Whenever Jason Byassee writes a guest editorial for Theology Today, don’t miss it. In the latest issue he describes his experience with young ministers:
Another sign of hope is the posture of these young ministers toward institutions. Many of my former seminary classmates left the ministry after they tried to fix things at warp speed. They tried to make the whole church pacifist. Or inerrantist. Or as inclusive as they are in their enlightened, tolerant state. All in a year or two. They wrote some articles, served a church or two, went to some conferences, and it just didn’t work. So they became Latin-Mass Catholics, for whom Pope Benedict XVI is a dangerous liberal with too compromising a posture vis-à-vis the modern world. Or they became bicycling, farmers-market shopping crusaders against carbon-based fuels. Now they look at people like us and are puzzled: “Why are you still messing around with church and those same old pitiful problems?” In their impatience they fail to see that God chooses to save corporately, through institutions… God saves by Israel and the church after all – it should be no surprise to anyone who’s even glanced at the Bible or church history that institutions are often corrupt. And as the young ministers often showed me, institutions are the most beautiful thing there is.
Of course, a given reader might find themselves quibbling with portions of Byassee’s editorial, such as his upholding Andrew Sullivan as an example of what it means to faithful to an institution you disagree with. Furthermore, a Catholic convert from Protestantism might reply: “I fully agree. Where were those arguments in the 16th century?” But those are quibbles. Like Kevin de Young, Byassee exposes the immaturity, a thwarted hunger for power, in those who are too good for institutions. Of course, such deserters are in significant company. John 6:66 comes to mind: Christ had an embarrassing public moment, after which, “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.” The verse that is the title of this post immediately followed. Would that we had a shred of the faithfulness of David, who, with a clear shot to eliminate the undeniably corrupt institutional leadership of Saul once and for all, was egged on to murder by his men, but instead replied, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed” (1 Samuel 24:6).
Now, as an American evangelical, if someone could clarify to which of the dozen or so ecclesial institutions that have shaped me I should be faithful, I’ll get right on it.
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January 13th, 2010 | 3:38 pm | #1
I join Messrs. Milliner, Byassee, and DeYoung in praising institutional fidelity. But the invocation of John 6:66-71 here seems mistaken because the disciples are not deserting an institution, nor even the founder of an institution; they are deserting an individual – Jesus Christ – who declares himself the Way (John 14:6). I suspect that the anti-institutional prejudice among some contemporary Christians is a smokescreen for recalcitrance of the soul, rebellion against the exclusivity of the Way, as the apostle Paul learned when he preached about the Way: “He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus” (Acts 19:8-10). To conclude, faithlessness to the church ought to be construed as faithlessness to Christ.
January 13th, 2010 | 3:55 pm | #2
Christopher,
To conclude, faithlessness to the church ought to be construed as faithlessness to Christ.
That makes a nice slogan but it is only true if you acknowledge the institutional church as being a faithful representative of the church of Jesus Christ. Many of us do not. That is not a sign of rebelliousness or “saying you love Jesus but hating His wife”. It is a sign of legitimately questioning the form and functioning of self-perpetuating institutions. I hear this all the time as if the institutional church is a “love it or leave it” proposition, a false dichotomy that says you either suck it up and go to an institutional church or you hate the church. That is patently false.
January 13th, 2010 | 4:42 pm | #3
Mr. Sido: Let me be more precise. When I said “faithlessness to the church ought to be construed as faithless to Christ,” I had in mind a definition of church as people of the Way – not a definition of institutional church, as you assumed.
January 13th, 2010 | 4:42 pm | #4
Mr. Sido: Let me be more precise. When I said “faithlessness to the church ought to be construed as faithlessness to Christ,” I had in mind a definition of church as people of the Way – not a definition of institutional church, as you assumed.
January 14th, 2010 | 2:11 pm | #5
Matthew,
Welcome to the blog and thanks for this post. I don’t have time for more substantial comments, but I wanted to say something before this post gets buried much further down the evangel page.
Amen to the main body of what you said. As for the little tag line, “as an American evangelical, if someone could clarify to which of the dozen or so ecclesial institutions that have shaped me I should be faithful:” I share your perplexity. Born in one tradition, reared in another, saved and seminaried in a third, ecclesially formed in a fourth, fifth, sixth, etc. Evangelical mutt with a complex bloodline, where do I take a stand, plant a flag, and stay loyal ’til death do us part?
It’s been important for me to recognize that in order to stay evangelical, it’s not enough to pledge my allegiance to “the movement.” The movement is too diverse, undisciplined, contested, and theoretical. DG Hart overreaches, but there’s a grain of truth in his observation that “evangelicalism” is a marketing maneuver to win bigger audiences for product. What I need is a church, a local church.
Which of your twelve ecclesial institutions to choose? In my experience, there’s bound to be some arbitrariness in the final choice. I got saved in a Methodist church, and considered pledging my allegiance there, with the people who brought me Jesus. But the denomination made me crazy, and I opted, eventually, for the EFCA, for strategic and practical reasons.
Looking forward to discussing these issues more here in the future.
Fred
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