vine, languishing for the nourishment necessary to sustain the Christian life.

As any honest person knows, it is difficult enough to be Christ's disciple, even with the church to guide and preserve us along the way. But to abandon this imperfect institution is to parachute alone into a desert wilderness where death is the only way out. t

Michael Horton is the president and founder of CURE and the author of Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, Made in America , and The Law of Perfect Freedom, and is the editor of The Agony of Deceit, Power Religion, and Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation.

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The Marks of Worship

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f a close friend were to ask you if a group of people who gather at a local auditorium for a sermon on Sunday is a true church, how would you answer, "yes" or "no"?

This question does not arise often these days.

There are gatherings of people whom we would not consider to be Christians, but whom we would call "churches" out of social convention-"Mormon churches" or even "Buddhist churches." We do this for the sake of convenience. When we call these congregations "churches," we merely mean that they are people who share an outlook on the ultimate nature of reality and who assemble regularly to sing, and hear spoken messages. When used this way, "church" expresses the social status of a body, not its spiritual one.

When our friend asks about the people at the local auditorium, her question is different.

She wants to know the spiritual status of the congregation.

There are two ways Christians ~ill determine this. Some try to determine if that congregation is a place where God is active and people know the Lord. Others judge a congregation's status by its doctrine.

The person who wishes to define the church based on the presence or absence of divine activity wants to make sure that there is more than just spiritual talk going on. He wants to see spiritual reality. A parrot can be taught to recite the N icene Creed, but that won't save it. If we locate a true church by its adherence to a creed, aren't we likely to find churchmen who spend their time splitting theological hairs rather than preaching to the lost?

There are also dangers in trying to define the church by divine activity. The doctrinal churchman is likely to affirm that where God is, there will be spiritual activity, but he will be slow to agree that "God is where the action is." If we do not know our doctrine, how are we to know if we're witnessing God's activity, or that of another? Maybe Krishna and not Christ, is so fervently worshipped with upraised hands. Perhaps the long extemporaneous prayers are addressed not to the triune God, but to Allah. Maybe the Jesus being spoken of is not God the Son who paid for our sins, but a Jesus who teaches us moral lessons and magic tricks. We need doctrine to help us decide if we are getting involved with God, the devil, or our viscera.

The church is where God acts, but activity alone will not help us find the church.

Right doctrine can help us to determine the legitimacy of what we find, but it will not guarantee a body is a true church.

The Apostle James tells us that even demons can be orthodox. "Even the demons believe ... and shudder." According to the reformers, the marks of the church were the proper teaching of the scriptures and the right administration of the sacraments. In these marks we have a guarantee of both doctrinal integrity and divine activity. We avoid the man,centeredness that inevitably comes when we try to define the church by either doctrine or spiritual activity alone.

Rick Ritchie NOVEMBERJDECEMBER 1993.

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A Manward Focus Today there are many churches whose view of scripture is high, but still leave their members ~piritually hungry. A battle,tested belief in inelTancy and a commitment to exegetical preaching do not guarantee spiritual life. If our Sunday morning services seem more like rotary club meetings more than encounters with God, the problem is a man,centered focus. Sadly, the pa~toral staff often recognizes that the congregation has become a crowd of spectators in a Sunday event performed by the pastor and choir.

something we know intuitively; it is news. Since the gospel seems to conflict with the law-we know that we deserve wrath, but God grants us favor-it is especially important that we be confronted with the gospel often, for it goes against what we expect from God. God is central in the church, not us. When the reformers said that it was right preaching and proper administration of the sacraments that mark the church, they were not making severe demands on us, but ensuring that we receive all there is to receive from God.

The church is where God acts, but activity alone will

not help us find the church.

They burden congregants with the belief that lack of focus on God, and not the excessive attention lavished on the choir and pastor, is responsible for the worship's spiritual emptiness. No amount of cajoling or chastising will be of any help, for the problem is not a lazy congregation, but an overactive pastor and choir. Hard though they may work, they cannot alleviate spiritual hunger with their practical sermons and inspiring music.

Rople hunger to know that they are in right relationship with God. According to the reformers, this does not happen by assenting to right doctrine or having power encounters. It takes place when the gospel is applied to peoples' lives. The preached Word and the sacraments are the means of grace.

When the reformers defined right preaching of the Word and proper administration of the sacraments to be marks of the church, they were safeguarding the gospel's application to our lives.

This emphasis on being "right" and "proper" might make us think of God as Mr. Manners, who rewards excruciatingly correct church behavior. The words "right" and "proper" bring with them fear of legalism, fear of pedantry, and fear of suffocating precision that squeezes every ounce of meaning from a Levitical law before allowing us to venture into something that is relevant to us. This puts us off.

"Right" and "proper" are judgmental words when we apply them to ourselves. The reformers were more interested in the words "preached" and "administered."

"Preached" and "administered" tell us that a church is a place where we are receivers, not doers.

We receive God's favor, but we deserve his wrath.

The law is written on our hearts, and sounds a responsive chord within us. The gospel is not 6

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Proper Preaching Proper preaching is Christ,centered. Teaching orthodox doctrine, proclaiming inerrancy of the scriptures, and carefully exegeting text are important, but do not guarantee that the preaching is proper, in the reformers' sense. If the pastor preaches on Isaiah one morning, and I wish to know if the preaching marks the congregation as a church, my first question will not be, "Did the pastor say that Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah," but "Did the pastor find Christ in the text, specifically the Christ who lived a perfect life in our place and bore our sins on a cross?"

Congregations are filled with people who are confronted every day by the accusation of the law.

Even if the pulpit ministry at our churches does not convict them~ Christians are convicted by the law through conscience and personal Bible reading. If people do not hear the gospel weekly, they will feel far from God, even if they have received state,of,the, art instruction in spiritual growth techniques.

Proper Administration If the Word is preached properly, why do we need the sacraments? Most of us would not advocate disposing of them altogether, but are they really necessary? Doesn't the church exist where two or more are gathered in his name?

The answer may be found in the Reformation motto "by faith alone." If a person has true faith in Christ, he is saved. Perhaps gospel preaching led to salvation. God has other means of working, too-the sacraments. In the sacraments we have the gospel attached to an outward sign.

In baptism, water is the outward sign of the gospel. God has promised that he who believes and is baptized shall be saved. If saving faith is a trust in

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God's gospel promises, we exercise saving faith by believing this promise. This view of baptism allows us to make sense of passages that tell us that baptism saves us (e.g. Acts 2:38; 1 Pt 3:21), and incidents where people are saved without baptism (e.g. the thief on the cross). Faith can arise in response to promises presented in a gospel sermon, or in response to God's promise in baptism.

Baptism is rightly administered when people are baptized in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins. It is wrongly administered when done in the name of Jesus only.

It is wrongly administered when it is withheld from infants on the grounds that they cannot believe.

Baptism replaces Old Testament circumcision. (Col 2: 11-12) Like infants, adults cannot believe in Christ of their own power, but faith is a gift of God. (Eph 2:9) If God can fill infants with the Holy Spirit from before birth (Lk 1:15), certainly he can create the faith that baptism requires within them.

In the Lord's Supper, the bread and wine are the outward sign of the gospel. We may be saved by trusting that the blood of Christ has paid for our sins, but how much more is our faith strengthened when God offers the ransom payment for us to partake of!

We do not await a future judgment, desperately hoping that we will remember some past encounter with Christ. God has declared his favor toward us. If

salvation is the fruit of the sacrament. Those who present the sacrament as a memorial of Christ's death do not administer the sacrament properly. They administer something else. It may be an emotionally moving, even helpful, memorial ofChrist's redemptive work. But it is not the Lord's Supper.

God's Church There are two marks of the church: right preaching and the proper administration of the sacraments.

Where these two marks are, there is the church. Do you remember the church in question at the beginning of this discussion? Is it a true church? The preaching is biblical, and they have performed baptisms.

Communion is celebrated, but we haven't figured out the erratic schedule.

When we answer this question, we must be aware of our purpose for having an answer. We do not want to determine whether or not it is legitimate to attend a service. The evidence tells us that it is. Our real question is: "What is God trying to do?" He is rescuing a people from a doomed race. Where the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments properly administered, God rescues a people for himself. He proclaims his favor, baptizes them into his death, and offers them his body and blood for their salvation.

Where the Word is rightly preached, and the sacraments properly administered, the church is focused on God, because God is the one who acts. It

Where the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments

properly administered, God rescues a people for himself.

our mental experience of Christ is too ethereal for us to grasp, our mouths are made of more solid stuff, and we can receive Christ that way.

The Lord's Supper is properly administered when the body and blood of Christ are offered to Christians for the forgiveness of their sins. It is not properly administered when it is withheld, or it is done under a different understanding. If this sacrament is seen as a mere memorial, it is not really a sacrament. We might be tempted to think that even those who misunderstand the sacrament will receive the benefits because God is gracious. It is true that God is gracious, but the benefit of the sacrament is the strengthening of the faith that comes from knowing that we have received salvation. Where this knowledge is absent, the sacrament is fruitless, for knowledge of

is his church. It is not pastor so,and,so's congregation where they hear about techniques they can use to get to God; it is the place where God comes to them.

Is the congregation down the street a place where God acts through Word and sacrament? Is the Word proclaimed rightly, as a message of Christ's life and death? Are the sacraments administered properly?

Are people united to Christ by being baptized into his death, by partaking of his body and blood? If so, that congregation is a place where God is saving a people for himself; it is a true church. t Rick Ritchie is a staff writer for CURE and is a contributing editor to Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation. He is a graduate of Christ College Irvine and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary.

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The Worshiping

Community

t is a tragedy that much of the current discussion of worship takes place apart from the doctrine of the church, which has always been the context for this very important subject. The separation ofworship from ecclesiology betrays the individualism of American culture which has been "baptized" and uncritically carried over into the church. When viewed through the filter of biblical and classical Protestant thought, much of the "lone~rangerism" of American Evangelicalism can be readily corrected. If anything characterizes the American church it is not a lack of zeal in worship, but a zeal that is loosed from biblical and ecclesiastical anchors.

There are several theological themes that cement this bond between worship and the church. The first is the doctrine ofGod. Simply stated, we must know whom we are worshiping and why. We must remember the old theological adage that "the finite mind cannot comprehend the infinite." God is beyond our comprehension, except as he reveals himself to us in his creation and in Scripture. We cannot know God by speculating about his essence, we can only know him by contemplating his works and his word. Since God is revealed as a perfect and personal being with three distinct persons of one essence-the blessed Holy Trinity-worship must have a theological basis. John Calvin cautions that:

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The pious mind does not dream up for itself any god it pleases, but contemplates the one and only true God. And it does not attach to him whatever it

Kim Riddlebarger

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pleases, but is content to hold him as he manifests himself; furthermore, the mind always exercises the utmost diligence and care not to wander astray, or rashly and boldly go beyond his will. It thus recognizes God because it knows that he governs all things; and trusts that he is its guide and protector, therefore giving itself over in complete trust in him. {Institutes 1.2.2}

Calvin argues that there is a right way to worship.

The correctness of that way is directly related to its faithfulness to the doctrine of God as revealed in Holy Scripture. This is one important reason that American individualism is so pernicious to worship. There are many well~intentioned believers, who quite accidentally end up worshiping a god created in their own image. Worship without orthodoxy is not true worship , and may even be idolatry.

When in d ividuals cut themse lves loose from established constraints to enhance the experience of worship, th ey do so at their own peril. The teaching office and spiritual oversight of the local church is an essential corrective to problems with private interpretation of worship.

One must have a correct, if limited, concept of the basic doctrine of God before on e can worship correctly. This is not to say that worship is not to be emotional or that one is not to experience God during worship, but worship must be based on a correct knowledge of God, not an ecstatic experience of God. Worship has a doctrinal, and not an experiential, context. This intellectual priority in worship is also seen in the prohibitions against idolatry. The Ten Commandments, which are the revelation of the will of God and reflect all his attributes, forbid the worship of false gods. Satan's

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greatest desire was to have Jesus Christ bow down and worship him. Satan offered Jesus anything he wanted simply for the price of one brief genuflection. The whole theme of the beast and the false prophet in the book of Revelation (13:4 ff.) is indicative of the heinousness of false worship and idolatry. Take John 4:24 as another example. Here we are told, "God is spirit and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth." The mention of God as spirit is linked to correct worship~ To separate mind from heart, to emphasize individual experience over the corporate worship of the church as the body of Christ, is a dangerous pract,ice.

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second doctrinal theme that mitigates against individualism in worship is the doctrine of creation. When God created the world and all the creatures in it, he pronounced that it was "very good." This has Inajor ramifications for worship. All of creation, given the divine stamp of "very goodness," testifies to the God who created it. All creatures depend on the providential care of their heavenly father for each breath. Worship not only involves correct belief about God, but also should acknowledge his goodness as Creator. As creatures whom he has made, we are to acknowledge our absolute dependence upon him-"it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves." (Ps 100) Calvin notes that there is an inseparable relationship between this sense of dependence and true piety: Indeed, we should not say that, properly speaking, God is known where there is no religion or piety... .I call 'piety' that reverence jOined with love of God which the knowledge of his benefits induces. For until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him-they will never yield him willing service. (Institutes 1.2.1)

The doctrine of creation is also in view when we consider that we are created in the image of God. Therefore, our own makeup as human beings comes into playas a consideration of worship. God created us as intellectual, sensual, emotional, volitional, and relational creatures, who are like God in every way that creatures can be like God. The response of the whole person, made in God's image, of which worship is a part, is certainly implied in Jesus' teaching on the greatest commandment. Here, after re,stating the theological truth that God is one (from Dt 6:4), Jesus tells the teachers of the law that the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your mind and with all of your strength." (Mk 12:30) The whole person (mind, will, emotions and body) is to strive to worship God in spirit and in truth.

Worship is not merely intellectual-it involves our emotions, our affections and our senses.

For the Christian, intellectual apprehension of the true God will inevitably lead the whole person to worship God "in spirit and in truth."

The more one knows about God, the greater will be one's capacity to love and worship him.

Worship must have an intellectual priority, but any theology that does not cause the heart to well up with love for God, and that does not stir the will and the affections to desire to serve God with more passion, is not correct theology.

True worship is emotional, stirring and motivating, and based upon the truth.

Since we are sensual creatures, the doctrine of creation and the essential goodness of created reality has ramifications for our understanding of the worshiping community. The intricate details of Solomon's temple and its furnishings (which were all types of the heavenly temple and pointed forward to Jesus Christ) were obviously of great beauty. (1 Kings

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6-8) The garments to be worn by the Aaronic priests were carefully crafted and very beautiful. (Ex 28) Remember, it was God who gave these explicit instructions. Thus, the appreciation of beauty and symbol are part of worship. Biblical symbols have meaning that point to spiritual realities beyond themselves. Colors, sounds, sights and smell are all useful to enhance our appreciation of the God of Creation, as we worship his splendor in the beauty of his holiness. The doctrine of creation, along with the emphasis of the corporate solidarity of the people of God, flies directly in the face of an emphasis on individual experience.

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third theme that links the church as the worshiping community to the doctrine of redemption is the fall of Adam, and the resulting enmity between God and sinful men and women. Since we are no longer granted the privilege of walking with God in the garden in the cool of the day, we do not deserve to be allowed to worship. Instead, we deserve to be sent to hell because of our sin and our participation in Adam's rebellion. But God is gracious, his "property is always to have mercy" (The Prayer of Humble Access), as he has in Jesus Christ.

To appreciate the blessings that we have in Jesus Christ that relate to worship, we need to begin with the Old Testament. Worship was based On the promise that God would send a Messiah, that God would provide a final solution to humanity's sin. Old Testament worship was characterized by hope and by types and shadows pointing beyond themselves to Jesus Christ. There were priests (intermediaries between the people and God) and there was perpetual animal sacrifice. All worship centered around ¡the geographical center of true worship, Jerusalem, with its temple. The people could not approach God directly; the sacrificial system required perpetual appeasement of God. Jesus Christ came -to earth to seek and save that which was lost. God entered time and space and provided a propitiation for the guilt of the sins of his people. God's wrath was turned aside through Christ's death. In Christ's ministry as high priest, the final sacrifice has been made. Jesus Christ has ascended on high and poured out his Holy Spirit on all flesh. The people of God do not have priests-they are now a kingdom of priests, not worshiping in a temple, but together they comprise the temple of God, of which Jesus Christ is the head and the apostles are the foundation. Peter writes: As you come to him, the living stone-rejected by men but chosen by God, 10

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and precious to him-you also like living stones, are built into a spiritual house to be a royal priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Pt 2:4-5) Nothing in scripture argues more strongly against the individualism of modem American Christianity than Christ,centered worship, where each individual is a priest and together they compose the very dwelling place of God on earth. Since Christ has forever fulfilled the role of priest, there can be no notion of priestcraft where one "godly" individual makes intercession for everyone else. Worship is not an event where Christians in the "audience" watch the "priests" and the professionals worship God as they make intercession for the faithful. God the Blessed Trinity is the audience and the congregation, as a whole, worships God. The church as the worshiping community is a place for individuals to unite and serve in their common ' bond with others adopted into Christ's body. The doctrines ofGod, creation, and redemption are the foundation for our response to what God has done. Worship is the response of God's people, the worshiping community, the body of Christ. Worship is not the isolated ecstatic experiences of a dismembered savior. t

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IHode rn REFORMATION

One People or Two

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hen we are reading scripture, what is our primary method for understanding its contents? Do we seek signs in the sky to discern its meaning? Do we close our eyes, let the Bible fall open where it may, point to a verse to determine "this is what the Word says to me" and end at that? Or perhaps we're slightly more sophisticated than that and we appeal to tradition to adjudicate its meaning. Or should we use a literal method of understanding what the text says?

In any discussion ofhow we understand scripture, we must consider reformation principles. The Reformers' methodology was one born of conflict with Rome. "Scripture plus tradition": this was Rome's cry. "Tradition has equal authority with scripture. Without tradition, we are, at best, wandering in a forest at night with a candle." The Reformers responded by shouting "Sola Scriptural Sola Scriptural Sola Scriptural" -"Scripture alone is our authority."

Tradition is a guide, but a fallible one. Tradition cannot stand on equal footing with scripture.

The Reformers said we must follow the analogia fidei-the analogy of faith. This means that no part of scripture may be interpreted in such a way as to render it in conflict with what is clearly taught elsewhere in scripture-sacra scriptura sui interpres­ sacred scripture interprets itself. If there are two contradictory interpretations, the one in closest harmony with the unified teaching of scripture is to be adopted. This is an organic, internal approach to handling scripture. Luther points to Christ as being the consistent internal message of scripture. For Luther, "christocentric" means gospel,centered interpretation. Calvin states that any attempt to point to any authority (tradition, the church) outside scripture is "neatly refuted by the word of the apostle.

(Eph 2:20) This naturally points to the best, most accurate way to interpret the Scriptures-the apostolic authors themselves. Calvin's statement indicates that the apostles, those divinely inspired, providentially guided writers, are the best interpreters; not tradition, not

the church, but those who penned the words themselves. These men give us the pattern to follow in understanding sacred scripture. They teach us to understand scripture in its natural sense-using one · passage of scripture to illumine and explain another, and not to foist an artificial method ("literalness," for example) upon scripture.

The Word of God unfolds internally when the apostles interpret scripture for us~ The apostles used symbolism, metaphor, simile, and hyperbole in scripture; these are all apostolic methods of interpreting scripture. Now that this explanation of the apostles' method is behind us, we can attempt to demonstrate its efficiency.

Seed of the Woman, Seed of the Serpent The Reformers understood that God worked with people in a unique way. God establishes a relationship with them unilaterally and then nurtures that relationship throughout its entire existence. As early as Genesis 2:15 we see God investing man with the right to rule over the earth. Adam's rule had a qualification-prohibition from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then came a suitable helper for Adam, one with whom Adam could rule and populate the earth. However, Adam violated the terms of his qualified sovereignty and brought death upon mankind. The Father, however, would not abandon his relationship with man and said that victory would be won through the "seed of the woman." From Genesis 3 onward, we see the organic unfolding , as from a bud to full bloom, of the relationship that God establishes with his people. Beginning with Seth, moving to Mahalalel, to Noah, through Shem, Nahor, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Judah, David, and ultimately Christ, we are swept along in the progressive development of God's redemptive working with his single unified people that he chose for himself. In the accounts of Isaac,

Paul Castellano NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1993

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Ishmael, Jacob and Esau we see the constant drama of the tension between the woman's seed and the serpent's seed. God is always actively orchestrating the maturation of his people.

Covenant This relationship that God established with a people of his own choosing is called a covenant. The covenant is an act of commitment and involves a customary oath,form. The covenant is a type of legal arrangement, but the presence of the oath,form underlies its religious nature. Covenant,making is accomplished through a solemn proceess of ratification. This transaction centers upon the "swearing of an oath," with its corollary curse. Since the characteristic ratification rite was one of slaying and cutting animals to symbolize the curse that would befall the breaker of the oath, the expression "to cut a covenant" became the idiom for this transaction. In Gen. 9:6-8 we see God referring to his relationship with Noah as a covenant. In Genesis 17 we see the ratification of the Abrahamic covenant with the sign of covenantal ratification being instituted­ circumcision. There is a relationship between cutting and circumcision and inclusion into the covenant.

So here we have the demonstration ofGod establishing his covenant with his people (not peoples) and it is ratified by the sign of circumcision, the cutting away.

In Genesis 15:9-18, Abram brought animals to God, cut in two, and God passed a smokepot between the halves. This was a vivid visual demonstration of the curse of violating the covenant, the cutting away.

One Covenantal People God has now established his covenant with Abraham. How does that affect us? Abraham was Jewish; we are not. We must now rigorously adhere to what we learned earlier, that scripture interprets scripture, with the apostles as our guides. Remember, we began by discussing God's relationship with his people and we traced that relationship from Seth to Christ. One genealogical line. The seed of the woman was initially Seth, but through this godly lineage Christ arose. In Genesis 15:18 the covenant is with Abraham's seed, not seeds. (compare Gal 3: 16) In Genes is 1 7 circumcis ion is asign of covenant ratification and identifies covenant people, Christ's people. (Phil 3:2-3, Col 2:11-12, GaI3:29) In Isaiah 41:8-9,42:1-6 and 45:40 there is a transition from nation to person. Israel is the Lord's servant and that servant is a person. (Mt 2:15) Consider Acts 7:38.

Stephen, in his address to the Sanhedrin, refers to 12

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Israel as the "church in the wilderness." Now, if there was such a sharp distinction in the minds of the apostles between Israel and the Church, why didn't Luke add some editorial footnote to this verse explaining that distinction? Why isn't there an attempt to ensure that Luke's readers wouldn't confuse or identify the two?

The complement to Acts 7:38 is Galatians 6:15.

In Galatians, Paul is attempting to correct the Judaizer heresy by arguing there is no ~eason for the Church to keep Old Testament ceremonial law, especially circumcision. He concludes by saying "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God." (Gal 6:15-16) Here Paul identifies the Church as the Israel of God. There are other ways in which the New Testament writers point to the unity between the Church and Israel. In Psalm 77:20, the Psalmist calls Israel "a flock"; Paul uses the same term in reference to the Church. (Acts 20:28-29) Isaiah calls the "great comforter" a shepherd over Israel. (Is 40: 11) Jesus calls himself the good shepherd over his sheep in John 10:21. In Deuteronomy 7:6 Israel is called a holy, chosen people. Peter uses the same references for the Church in 1 Peter 2:9-10. And finally, when Israel is engaged in apostasy, Israel is viewed by God as adulterous (Hos 1, 2; Is 1:21) because the Church is the bride of Christ. (Rv 21:2, Eph 5:25) There is ample evidence, if scripture is allowed to interpret itself, to demonstrate the unity of Israel and the Church as God's one and only people throughout the ages. Let's conclude by examining two passages of scripture. In Jeremiah 31:33-34 the prophet writes, "I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people ....For they shall know me, from the least to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

This was written while Jeremiah was in the midst of a rebellious nation. Still, he saw a day when Israel would be restored to God. In Hebrews 8:8-12 the writer of the epistle applies the very words ofJermiah to the Church! Jeremiah was correct: Israel was restored to God. This old covenant that Jeremiah speaks of is seen as inferior and to be replaced by the mediator of a new and better covenant-Christ. This is made possible by the sufficient sacrifice of Christ.

There is no longer any reason to expect a reinstitution of the temple sacrificial system (Ezekiel 40-48 as

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interpreted by Dispensationalists) because Christ's sacrifice and institution of the New Covenant makes the old covenant obsolete! Christ is the true temple.

(Compare Is 2:2-4 and Mi 4:1-3 with Mt 12:6, In 2:19-22 and R v 21 :22.) He is the true vine. (Compare Jer 2:20-21, Ez 17:1-10 and Hos 10:1 with In 15.)

Finally, Romans 9:1-13 should resolve any further difficulty we have with the question at hand. Paul wants to make certain that no one assumes he has become anti~semitic (v. 1-3). He points out that Israel has a great and glorious heritage (v. 4-5) and that even the Messiah of all nations descends from them (v. 5). But there is concern on the part of the Apostle, because the very people who have all these blessings have rejected the Messiah who came for them. But this rejection is not total because the true Israel is seen in Isaac. Not all who are of Israel are of Israel, only the children of the promise (v. 6-8). Paul is speaking of two lineages, the physical descendants of Abraham's seed who are not the true Israel (v. 7), and the spiritual descendants of Abraham's seed through Isaac, who are the true Israel. These are the receivers of promise, not those who are physical descendants of Abraham, but spiritual descendants (v. 8). This is clearly manifested in the way God chose his children-before they were born (v. 11).

God chose Jacob over Esau while the former was still in the womb. There was nothing impinging upon God's decision; not current social custom, not coercion, not physical lineage-nothing; it was purely by sovereign grace (v. 11). There is a reason for rejoicing in the future salvation of Israel, because the true Israel, of the spiritual heritage of Isaac will be saved. (Rom 11:25-26) We see now quite clearly, that scripture, when allowed to interpret itself, presents a single spiritual seed of Abraham. (Gen 15:18; Gal 3:16, 19, 29) Once separated from the promises, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, foreigners form the covenants.

Gentiles are now grafted into the true vine, made partakers of the blessings, no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's single, unified people. (Rom 11:11-36, Eph 2:11-21) There is no advantage based on genetics or ethnic heritage. This is the people of God providentially protected throughtout all of redemptive history. These are the inheritors of the promises of glory-the Church, the Israel of God. t Paul Castellano is a graduate of CSU Long Beach and Westminster Theological Seminary in Escondido, CA. He is a member of the Anglican Church in America and will soon begin doctrinal studies at the University of Munich.

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IJl()(/e '"II REFORMATI()N

Corporate Worship

here is a growing trend among adherents of the Church Growth movement to treat the church as just another business. It should come as no surprise, then, that a recent Wall Street Joumal (WSJ) article discusses the latest developments of this trend, the megachurch.

This trend is not an aberration based on misapplication of Church Growth principles, but the logical extension of these principles. The successful church, as measured by the Church Growth adherents, is a thoroughly Americanized vision of success. The successful church is a growing church-more programs, more people. If your church is not growing you must be doing something wrong. Maybe you haven't analyzed your market well enough, or you need to invest more time, people, and money into your efforts. Church Growth materials always speak in investment language. For example, I remember being taught in Church Growth classes that on the average it takes six visits with a prospective member to get him to your church. Another example is the way they interpret the parable of the sower-which we'll look at later-in terms of focusing efforts on the good soil. The implication of both examples is that if you invest x amount of people, time and money into a high,yield,opportunity prospective member, you'll produce y number of church members. It's almost an economic formula. The Reformers well knew, and we'll see later, too, that this is not the biblical view of the successful church.

In their book, Ten Steps For Church Growth, Donald McGavran and Win Am advise that in our efforts to build the church "we must act as though we alone were responsible and pray as though God alone were responsible." This schizophrenic view of the great commission ends up throwing everything onto our efforts. Following this advice, the church profiled in the WSJ article sent out groups to study the success of secular firms such as IBM, Xerox, and Disney. The

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result is a church modeled after the secular, American business world. Now there's nothing wrong with the business world as such, but it's hardly the biblical model for the church.

A Consumer Oriented Church Another business strategy advocated by Church Growth adherents is the marketing of the church. In the business world this means finding out what the consumer wants and then tailoring your product and approach to fill that want. For those who follow Church Growth principles this is no less true for the church than for other businesses.

How is this accomplished? First of all, by offering all sorts of activities at the church that have nothing to do with its reason for being. For our "megachurch," this means weight lifting facilities, aerobics classes, a pool hall, a restaurant, and Broadway,style shows.

The church is supposed to be in the world but not of the world, but evangelicals, like the Pharisees before them who thought the best way to avoid taking the Lord's name in vain was never to say it at all, think they can escape even being in the world by turning the church into a substitute for it.

The second way Church Growth seeks to get people to "buy into the product" is by removing everything that is distinctive about the church and tailoring the message to appeal to narcissistic consumers. Worship is replaced by entertainment; preaching of the gospel by a series of pop,psychology pep,talks. They are, according to the WSJ article, "stripped of most of the old hymns, liturgy and denominational dogma that tend to bore the video generation." Timing is all important for these consumers who expect instant gratification. They'll squeeze some time for worshiping God into their schedules, as long as they don't have to miss anything else. Therefore, services run with split,second timing.

An associate pastor at the church profiled says he was "chided once for exhorting his audience to 'raise your hands up'-the redundant 'up' slowed the service by a vital second." And what is the purpose of all this?

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To create, as the senior pastor of this church says, a place "that a totally godless, secular person can come to ... and not feel threatened." One mart admitted that he attends this church in hopes of finding a date.

How different this is from what the Reformers, following the Scriptures, saw as the purpose of the church.

Church Growth and the Reformers It is often asserted that Church Growth principles and techniques are independent of any theological system. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Upon analysis, Church Growth turns out to be based upon certain assumptions about such things as the interpretation of scripture, the purpose of preaching, and the nature and purpose of the church. Let's look at these one at a time.

Scriptures: Revelation or Instruction Manual?

Like many evangelicals, Church Growth adherents / see the Scriptures as a book of principles and examples for us to follow. When an evangelical reads the Gospels, for instance, he usually reads an account of an event in Christ's life and interprets it to be Christ showing him what he should do in similar situations. He sees Christ as an example, and instead of finding Christ in the Old Testament, he succeeds in finding Moses in the Gospels. As with Roman Catholicism, Christ has become the new lawgiver. In like manner, McGavran and Am state that, the "New Testament is a series of Church Growth Documents.... [it was] written by Church Growth people to Church Growth people to help the church grow," and they state further that "as the scripture is read through Church Growth eyes, one discovers that it bubbles with Church Growth information, illustrations, principles, and priorities."

The parable of the sower is a typical example of how they use this method and misinterpret scripture. In the parable, a sower sows his seed on various soils.

The seed produces various results, with only the good soil producing a crop. The Church Growth materials

tell us that the point of this passage is that we should focus our efforts on the good soil, since that is obviously what the sower did the next time. However, in both Matthew and Luke, Jesus explains this parable, and strangely, he doesn't say anything about focusing our efforts on the good soil. Like the seed, the power is in the Word itself, not in the soil it lands on. The point of the parable is that we are to scatter the seed everywhere possible and let the Word take its course. If we were to focus our efforts solely on people who appear receptive (the good soil), much missionary work would go undone, for there are many groups that are incredibly hostile to the gospel.

In contrast, the Reformers recognized that the Scriptures are about Christ and his work on our behalf. Christ is everywhere in the Scriptures. (See Jn 5:39 and Lk 24:27.) The Old Testament points forward to him, telling us / what he would do for us.

The Gospels show him to us as he accomplishes all for our salvation. When we read of Christ doing something in the Gospels, the point is not to show us what we should do, but rather, to show us how Christ fulfilled the law in our place, because we could not. The epistles look back to Christ and his work so that we may be confident of our salvation.

For the Reformers, the Scriptures are not God's instruction book, but rather, revelation of what he did to save us.

Preaching: Conversion or Advice Column?

The operative word for the Church Growth movement, as it pertains to preaching, is "relevance."

People have problems with their families, marriages, jobs, and finances; they want to know how to improve themselves. The answer, according to Church Growth advocates, is sermons on these topics. Church, goers hunger to hear any plan for self, improvement.

What they do not want to hear, and what Church Growth style preaching avoids, is exactly what the Reformers knew was central to biblical preaching: the law and the gospel.

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The Reformers knew that preaching of th~ law and the gospel is the essence of sound preaching. The law tells men exactly what they don't want to hear.

They are sinful, alienated from their God, and cannot do anything to change this situation. Rather than creating a place "that a totally godless, secular person can come to ... and not feel threatened," the Law terrifies men. It drives them to despair, to make them run to the cross. Th~re the Gospel proclaims that God has saved them solely by the death of Christ, apart from anything they can do. Biblical preaching is not an advice column from the pulpit, but preaching of the finished work of Christ for sinful men. There is nothing more relevant to men's lives.

The Body of Christ or 12-Step Group?

By now, we have a clear picture of Church Growth adherents' view of the church. The church is just another organization in the world. The church is a business or a product to be marketed and, as we saw earlier, it has to "get people to buy into the product." To do this, Church Growth proponents examine society to see what people like. Then they adopt practices that conform to society. The homogeneous church is a result of this principle.

The Church Growth leaders tell us that it is a sociological fact that people feel most comfortable around people like themselves. Realizing this, they tell us we should target certain groups according to our community's make,up. If the community consists primarily ofwhite, upper, class families with children, earning six,figure incomes, we should focus our efforts on creating a church where they will feel comfortable.

There is a problem with this. Granted, sociologically speaking, people feel most comfortable around others like themselves. The Church Growth people fail to ask why this is the case, and more important, what should be the church's response to that. If we conclude that being alienated from both God and each other is the result of man's sinful condition, then maybe the church's response should be heterogeneity. In Ephesians 2: 14 isn't this the point of Paul's comments about Christ breaking down the dividing wall between us? It's odd that, while Church Growth adherents are so fond of looking at the example of the early church, they completely miss this. The picture of the early church is one of ever increasing inclusiveness. There are rich and poor, male and female, slave and free, Jew and Gentile together in each congregation. It's hard to imagine two groups with less in common than the 16

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Jews and Gentiles and yet, they were together because in Christ there are no longer these divisions amongst us. If they had followed Church Growth principles we might have two churches today, a Jewish church and a Gentile church.

When we examine the purpose of the church as envisioned by Church Growth, we find a practice that is common with most evangelical churches.

With its myriad programs for every conceivable group, the purpose of the church becomes everything.

It's a support group for single mothers, a place where singles can mingle, a baby,sitter, a men's club, and, with its various Bible studies on every possible problem, it resembles a 12.,step self,help group more than anything else.

How different is the biblical view of the church's purpose; the Reformers' view. In the section on Ministry, Word, and Sacraments in his Enchridion (a training manual for young pastors, in the form of questions and answers), Martin Chemnitz says, "the Holy Spirit is efficacious and works in [the church] through the Word and Sacraments in such a way that he calls, enlightens, converts, and sanctifies and preserves those who are saved, namely so that they repent, believe in Christ, and bear fruits worthy of repentance." (Acts 26:20) This is the church's purpose. The church is singularly concerned with the salvation of sinners. Nothing ministers to their needs more than applying the righteousness of Christ to their lives.

The Truly Successful Church If the marks of the successful church are not to be found in the number of programs it has, or how many people it has, what then are the marks of the successful church? To answer this question it is necessary to note what are the marks of the true church. As the Reformers rightly understood, if the church's purpose is the salvation of sinners, then the marks of the church are that the Word of God is rightly taught and the sacraments are rightly administered. It is through these means that the gospel comes to sinners. Therefore, the marks of the successful church are the marks of the church, for no matter if the church is large or small, if the Word of God is rightly taught and the Sacraments rightly administered, then it is fulfilling its God,ordained reason for being. "And the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." t Rich Gilbert is the former director of Research for CURE. He is a graduate of Christ College Irvine and he is a member of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church.

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TV Church

II

hat is the "electronic church"? If you turn on your TV, you will find a variety of religious broadcasting, from Roman Catholic masses to traditional Presbyterian services to charismatic talk shows. Some of these programs are rather amateurish broadcasts of local worship services. Others are sophisticated and expensive programs syndicated all over the world. Some of these programs are produced by honest, earnest people trying to be helpful to others. Others seem to have questionable messages and methods. All these programs are part of the electronic church.

Usually, "electronic church" is used to refer to those programs distributed beyond a single local area and supported ¡by the contributions of viewers. For the purposes of this article, the "electronic church" will refer to any TV broadcast that becomes a central part of the religious practice of its viewers.

My concern here is to argue that the electronic church at its best can only be a religious supplement in the life of the Christian. There are indeed many useful supplements for Christians today, including Christian bookstores, radio stations, and a host of local, national and international organizations for various educational, evangelistic and welfare goals.

But the purpose of this article is to maintain that all those supplements must remain subordinate to and supportive of the Christian's commitment to the local church.

The necessity of the local church is clearly taught in Scripture and is indispensable for the Christian life. Before we critique the idea of an "electronic church," we should understand the nature of the institutional church.

The Institutional Church God has a great redemptive purpose in the world.

He intends to save a people from the judgement and wrath to come and has sent his son, Jesus, into the world to fulfill all righteousness and to die for sinners

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that such people might be redeemed. God's saving work, however, is not concerned with individuals in isolation. Rather, God is redeeming a people whom he calls the body of Christ, the church: "And God placed all things under Oesus'] feet and appointed him to be head over everything in every way."

What is this church about which the scriptures speak so highly? In the Bible, the word "church" is used two ways. The first meaning refers to the universal church-all believers in all times who are united to each other and reconciled to God by their union with Christ. The second usage refers to the institutional expressions of that universal church.

Many Christians today seem to assume that all God requires is a relationship to the universal church that occurs automatically for the believer. In other words, it is often said that "the church is people."

Belonging to the church means belonging to Christ, not to an institution. That, however, is not true. The Bible is clear that Christians are also required to be part of the institutional church's life, particularly the life of the local church, which God himself has brought into being and structured by his Word.

God's structuring of the local church began with the apostles. Jesus chose from among his disciples twelve apostles. (Lk 6:12-16) He sent them like the prophets of old to preach God's Word. (Lk 11:49) These apostles-specially chosen leaders who had been eyewitnesses to Jesus' life (Acts 1:21-25)­ become the foundation of the life of the new church, and their teachings were authoritative for the church.

The apostles were not the only officers appointed in the earliest church. In Ephesians 4: 11 there is mention of pastors and teachers, and in Acts 14:23 the Apostle Paul is described appointing elders in each church he founded. In 1 Timothy 3 Paul gives qualifications for the offices of overseer and deacon.

It is clear that the apostles themselves established two or three officers as continuing positions of leadership and authority in the life of the church.

Those officers have important responsibilities for the Christian community given to them by the Lord

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through the apostles. Look, for example, at the solemn charge Paul gave to the Ephesian elders concerning their care for the church at Ephesus.

Elders are to guard the flock as a shepherd protects the sheep from the wolves. (Acts 20:28-29) They have hard work to do to protect the weak. (Acts 20:35) The danger is real, sometimes from within the church itself. The officers of the church are able to nip false teaching in the bud because of their official role in the church.

The care Christ and the apostles took to provide us with officers and an institutional church should make a great impression on us. Christ and his apostles established an institutional church to help us in our need and weakness. Elders are appointed for our sakes, and we need to submit ourselves to their authority in the local church if we are to be obedient to the Lord and his vision of the Christian life.

Submission to elders is tied to church membership.

Some people object to the idea that Christians must be church members, suggesting that such a requirement is unbiblical. But surely Christ established eldership in his church. Elders are necessary to teach and admonish and discipline us. But how can elders carry out that work unless we submit to them? What is church membership but to join our local congregation and submit to the elders' authority?

Sometimes even elders are not infallible. Indeed, they have, from time to time, been known to leave the faith entirely. But the fact that some elders are unreliable does not eliminate our responsibility to find godly elders and submit to them.

The subject of the authority of pastors and elders, and church membership, is closely related to the matter of church discipline. Discipline is not a popular topic in America today. Parents may talk regretfully of a lack of discipline among the young, but many parents are short on willingness to insist on

discipline at home or to support it in the schools.

Adults often fail to discipline themselves. Think of the misuse of drugs or alcohol, the high divorce rate, and irresponsibility on the job, to name only a few.

In such a society, church discipline has almost disap, peared. Churches often are so eager to attract people that they make very few demands upon them.

But the Bible teaches the importance of a disciplined church life. After all, the church is a hospital for sinners. Its members are going to continue sinning, even though they are Christians. They need the support and discipline ofolder and wiser Christians as they mature in their faith. Setting aside responsibility in the interest of independence is no more healthful for growing Christians than for growing children.

Of course, there is Christian liberty, and the church cannot command the conscience where Christ has freed it.

Nevertheless it can and must care for the flock in the way its Chief Shepherd has prescribed.

Jesus taught that when informal attempts to handle problems among

Christians have failed, the church must proceed

formally, even to the point of expelling someone

, from the church. (Mt 18:15-,-18) There are examples of this in the N ew Testament. (1 Cor 5: 1-7, 2 Thes 3:14-15) The hope in such discipline is to restore the sinner to the Lord and to the church by repentance.

(2 Cor 2:5-8) But if that does not happen, at least the church has been protected and purified from scandalous and unrepentant behavior.

Many people do not like the idea of a disciplined

church. They believe they should be able to do

whatever is right in their own eyes. Such an attitude

reflects the militant individualism of our society. But

it does not reflect Christ's teaching about the life of

his church. Proper discipline by the officers of the

church is necessary for the well,being of individual

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Christians as well as for the church as a whole. Such discipline can take place only in the context of membership in a local church.

Christ's structuring of the church is not limited to offices and discipline. Christ also directs the church as to its life and worship. From its earliest days after Pentecost, the church gathered with eagerness and devotion. (Acts 2:42) When some became negligent in worship and fellowship, a stem warning

seminaries. They have wanted well, educated pastors who could responsibly teach them the Scriptures.

Is the teaching of the Bible one area where the electronic church can do the job of the local church?

Surely television can provide instruction in the Bible. But it would be a good test to measure on any given religious broadcast how much time is actually spent in preaching or teaching the Bible. On too many programs, entertainment and fund,raising greatly

On too many programs, entertainment and fund~raising greatly diminish the time spent in God's Word.

was issued: "Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching." (Heb 10:25) This warning stresses Christian worship as one source of the encouragement needed to lead the Christian life faithfully.

The Worshiping Community Space does not permit a full look at the teaching in the New Testament on the way in which the church should worship. But it is essential to reflect on one text that relates worship to the priority of the local chruch. That text is Acts 2:41-42: "Those who accepted [Peter's] message were baptized and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." This text promotes at least four elements of worship: the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the sacraments, and prayer.

The Apostles' Teaching The first element is the apostles' teaching. Those early believers had the opportunity to hear the apostles themselves as they taught and directed the lives of the new converts and those growing into Christian maturity. Today the church finds the teaching of the apostles faithfully recorded in the Bible. It is in the study and preaching of the Bible that the contemporary church has access to that authoritative teaching of the apostles. That is why, historically, the reading and preaching of the Word of God has been such an important part of Christian worship. That is also why Christians have devoted so much time and energy to establishing colleges and 20

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diminish the time spent in God's Word.

Even if the Bible is taught on a TV program, how is the listener to evaluate the reliability of what is taught? There are many programs that undermine or reject the teachings of the believer's local church.

Many televangelists mock the institutional church­ it is clear that cynicism is the dominant attitude toward the institutional church among many leading televangelists. There are also programs where outright heresy is taught under the name "Christianity." Who monitors and evaluates these programs and their teaching? How can the Christian be sure that what is taught is not blatantly or subtly undermining the faith? Surely it is the responsibility of the local church and its officers to ensure that God's people are fed apostolic truth. Once again we see the necessity of the local church and how, at best, the TV church can only supplement the local church's ministry.

Even if the electronic church gives good time to reliable teaching of the Word, it still cannot effectively fill the shoes of the local church. The church can see to the pastoral preaching of the Word-the teaching of Scripture applied to the particular needs of the local group of believers. However faithful a televangelist may be, he cannot know the special direction that a particular local church may need to take, in the way a faithful pastor can. The encouragement to good works of which Hebrews 10 speaks takes place uniquely in the local community.

Devotion to the apostles' teaching best takes place in the local church.

Fellowship The second element mentioned in Acts 2 is fellowship. The word "fellowship" here is koinonia,

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which means sharing in common. It means being together and participating together in various concerns and activities. It means hearing and responding to the Word together. It means supporting one another in prayer. I t means sharing financial resources to provide for the poor and to accomplish the work of the church. The central form of fellowship is found in the public worship of God. As we join our voices, hearts, ears and ¡minds together, fellowship takes place in the highest degree.

Can the electronic church provide such fellowship? At first glance, some may think so. People from all around the country are united in hearing the same songs and sermons. TV as a medium seems to be personal, immediate, intimate. The speaker can seem close and concerned. But is this really the fellowship that our text describes? There is no human contact with fellow believers. The TV preacher cannot possibly meet his viewers on a personal, immediate, intimate level, since he has no personal contact with them. Once again, TV may supplement the fellowship of the church, but it cannot be a substitute for it.

Paul gave careful direction to a church on how this sacrament must be observed for spiritual benefit. (1 Cor 10, 11) Can the electronic church administer the sacraments? Some TV ministers readily admit that they cannot administer Holy Communion over the airwaves. There certainly can be no proper supervision of the sacraments over television, nor can there be genuine fellowship. After reading the apostle's warnings in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, I cannot imagine any evangelist having the courage to offer the Holy Supper via television. Yet Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, and Paul Crouch are among those who have offered Communion over the airwaves. In fact, Roberts has sent packets of Communion wafers to his donors to be taken during a telecast. This is sacrilege!

Most TV preachers either implicitly or explicitly minimize and trivialize the importance of the sacraments. But the Scriptures make baptism and the Lord's Supper indispensable to any church, and without them such a ministry is incomplete. Again we see the necessity of the local church.

Is it genuine intercessory prayer for a preacher to put his hands on

thousands of cards and just ask God to grant those requests?

The Sacraments The sacraments constitute the third element. For many Christians today, the sacraments are not a central, vital part of Christian life. They may believe that the sacraments are peripheral to Christianity, but if they want to be biblical, they must hold the sacraments in high esteem. The Bible clearly makes the sacraments an important, even necessary, element of Christian experience.

Luke tells us, for example, that when Peter finished his Pentecost sermon, his listeners asked what they had to do to be saved. Peter gave a two' fold answer: "Repent and be baptized." (Acts 2:38) The apostles regularly linked the inner response of faith and repentance to the outward act of baptism as the beginning of the Christian life.

The brief summary of Christian devotion in Acts 2:42 includes "the breaking ofbread." That expression can mean nothing more than having a meal together, but in this reliable context it surely means the unique breaking of bread that Christians share in the Lord's Supper. When our Lord instituted the Supper, he commanded the church: "Do this." (Lk 22:17-20)

Prayer The final element mentioned in Acts 2 is prayer.

All Christians recognize the importance of prayer, of personal and corporate communication with God. Prayer is one way in which the Christian cultivates a living relationship with God. In the worship at the local church, significant time is spent in prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and intercession.

Can the electronic church lead Christians in prayer? There is again the problem of what it means to pray with a videotape. There is also the problem of how such prayer can be personal and particular.

Some programs have tried to solve that problem by having viewers send in cards with prayer requests.

But is it genuine intercessory prayer for a preacher to put his hands on thousands of cards and just ask God to grant those requests? That is not true prayer.

Further, since all believers are priests, there is more benefit in having a fellow Christian intercede personally on one's behalf than to send a card to a preacher. A TV celebrity preacher is no closer to God than one's Christian neighbor. In fact, quite the contrary conclusion might sometimes be drawn.

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Beyond the problems of praying over television is the question of how much time is spent in prayer on TV programs. In reality, very little effort is given to prayer on TV because prayer is not the kind of activity (entertainment?) that broadcasts well.

Once again we see that prayer that carefully, thoughtfully, and intimately communicates with God is not possible on TV, but is part of the ministry of the local church.

The Attractive Church If the biblical case for the local church is so strong, why are so many people attracted to the electronic church? The TV church is so attractive 22

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because it fits many of America's cultural characteristics. It serves America's search for the easy, the individualistic, and the interesting.

Easy The electronic church is easy . It requires no more effort than turning on the TV. It does not require the discipline of getting dressed, driving somewhere, and arriving on time. Since some religious broadcasts are available at many different times throughout the week, one is not required to set aside Sunday as the day of worship. Almost any time will do. There is no pressure to attend meetings or to undertake any of the tasks necessary to maintain a local church.

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In many ways "easy'" can also mean shallow: It's easy to grasp the music and message of the electronic church because it is so shallow. The tunes are often insipid, and the lyrics are usually centered on human emotions rather than on divine attributes and actions (which inspire genuinely human emotions). The message does not often stimulate the mind to reflect on anything profound. Immediate emotion rather than gradual growth in grace seems to be its goal.

The easy church is often the undisciplined church. The pursuit of genuine holiness is a life, long, arduous task. It is not easy. Holiness easily attained is easily lost. Religion that feeds immediate emotional gratification will encourage immediate gratification of other appetites as well. Financial and sexual scandals are the logical outcomes of such religion.

Individualistic The electronic church is individualistic. America, especially since the 60's, has greatly stressed the rights and prerogatives of the individual. Linked to that concern for the individual has come a distrust of institutions. Institutions are often seen as the bastion of hypocrisy, bureaucracy, and opposition to the Lndividual's freedom. The church has doctrines and ethical requirements and services that interfere with the individual's freedom of thought and action. The electronic church provides an ideal alternative. The viewer says, "I can watch the show that says what I want to hear and that encourages (or at least tolerates by its silence) my life,style. I do not have to participate in any genuinely human communal life.

I can just do my own thing."

Interesting The electronic church is interesting. Perhaps the most .common charge brought against the local church is that it is boring. The TV church, by contrast, is fast,paced, exciting, and engaging. It has attractive people and personalities, professional music and effective communicators.

Probably the single word that most viewers believe best describes the broadcasts is "inspirational."

But what does it mean to be "inspired"? It is a feeling of being moved religiously. What determines the genuineness of inspiration? What separates inspiration from entertainment? Perhaps the dividing line can be described this way: Genuine inspiration is an emotional response to a genuine encounter with the living God. Inspiration, therefore, is not an end in itself or even something we should seek. It is rather a result of seeking and meeting God in his way.

Inspiration is the result of something profoundly God,centered. Entertainment is profoundly man, centered. In entertainment one looks for pleasure.

Entertainment emotionally gratifies the viewer.

Whether it pleases God may be quite a secondary matter. Error can inspire. It can make people feel good, though it displeases and angers God. The electronic church too often is in the entertainment, not inspiration, business. One is more likely to meet and be moved by singers and personalities than by God. To mask the quality of their programs with the ambiguous term inspiration is dishonest.

One of the great tragedies of our time is that so many local churches are choosing to try to copy the electronic church. Many local churches are seeking to be attractive by emulating some of the easy, individualistic, and interesting features of the electronic church. This strategy is self,defeating because usually the local church cannot cannot match the professional production and slick graphics of television. But more important, the strategy dishonors God by failing to be what he wants the local church to be.

The local church will fail to teach in depth, or discipline, or spend time in prayer. It will lose touch with the great hymns of praise. It may adopt a style of worship that contradicts the reverence before God that scripture commands. (Heb 12:28) The local church is a divine institution that has fallen on hard times, and it must once again learn to devote the greatest care to pleasing God and serving him according to his Word.

The Successful Church Frequently, the electronic church is defended on the basis that it is, after all, successful. That attitude is a beautiful summary of American pragmatism, but it must not be applied to religion. Truth ¡ is not established by majority vote, and the religion with the largest number of adherents is not necessarily true. It is especially ironic when Protestants accept such pragmatism, since on that basis we should all be Roman Catholics.

Yet, the argument often runs, the electronic church is not just successful in terms of numbers of viewers and funds raised, but is also successful in evangelism. For many Christians that is the ultimate test of success. Is not the great commission of our Lord (Mt 28:18-20) a charge that makes evangelism the most important responsibility of all Christians?

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actually converted, however, is difficult to determine.

It seems that most of the viewers of televangelism already consider themselves Christians. On a purely pragmatic basis, one might ask if the millions of dollars spent of TV time and production costs could produce more effective results if they were invested in home and foreign missions. Someone might respond by saying that without television those millions would not have been raised. That my be true. But if it is true, it probably means that money was raised more by entertainment than out of genuine concern for evangelism. And that brings us back to the basic question of what the electronic church is really all about.

It is not enough, however, to examine these questions from a purely pragmatic point of view.

Again, we must ask about the biblical guidelines.

What does the great commission really say? It certainly begins with a challenge: "Go!" Christians need always to be reminded of their responsibility to look beyond the saving message of Jesus Christ. But in their "going," Christians are not just to evangelize­ if by "evangelize" we mean some minimal communication about Jesus and some minimal response. Our Lord said we are to "make disciples."

We are to lead people into life, long commitment to learn from and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The electronic church cannot make the personal contact necessary to discipleship.

The great commission itself specifies what the discipleship entails. It first mentions "baptizing them."

The initial phase of instruction in the gospel and response with faith and repentance culminates in baptism in the missionary setting. Baptism represents not only the promise of God to wash away sin, but the sinner's commitment to look to Jesus alone as his Savior. Baptism is a public break with the old life.

For many Americans, the drama and central importance of baptism may seem foreign to their experience. But they should listen to the missionaries' stories from places where it is fine to "believe" whatever you want about Jesus as long as you are not baptized. Once baptized, however, family, friends and perhaps the government see you as one who has rejected his own religion and culture. Baptism is a powerful testimony to the unique claims of Jesus to be the Way, the Truth and Life. One is not truly a disciple, is not truly evangelized, until that kind of commitment. Evangelism includes incorporation into the church.

Second, The great commission specifies that making disciples involves "teaching them to obey 24

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everything I have commanded you." (Mt 28:20) Here again we see nothing minimal about genuine evangelism. Evangelism is not a matter of rousing songs and repetitious, but empty, references to Jesus.

Our Lord wants us to be carefully and deeply instructed, and he wants us to seek to be obedient in all things.

The electronic church cannot fulfill the great commission. At the very best it can provide some assistance to the local church. The electronic church must be secondary to the local church in the interest and support of Christians. It is the local church that can and must fulfill the great commission.

Conclusion The danger posed by the TV church is two'fold.

The first is that it threatens to replace the local church as the central focus of religious life for many people. Such a threat is serious because it is the local church that has been established by Jesus Christ as the center of the religious life of his people.

The second danger is even more serious. Since the electronic church will not and cannot do all that Christ commissioned the local church to do, the TV church as one's sole church will teach a religion that is sub,Christian. The electronic church will be sub, Christian in doctrine because, even if the doctrine is not wrong (though it often is), it will surely be incomplete. What is not entertaining or commercially appealing will be ignored. And the electronic church will be sub,Christian in ethics, since it will not be a disciplined church.

The danger televangelism poses is also an opportunity for all Christians and local churches for examination. Churches that have failed in teaching, or in worship, or in outreach or hospitality, should repent and, by God's grace, renew themselves for service. And Christians should realize that they must be more involved in the local church, reforming it and making it, by God's grace, what it should be.

Christians are the church, after all. It is to Christians in a local church that Paul said, "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." (1 Cor 12:27) t Dr. Robert Godfrey is president of Westminster Theological Seminary in California. The author of numerous articles, he is also the editor of Tbrougb Cbrist' s Word (Presbyterian and Reformed) and co,editor of Tbeonomy: A Reformed Critique (Zondervan). He is graduate of Stanford and Gordon School of Theology and he is ordained in the Christian Reformed Church.

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Finding A Church

Ow can l find a church where I will hear the Christ preached from his Word, without all the fluff and distractions? That is a question I have asked myself on so many occasions that it is easy to understand the concern and even frustration that accompanies the search for the right place to worship. First, it is important to recognize what the labels mean and don't mean.

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Reading Labels If you were raised in Europe, choosing a church might not be so difficult. After the Reformation, each denomination wasgiven its own "sphere," so that if you were born, for instance, in an Italian canton in Switzerland, you would be Roman Catholic, while a person born in French,speaking Geneva would probably be Protestant. Sometimes, whole nations (or the ruling monarch's family line) shared a common confession: The Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Church of Sweden, the Dutch Reformed Church, and so on.

When America became the haven for of groups that wanted to "start over" in the New World, bring the gospel to natives, and escape persecution in their state churches, many simply brought their Old World understanding ofregional state,churches. For instance, the New England Puritans established Congregationalism and barred Quakers and Roman Catholics from citizenship. This was actually more civil than the policy pursued in Europe at the time, where dissenters were arrested and even executed.

By the time our nation was founded, however, it was clear that there would be no officially state' sanctioned church for the American republic, but that Americans would be free to follow their consciences. This arrangement, with all its benefits, has nonetheless created a free,for,all in which denominations compete for souls. This freedom fueled the creation of hundreds of new sects and cults in the nineteenth century-everything from Mormonism, Christian Science and Jehovah's Witnesses to health,food cults, radical Pentecostal sects, and groups that drew their membership by

making predictions about end,times prophetic events.

The last two centuries have been an exercise in cafeteria,style spirituality, or what a friend in England calls free,enterprise religion. The issue is not so much truth, which ought to be defended and passed on, but "whatever works for you;" in other words, selecting a church is a matter of taste.

This explains the labels' origin. How do we read them? First, there are the traditional Protestant denominations that built and shaped most ofAmerica's institutions well into the twentieth century: the Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Reformed (Dutch, German, Hungarian, French), Episcopalians, Baptists, and Lutherans. The first major break in Protestantism came between the Lutherans and the Reformed, but all the other Protestant denominations (Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist) are part of the Reformed or Calvinistic family tree. In other words, they shared a common belief about God, humanity, Christ, salvation, and other essentials, but they differed on other important issues. For instance, Congregationalists believed that the churches should be independently governed by the congregation; Presbyterians argued that the New Testament word "presbyter," meaning "elder," implies a form of church government based on brother,elders in a given area ruling the churches, and the Episcopalians insisted that Paul used "presbyter" or "elder" interchangeably with episcopos, the word for "bishop." Historically, the form ofchurch government, and not disagreements over the way of salvation, has divided these churches.

In the 1800's revivalism and frontier individualism led to an explosion of cults and sects. Self,proclaimed "prophets" drew many people away from traditional Protestant churches and many of these are now established groups: the Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Cumberland Presbyterians, and a host of Pentecostal groups. Pietistic groups added divisions to the ranks. They came to believe traditional

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Protestantism lost its first love by emphasizing doctrine.

These includes the Brethren denominations, Free Churches (Evangelical Free, Evangelical Covenant, etc.), and a host of independent bible churches that were born over the last century and a half. Many of them officially adopted the dispensational theology of J. N. Darby by the mid,twentieth century.

Meanwhile, the traditional Protestant denominations themselves began to tolerate and then embrace the Enlightenment, with its belief in human goodness, natural explanations for everything, and the rejection of the need for divine intervention, revelation, or salvation. During the first half of the twentieth century, these "mainline" denominations experienced major schisms. This has contributed scores ofnew denominations to the religious landscape.

For instance, in the Presbyterian family alone, where there was once one Presbyterian Church in America, there are many: the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. (PCUSA), which is the largest and the "mainline" body; the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the largest of the groups separating over liberalism; the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), a very doctrinally conservative Calvinistic body which was the first group founded in the separation from the PCUSA; the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America (RPCNA), also known as the "Covenanters," with their roots in Scotland, consisting of those who believe that worship should be so determined by scripture that they do not have musical instruments; and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), which is committed to a less doctrinally defined position on the specifics ofreformed theology.

While there are many splits in American Protestantism, there is also a constant ecumenical drive to reunite divided churches, so long as there is a common orthodox faith. Many ofthe denominations just mentioned have merged with or received others in recent years.

The Reformed denominations are closely affiliated with the Presbyterian ones; in fact, the tradition is often called "the Reformed and Presbyterian tradition."

Many churches in Europe are part of the "regional churches" mentioned earlier. They have a different history-not because of doctrinal differences, but because they came from different ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and historical background? For instance, there is the Reformed Church in America (RCA), the oldest denomination in America, with its roots in the Dutch Reformed Church. The Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and the Korean Christian Reformed Churches are closely related, but often 26

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more theologically conservative. (By the way, there are more Reformed and Presbyterian Koreans in southern California, for example, than there are Caucasians; the KCRC is the strongest Protestant church in Korea.)

There are smaller ethnic churches, such as the Reformed Church in the United States (RCUS), with roots historically in the German Reformed Church. The RCUS refused to enter the United Church ofChrist, which was a mid,twentieth century attempt to unite Congregationalists and the Evangelical (Lutheran) and Reformed Church.

That brings us to the Lutheran family tree, which is considerably easier to explain. The largest Lutheran denomination is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the result of a merger of the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) and the American Lutheran Church (ALC). The second largest is the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, which is much more doctrinally confessional, that is, true to its confession of faith. The Wisconsin Synod is very conservative and generally committed to using the King James Version of the Bible.

With the exception of the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), which separated from the mainline denomination over creeping Roman Catholic, "high church" influences, Episcopalians in America, much like their counterparts in England, Canada, Africa and Asia enjoyed unity until recently. The growth of liberalism led to the formation of a "church within a church" called the Episcopal Synod of America, which is a non,geographical jurisdiction that would allow a traditional Anglican in Detroit to be ordained by an evangelical bishop in Dallas, if his Detroit bishop is a liberal churchman. This coalition is still within the mainline denomination, but meets separately and carries on its own activities. The group consists of traditional Anglicans who oppose liberalism and in most cases the ordination of women, and the group is a mixture of those who are low,church (evangelical) and high,church (Catholic) in their leanings.

Congregationalists generally do not have a confession of faith or catechism. Presbyterians use the Westminster Confession and the Shorter and Larger Catechisms; the Reformed use the "Three Forms of Unity"-the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of the Synod of Dort; Lutherans use the Book of Concord, which includes the Augsburg Confession, and they employ Luther's Smaller and Larger Catechisms; the Episcopalians have the Thirty,Nine Articles of NOVEMBERJDECEMBER 1993

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!node rll REFORMATION Religion for their confession. Each of these confessions and catechisms was written during or just after the Reformation. To the degree that a denomination or church judges its preaching, teaching, worship, and church life by these standards, it is "confessional."

Most mainline churches today either ignore their

confession or tolerate their ministers and officials to reject their official confession of faith. Many conservative evangelical off,shoots do the same, not from an outright rejection of sound teaching, so much as an apathy toward doctrine, creeds, confessions, and the catechetical instruction of youth. In both cases the result is the same: a generation of professing Christians that is unaware of its own beliefs enough to be able to question and search.

Be careful not to read labels too closely. For instance, although the United Church of Christ (not to be confused with the Churches of Christ or the Disciples of Christ) is the nation's most liberal denomination, judging by its avant,garde policy, making, it is possible to find a decent UCC parish in your neighborhood. In fact, it is possible that a PCUSA (mainline) congregation in the neighborhood might actually be more committed to the Reformation faith than a church that belongs to a more conservative evangelical branch of Presbyterianism.

You can't always judge a church by its name!

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Make Sure Your "Church" Is A Church Until this century, Christians of all types believed that there are true churches and false churches. Just because it says "church" over the door doesn't mean it is one. That is why the reformers drew from scripture two undeniable marks of the true church: It is where the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments are rightly administered.

To be sure, the reformers knew that this happens in varying degrees. For instance, even in a conservative Protestant church, one might be disappointed with the handling of a certain text. One might be absolutely convinced that the preacher was in error in his explanation. But that does not mean that an otherwise sound church should no longer be regarded as a true church. The reformers meant was that it had to be a church in which the clear preaching of the text focused on Christ's promise to save sinners. In other words, the preaching of the law and the gospel must characterize the diet in the local parish, if it is to be considered a true church. When a denomination or a church officially rejects the gospel or any essential teaching of the N icene Creed, it commits apostasy and is no longer part of the visible body of Christ. Individuals within it may be saved, but the congregation or denomination has officially severed itself from Christ's visible church. It is never right to leave a church for any other reason, aside from obvious providential considerations.

The second mark of a true church is that the sacraments are affirmed and employed alongside the Word as a means of grace. Traditionally, Reformed, Presbyterian and Lutheran Protestants have argued that "rightly administering the sacraments" surely entails infant baptism and the rejection of any view of the Lord's Supper which reduces it to a mere symbol or memorial. Again, this does not mean that people who disagree with this definition are not really Christians; it is a question of what properly constitutes a rightly ordered, visible church.

If a church fits these definitions, you may want to overlook other problems. When taste, rather than truth, is the criterion for choosing a church, people will place music style, programs, and children's activities at the top of the list. While I do not think it is necessarily wrong for these things to be on the list, they ought to be somewhere near the bottom in between parking availability and carpet color. The real issue is this: Is this a place where God and his revelation in Christ's person and work is clearly declared, and where people are serious about growing in Christ through Word, sacrament, prayer,

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evangelism, and missions? Is this a place where my children will be trained in addition to the instruction they will receive in the home? Will they grow up hearing the gospel?

Down To Brass Tacks: What Do You Ask The Pastor?

If you can't judge a church by its label, how can you judge it? Here are some questions to ask the pastor: 1. What is the church's view of scripture? Is it infallible, "the only rule for faith and practice," as many of the statements of faith put it?

2. What is the church's confession of faith?

Where does this particular minister stand on it and is it the criterion for the teaching and preaching of God's Word? If you really get "lucky," you might even find a church that still uses its catechism. A confession of faith is not equal to scripture, but it does set forth what the church body believes God's Word teaches and expects us to know. A catechism is simply a means of instruction about that confession of faith, usually through a question and answer approach, with biblical texts supporting each answer. In many confessionally consistent denominations, one may find Sunday school curricula that follow a person all of the way from pre,school age to the twilight years.

This is important, because it organizes our thoughts about God and reading of Scripture into a coherent, clear, and systematic whole.

3. Is God the audience in the service, or are we?

In other words, who is there to be entertained? Do we participate, or is all of the worship done by the professionals-special music, the choir, and the clergy?

4. Is Jesus Christ proclaimed as a moral hero or as redeemer? In other words, is he made to sound like Freud, Ben Franklin, a politician, and an end,times seer, or is the preaching concerned with "Christ and him crucified," as Paul put it?

that God calls us to hold our churches and denominations accountable to their own confession.

So long as this remains the official confession offaith, it is assumed that everyone in the ministry of that denomination agrees with its articles. If not, the individual ministers who, with their mouth, vow to preserve the confession are in fact doing the very opposite and are therefore dishonest. You are not the one who has to leave, because you are being faithful to the church's confession of faith and until the denomination officially repudiates that confession, you are certainly free to remain in it in order to bring it back to a practical confidence in that faith.

Many readers may be part ofnon'denominational church that do not have a formal statement of faith.

How can you hold your minister to the preaching and teaching of the evangelical message if, by his own reading of scripture, he is convinced of another interpretation, no matter how strange? This is a more difficult situation. Very likely, such. a non, denominational congregation is not even a true church at all. If the Word is not correctly preached,

If You M u st Leave Reformation Christians don't throw the baby out with the bath water in their rejection of the errors of Romanism. We still have a high doctrine of the church, and that is what makes it exceedingly difficult to leave a church or denomination that is corrupt. Often it is difficult to decide when the time comes to separate. If a local congregation departs from the faith, is it legitimate to stay on to try to change it, so long as the official confession of faith has not yet been finally rejected? I believe it is, and

that is, a clear affirmation of the essential beliefs, and the sacraments are not correctly administered, with the ministers being accountable to someone besides themselves and their admirers, it is not a true church.

Abandoning a sect is not only tolerable, but necessary.

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gathering ofbelievers is not biblically minded enough to call itself a "church," and does not wish to think in that direction, the wisest move would be to prayerfully search out a church that is trying, feebly or faithfully, to be a true church. Whatever you do, resist the temptation-and it will be great-to abandon or reduce your attendance at church. This

in the body of Christ, which is the church. God says worship must be in Spirit and in truth. That is, the Spirit and the Word must go together. There can be no activity of the Holy Spirit independent of the Word, and any activity of the Word depends on the Holy Spirit for its effect.

To be sure, we must be seeker~sensitive, but there

Whatever,You do, resist the temptation to abandon or reduce your attendance at church. This is not an option for the believer. is not an option for the believer, although it is very attractive, especially when settling for the local menu is sometimes so unappealing.

A final note on this point. If you must leave, do so with charity and civility. Do not be noisy about it, making your departure a matter of the public record.

Follow your conscience, but realize that the reason others may not see things your way is that they are simply not persuaded yet of the convictions that have motivated your move. You will need prayer, wisdom and advice at times like these.

Seeker Sensitivity Finally, make sure the church you choose is "seeker~sensitive." This has become the new buzzword in church growth circles, and it is usually used as an excuse to legitimize the evacuation of all meaning, liturgy, dignity, and sense of transcendence and God~ centeredness. The church is redesigned to meet the felt needs of the unchurched. After being asked what kind of church they would like to attend, the modem

church marketing experts tell pastors how to build

them.

So why should I suggest that the church you

select be "seeker~sensitive?" In John 4, Jesus tells the

Samaritan woman, "Believe me, woman, a time is

coming when you will worship the Father neither on

this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans

worship what you do not know; we worship what we

do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is

coming and has now come when the true worshipers

will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they

are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is

spirit and his worshipers must worship in spirit and

truth." Notice that just as we place our confidence in

our own denomination or congregation as the true

church, Jesus tells us that it is not a matter of which

mountain we worship on, because now God resides

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is a very important distinction here: God says that he is seeking worshipers. The modem church growth concept is founded on the error of Arminianism, that man finds God. So we cast aside worshiping God by his criteria (the Holy Spirit and truth) in order to be seeker~sensitive. After all, we are the ones who save people and bring them into the kingdom, right? That is the assumption. But if God is the seeker, our duty is to find a congregation where God is pleased with the worship, even though the message or style may be foreign or even offensive to the unchurched. If it is, it may be due to our personality or it may also be due to the Word of God simply doing what it does. If that's the case, we are in good company with the apostles, martyrs, and reformers before us. t Michael Horton is the president and founder of CURE and the author of Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, Made in America, and The Law of Perfect Freedom, and is the editor of The Agony of Deceit, Power Religion, and Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation.

I1zodern REFORMATION

Book Review by Rick Ritchie The Open Church James Rutz Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail Robert Webber Evangelicalism as a whole seems to have guarded its fundamental teachings better than its more liberal opponents, but there is, by and large, no distinct form that one can expect evangelical worship and piety to take. In the past, evangelicals did not see this as a problem, for they believed that doctrinal substance was separable from worship style. They were wrong.

Changes in worship signify changes in our thinking about God. 'The Signs and Wonders movement, for example, represents a shift in focus from an incarnate God who encounters people in preaching and sacraments to a spirit God who encounters them directly. In the past we opened our mouths to receive God's flesh. Now we open our arms to receive his Spirit. It is clear that worship and piety cannot be separated from theology. Evangelicals have been forced to ask a new question, aware that their answer could well decide the future of evangelical doctrine.

The question is "How can evangelicals renew church worship?" James Rutz, an evangelical, and Robert Webber, an Episcopalian, are among those who attempt to answer this question. Rutz proposes making the church more spontaneous, a free,for,all in which anything could happen. Webber proposes making it more liturgical, where everything is carefully planned in advance. At first glance, the answers appear to be contradictory. Looking deeper, we discover that Rutz and Webber have discovered their programs for church reform in the same place: the life and practice of the early church.

When we compare positions such as these, it is sometimes easy to miss the fact that they contain a common element that must be evaluated on its own merit. In our rush to discover which author offers the best answer to a question, we may forget to ask if the question itself was properly framed.

James Rutz and Robert Webber are in secret alliance. Though each has ideas for reform, they refer to the same source: early church worship and practice.

They also leave out a crucial element of Reformation church life: sola scriptura~scripture alone is our authority. The authors' ideas may be liberating, and may be deeply moving, but they are not Protestant.

I will begin my critique with the more easily refuted position. To be fair, Robert Webber is open about his reservations about Protestantism. His speech at Wheaton College, "The Tragedy of the Reformation," marked his conversion to the Episcopal church. James Rutz, however, sees his program as merely the finishing of an incomplete reformation. I believe both authors have failed to grasp therneaning and significance of early Protestantism.

James Rutz offers his readers a brief history of Christian worship, which consists of three main phases: the early church, the Catholic era, and the Protestant era (Rutz, pp. 160-161). He finds the key points of failure at the beginnings of the Protestant and Catholic eras. The beginning of the Catholic era in the fourth century institutionalized the church, making it repressive. Rutz claims that although the Protestant Reformation succeeded in bringing doctrinal renewal to the church, it failed to renew church practice (Rutz, p. 13). The priesthood of the believer was not truly restored. One repressive institution was replaced by a better and slightly less oppressive institution. The Reformation was incomplete.

Rutz offers us a plan that would finish the job Luther began. Rutz claims that his plan will recover the three freedoms that the laity lost in the fourth century: pure worship, true sharing, and free ministry (Rutz, p. 2). He calls for the church to transfer responsibility for the church service to the laity.

No pews, just chairs arranged in a square. (He says circles don't work.) No pastor, not even a moderator, would be in charge. He gives practical advice to avoid chaos. Someone shouts the number of a hymn, and all join in to sing. During sharing time members stand and share concerns, spiritual insights, pray for each other, and perhaps someone delivers a message. Rutz claims that this is a return to the first century, a return that Luther failed to make.

Rutz fails to see that the purpose of the Reformation was not institutional renewal, or even the delegation of church functions to laymen, but the recovery of the gospel. These goals are easy to confuse. In many cases, the only way to communicate the gospel more clearly was to alter church practice.

The church service is a case in point. The reformers taught that God had reconciled the world to himself through the death of the Second Person of the Trinity. The canon of the mass, however, taught that God must be placated by human efforts. This contradiction between new belief and old practice required a new church service. Observing such vast NOVEMBERIDECEMBER 1993

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lnode rn REFORMATION changes in worship format, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that this overhaul had one goal: delivering the gospel to the people. Though every wrong may not have been made right, the goal was achieved.

The Reformation was one of the most successful evangelistic campaigns in history.

Like Rutz, some of Luther's detractors in the sixteenth century saw in the Reformation a half~ hearted renovation of worship. The opportunity for a clean sweep had arrived, but instead the changes were fairly modest. Andreas Karlstadt, one ofLuther's former colleagues at the University of Wittenberg, decided that the responsibility to complete the Reformation fell to him. His method of bringing change about involved the smashing of icons, crucifixes and stained~glass windows. He abandoned his clerical robes and donned grey peasant garb. He refused to be called "Doctor" and took the name "Brother Andrew." He claimed to be the true reformer.

Luther addressed his critics in words which are very applicable today. The gospel is what matters, not the purging of every last element of medieval Catholicism. As long as the gospel is unhindered, we are free to retain or abandon any element of the old Catholic service we desire. He says that he has attended services of utter simplicity without elaborate vestmentsand rituals, and also services with splendid robes and intricate ceremony. He calls this freedom the "middle course." He even says that the use of the catholic practice may be a demonstration ofProtestant liberty. It is just this point which is often missed.

Protestantism does not consist in formality or informality, but in liberty under the gospel. Luther's opponents, far from freeing the church, were in danger of placing it in bondage to informality. The lack of ceremony would be made into as much of a law as the old ceremony. Karlstadt, for example, forbade the elevation of the communion cup because Christ did not elevate it. To Luther, this finding of law in scripture where a law was not given was a threat to the understanding of the gospel. Luther opposed this tyranny by celebrating communion in simplicity or in splendor as the occasion demanded, elevating or not elevating the cup as he saw fit.

We place ourselves in the same danger when we allow the early church practice to be set up as law.

Perhaps the early church was more informal than today's church. So what? Does that make present practices wrong? We cannot claim that the early church was inerrant. A rereading of the New Testament is enough to refute that opinion. Look at the Corinthian congregation whose Lord's Supper 32

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had ceased to be the Lord's Supper (1 Cor 11:20), or the Galatians who had been bewitched by the Judaizers. (Ga13:1) If even these churches with their close contact with an apostle were nearly overcome by error, what can we expect from their successors in the next four centuries? Can we even be certain that unearthed house churches were the sites of Christian gatherings and not those of gnostics?

It is dangerous to make everything that was done in scripture into a law when it was not presented that ':Nay. If this is true of scripture, how much more is it true of Christian history. When church history becomes your infallible guide to life and practice, you enter a morass you will not easily escape.

James Rutz does offer some fresh ideas for the makeover of church life. I do not wish people to avoid his ideas concerning church life. Some of these might be very helpful. It is his claim that his plan ought to be followed because it follows the pattern of the early church. We must reject this claim out of hand. If his ideas seem worth following on their own merit, then that is another thing altogether.

While James Rutz faults the Reformation for failing to alter the church more radically, Robert Webber accuses it of damaging Christendom. It is at this point that I find the comparison between Webber and Rutz so interesting. It is here that their similarities and differences appear sharpest. They agree in taking Christian history as authoritative, but they diverge in how they will read it.

Rutz finds his golden age in the early church. The earlier a practice is, the better. Webber does not look back to one golden age, but to the accumulated wisdom of the living organism of the church. In this respect, Webber seems wiser than Rutz.

We are faced with a problem in either case. It is impossible to have more than one authority. Inevitably our sources of authority will come into conflict, and at that point we will learn which was truly the authority. The Reformation was clearer on this point. When it identified scripture as the sole authority, it did not exclude reason, tradition, or experience from the search for truth. In every case, however, any of these guides had to yield to the clear teaching of scripture.

What happens when we make church history authoritative? If we follow in the steps of James Rutz, archeology becomes authoritative. Perhaps we settle into an informal house church setting and an archaeologist unearths a Christian synagogue where the worship was liturgical. What now? Do we switch to liturgical worship because it is more ancient, or do

1110dern REFORMATION

we ignore the new finding and stay with what works for us? Was the early date of house worship a divine mandate? Or did we first discover that we liked this type of worship, and only later legitimize with recent archaeological findings?

Robert Webber at least does not make history itself authoritative. The best example ofhis Anglican approach to church tradition can be found in the Book of Common Prayer. The compilers of the Book of Common Prayer brought together the worship of past ages, but in a principled manner. In some cases, usage was scriptural; in others it just seemed inherently reasonable. Some material was newly composed because the church needed it. No one age was considered golden, and neither were the compilers themselves guilty of chronological snobbery.

The surprise is how many problems of contemporasry church life are solved by the liturgy.

Liturgical churches require much more participation by the congregation than most non, liturgical Protestant churches. Worshipers are always active: standing, kneeling, praying, responding, singing, or going forward for communion. The service is much less man,centered, less focused on the pastor. (See Webber pp. 102-106.) The breadth of scripture that is woven into the service guards the church from its tendency to reduce spirituality to a fad formula.

Children of believers, for example, don't end up feeling left out because offailure to relate to the "born again" model of conversion. The Book of Common Prayer is a wonderful guide. It is a treasure of Christendom.

The question remains, however, as to where ultimate authority rests. What if prayers or statements in the Book of Common Prayer are found to be flawed?

To the Holy Spirit Webber attributes his opinion that "even if the classic expressions of the faith are flawed, no Christian has the authority to decide as an individual what it means to be orthodox" (Webber, p. 157). But the Apostle Paul tells us differently in the book of Galatians. Paul assumed the ability of laymen to judge doctrine when he condemned any gospel different the one he delivered, even it it came from an "angel from heaven." (Gal 1:8) He did not expect his hearer to ask the self,deprecating question "Who am I to stand in judgement over an angel?"

This case for Protestant doctrine must be argued with-shall I hazard the word?-self,righteousness.

The problem is that all our moralistic training has taught us to cultivate a self,centered false humility.

To admit that we cannot understand the basic message of scripture is seen as virtuous, since it humbles us. The problem is that we are faced with a question not about how well we can hear, but about how clearly God can speak. To be Protestant means to believe that in the fundamental matters of the faith. God can make himself understood. This is not claiming a grandiose ability for laymen. It is claiming that God's ability to communicate is at least as good as any decent human author.

My fear is not that evangelicals will follow Webber's call and begin a trek down the Canterbury Trail. I believe this would be an improvement for most evangelicals, and for many of the reasons Webber lists. I would rather they follow the road to Wittenberg, but many cross the Atlantic before crossing the Channel. My fear is not that evangelicals will don chasubles, learn the chant, and swing thuribles. The early Protestants did that and were still burned at the stake. My real fear is that evangelicals will become Anglicans without ever having known what it is to be Protestant.

Offering a critical review of two books may cause an uncritical reader to assume that I disliked reading Rutz's and Webber's books. Not so. I found Rutz likable and Webber captivating. My hope is that evangelicals will read Rutz and Webber. I also hope that with them, they will read the reformers. It is in the reformers that we see what is achieved by a renewal of worship grounded in a renewal of doctrine.

If our efforts at renewal begin with worship, we will likely be drawn anywhere but to truth. If we begin with doctrine, however, our knowledge of God will deepen, and our worship will become more profound as a result.

In the book of Revelation, God presents New Jerusalem as the goal of human history. Notice that New Jerusalem comes from the sky, not from the past.

It is created by God's Word, not human programs of reform. A broad knowledge of historical church practice does much for us. It demonstrates that the current manner of doing things is not always the best.

It is folly to mistake an historical episode in the church as God's perfect will for his church. Scripture alone is our source for knowing God's will, for only there does he reveal it directly. If our descendants ever look upon our own day as a golden age, it will be because we came to recognize that scripture is our only authority. Only then will our lampstand shine brightly in the temple of God. t

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l1u}(/ernREFORMATION

Glosssary ofTerms

Apostles' Creed For hundreds of years Christians believed that the twelve apostles were the authors of the widely known creed that bears their name. According to an ancient theory, the twelve composed the creed with each apostle adding a clause to form the whole. Today practically all scholars understand this theory of apostolic composition to be legendary. Nevertheless, many continue to think of the creed as apostilic in nature because its basic teachings are agreeable to the theoligical formulations of the apostolic age.

I believe in Qod the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of the virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of Qod the Father almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I believe a holy catholic church, the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting. Amen.

Baptism Deriving from the Greek baptisma, "baptism" denotes the action of washing or plunging into water, which from the earliest days (Acts 2:41) has been used as the rite of Christian initiation. Christ himself, by both precedent (Mt 28:19), gives us authority for its observance.

Church God has called the church out of the world for a purpose. He intended for his creation to have fellowship with him. When that fellowship was broken, God called the people of Israel to be "a light to the nations" (Is 42:5~8); but when Israel failed, God called a remnant (Is 10:20~22). In the fullness of time God himself entered fully into human history in the birth of Jesus Christ, whom Simeon at the temple called "a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for the glory to thy people Israel" (Lk 2:32). Jesus then called twelve disciples as symbolic of the new Israel of the end times which he was creating (Mt 19:28). These twelve formed the nucleus of God's people, the church, which like Israel of old has been called into being to be the means by which all of humanity is restored to fellowship with its creator (Acts 1:8; Mt 28:18~20).

Covenant Theologically (used of relations between God and man) it denotes a gracious undertaking entered into by God for the benefit and blessing of man, and specifically of those men who by faith receive the promises and commit themselves to the obligations which this undertaking involves.

Elder (Presbyter) At the time of the Reformation, Calvin found that the office ofelder was one of the four "orders or offices" which Christ had instituted for the ordinary government of the church, the others being pastors, teachers and deacons. The elder has been regarded as a representative of the people in the ordering of church affairs and discipline. The qualifications for elder are found in Titus 1:5~9.

Fellowship The basic meaning conveyed by the Greek term koinonia is that of participation. The sense of sharing and self sacrifice that is inherent in the word is clearly evident in those references to financial support in the early church. For Paul fellowship was a theolgical expression of the validity of his work among Gentiles, a sure sign that they had been completely accepted into God's work among the Jews. Friendship is the supreme expression of fellowship.

Sabbath The seventh day of the week in which God ceased from his work of creation and declared the day blessed and holy (Gn 2:1~3). Through the episode of the manna (Ex 16), the sacred nature of the day was stressed to the Israelites. It was to be "a sabbath of the Lord," a day set apart for God and for rest.

Worship To worship God is to ascribe to him the worth of which he is worthy. The church of Jesus Christ is by definition a worshipping community called into being by God to be "a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" (1 Pt 2:5). The Christian church has from the very beginning gathered regularly for corporate worship. The most basic acts of worship in the early church­ the reading and exposition of scripture; the prayers; the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; and the observance of the sacramentrs-are all derviced from the example and command of Jesus himself.

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THE SELLING OUTOF THE

EVANGELICAL CHURCH?

CHARLES COLSON • ].I. PACKER

R.C. SPROUL • ALISTER McGRA1H

AND OTHERS

Michael Scott Horton, Editor

Editor ofThe Agony ofDeceit

MOODY PRESS CHICAGO

Miehaellorton - - - - - - ­ editor-­

When individuals accept Jesus as Savior, must they also accept Jesus as Lord?

Does salvation necessarily demand discipleship?

The

Reformation and Lordship Salvation

Michael Horton, well-known author and editor of Made in America and Power Religion, provides a comprehensive treatment of the Lordship/Salvation controversy, written from the Reformed perspective for the widest possible audience.

..... IN

,

It is now illegal to post the Ten Command­ ments on the walls of a public school classroom. But this is not the real problem.

The real problem is that the Command­ ments have also vanished from the interior walls of our hearts.

Among professing Christians immoral­ ity, divorce, and abortion are running rampant. We're playing without rules.

Without direction. Without purpose. And it's beginning to show. Where can we go to find help and meaning?

Back to the Ten Commandments.

In The Law of Perfect Freedom, Michael S. Horton shows how the Ten Commandments must become a dynamic force for change in the life of the individual Christian and the church as a whole. While avoiding the traps of legalism and Dominion Theology, he contends that the Commandments are not merely relevant for today, but necessary.

They are not a roadblock to spiritual freedom but a highway toward it.

So pick up a copy today for yourself or someone you know.

Play by God's rules and see Him transform you into all He created you to be. Available at your favorite bookstore or by calling "a' 1-800-621-511l.

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, The Name You Can Trust