I’m not trying to pick a fight. Maybe the teaching at your church is so hopelessly flawed that it cannot be redeemed. Perhaps your leaders are beyond the reach of biblical correction and teaching. It’s possible that the only appropriate course of action is breaking fellowship with your current congregation to find a group of believers that echoes your own beliefs.
I mean, the concept of an individual disfellowshipping a whole church doesn’t have any Biblical precedent. The New Testament teaches that it is the responsibility of the church to correct individuals in error. If all the people with correct doctrine fly the coop, how will those who remain ever change?
Of course, that’s not really your problem. You didn’t sign-up for leadership and you’ve got plenty of headaches in your own life. The last thing you need is endless battles over Christian orthodoxy.
Still, if orthodoxy isn’t worth fighting over…why are you leaving over it? I’m not trying to pick a fight. I’m just wondering if you’ve thought this through.
(Titus 1:8) Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.
2 Responses
I agree with the general principle. I still go to the church I grew up in, and whenever I’ve lived other places, I’ve tried to do as little church-hopping as possible. Choose a nearby church, check their “About” page to confirm that I’m not joining a cult or something, go at least one Sunday, and if nothing bothers my conscience, if that still, small voice says “this is the way, walk in it,” I keep going. I’ve been on the observing end of this kind of Christian who, studying the Word for themselves, “outgrows” the spiritual maturity of the fellowship they used to keep and either shop around for a church that suits them better or stop going to church entirely. And I’ve never been particularly impressed with those people.
But I do see it as a “do unto others as you’d have them do to you” exercise to steelman their position. If I had to do so in response to your article, I’d say you may need to pick a lane. On one hand, you say that if there’s a disagreement between a church body and an individual within that church, it’s the body who should be correcting the individual, but on the other hand you say that the individual should remain in the body so they have a chance of correcting it. Well, which should it be? Is it usually the case that the church leadership and the church body are correct, and the individual should humbly accept correction, or is it better for a Christian to stick to their guns and continuously fight for the rest of the church to recognize their interpretation of Scripture? And yeah, if it’s an issue you feel passionately about, and your church hears your case but isn’t swayed, and you bring up the issue whenever orderly and respectful to do so, but they don’t get annoyed enough to excommunicate you, do you just stay there and try and convert people one-on-one? To subvert the church’s leadership? At what point does this put you (and maybe them, too) in violation of Titus 3:10-11 (“Reject a factious man…”)?
For example, the people who have left my home church have done so because our founding Pastor succumbed to cancer many years ago and instead of dissolving the church or doing pastor-tryouts or going the many other routes things could have gone, the deacons of our church sought God’s will and decided it would be best for his wife, who was also a studied minister, to assume his role as lead pastor. The deserters believe we are in violation of Scripture, since Paul said he would never allow a woman to have authority over him, but we who remain know that this “best case scenario” is not ubiquitous throughout Scripture, with the example of Deborah, for instance. I’ve never heard of or seen our Pastor having to exercise any kind of authority over a man except that which can be directly tied to the authority of scripture; she functions more as a teacher/counselor, and didn’t usurp any male in order to achieve her position, allowing the Holy Spirit to do the shepherding of the flock. And it works amazingly. We’re by far the biggest church in our little town, drawing in people of all backgrounds and ethnicities and ages from the surrounding area. The fruit of our ministry is abundant and evident, with hundreds of young people being discipled in Christ’s teachings every year.
I’ll be honest, the Scriptural case against woman pastors is pretty strong, and I’ve been perplexed by the thought that I’m making the same error the Israelites did building a golden calf and calling it “jehovah,” attempting to follow God in my own way rather than how He commands to be followed. But whenever I look at the unique circumstances that led us to our current state, and consider all the Word that is being sown by our community’s efforts, and how close we all are to each other as a church family, I can’t imagine jumping ship, or trying to persuade Pastor to step down and appoint a male successor. But other people have done so. I know of some who attend other churches in the area, even though their family is still with us. Some who left, I don’t know if they found an alternative church community. But I don’t know if I would have asked them to stay, or told them that they should stay. In some ways, I think it gets as difficult to tell someone this as it was for Paul to tell the Roman church whether to eat meat or not. (Romans 14)
I’m not trying to pick a fight, either, just trying to think seriously and deeply through this issue with you.
Valid point John! Thanks for always challenging the “norm” of current Christianity. My 2¢ fwiw.
While not trying to pick fights, we do have a duty to speak truth, even to leadership, and I would say, especially to leadership. While we may not “change” leadership, it also keeps us in check because none of us has perfect doctrine, and we can all make mistakes. By constantly being in conversation it keeps us all in check. You ought never to have to leave a Church, if you stand for truth while leadership desires to walk away from it, you will be asked to leave and won’t have to worry about making that “decision to leave”.