The Church of Christ represents
one aspect of Restorationism that I at least in principle would seek to
emulate... a commitment to Biblicism and more specifically a New Testament
oriented Biblicism.
With this comes a certain
posturing toward history and doctrine that on some level I do appreciate,
though in many cases I do not come to the same conclusions they do.
Another grouping to consider
would be that of the Anabaptists. This would include the various Brethren
groups in addition to the better known Mennonites.[i]
Like the much later
Stone-Campbell Restorationists the Mennonites were also absolutely committed to
a New Testament focused Biblicism.
When I mention specifically the
focus or priority of the New Testament, to be fair I mean something different.
I do believe the New Testament is the revelatory capstone of Scripture. I
believe the New Testament takes precedent and priority over the Old. The New
Testament interprets the Old and helps us to rightly understand it. The New
Testament is technically the canon of the Church in a way the Old Testament is
not. I am in no way suggesting the Old Testament isn't Scripture, but in terms
of chronology, it has been superseded and thus has lost its place of priority.
This touches on the massive
question of the relationship between the Covenants/Testaments. Are they in opposition? Is there total
disunity? Is there absolute unity? Or do we need to understand the relationship
in a different way? This is a tangled and difficult question and often
differences can be found even within the same tradition or school of thought.
For example within the Reformed
world you have everything from the Klineans who would hold to a position quite
similar to my own...seeing both unity and radical discontinuity, all the way to
the Theonomists who have constructed a Mono-covenantal system that recognizes
almost no difference or discontinuity between the Testaments.
Dispensationalists have always
emphasized disunity. In fact in the old system presented within the Scofield
Bible, the two Testaments presented absolutely different methods of Salvation.
The Old Testament saints were saved by the Levitical system, they came to the
Father by a road that did not include Christ. This would also be true of the
Jews during the so-called Tribulational period occurring after the
pre-tribulational Rapture.
The Churches of Christ as well
as the Anabaptists in no way discount or dismiss the Old Testament, but their
orientation is specifically focused on the New Testament. This is better than
what we might find in the Judaizing tendencies of Rome or its cousin Theonomy,
yet...in many ways it is also deficient.
At this point I don't wish to
expand on all these issues because I've done so elsewhere but I will summarize
by saying a right understanding of the relationship between the Old and New
Testament helps us to understand the role of typology and symbolism. It helps
us to formulate and understand a doctrine of the Covenant and how the Covenant
can represent both a temporal category as well as an Eschatological one.
This type of dialectical
thinking or as it has been expressed in history a theory of forms, allows us to
grasp something of the two sided or dynamic interplay between temporal forms
(what is often called Means) and eternal realities.
While this may seem to stray
into the realm of philosophical speculation, or even sound Platonic, I would
argue the Bible and more specifically the New Testament is rife with examples
of this. From Paul's declarations in Romans concerning the nature of Judaism
and the duality of the definition of Israel to the dynamics so apparent in the
book of Hebrews. Elsewhere we find the many pairings in John's Epistles and
Gospel, expressions of the dynamic between temporal and eternal, or to put it
another way, time and space versus eschatology.
All Mono-Covenantal constructs
will fail to grasp this. This is true of Rome's theology[ii],
Theonomic schools of thought[iii]
as well as the groups that exclusively focus on the New Testament.
The same theological and
epistemological issues are present in all these groups. They just manifest
themselves in different ways because they have chosen to 'anchor' at a specific
point. For whatever reason (and it varies from group to group) one particular
principle takes precedent and then using what is in actuality the same type of
reason they construct a system....one that to my mind will undoubtedly contain
some truth but in the end will not only miss much but because of the deficient
method will fall into other theological tangles and traps.
Today within the Evangelical
world, a too-heavy focus on the New Testament is generally not the problem.
Instead the Evangelical world (and I'm not including those completely outside
the realm of historic Christianity)[iv]
has due to Sacralistic impulses and Culture War has employed a hermeneutic that
is often looking to the Old Testament. The New Testament does not provide what
they're looking for in terms of culture, law, politics etc...
This is not employed with any
kind of consistency and rarely with any sort of principles to back it. Old
Testament Israel is often appealed to when it comes to the needs of the
Christian Right to justify a particular political issue. This can range from
economic principles, vindicating various social and/or geopolitical concepts[v],
or to locate narratives to draw from and apply to the contemporary situation
that America finds herself in.
In terms of the Culture War,
they'll turn to the Old Testament in order to know how to deal with idolaters
and homosexuals, or in a more general way seek vindication for various other
exclusionary or behaviour-shaping laws. The Culture War is also raging within
the Church as congregations fight over issues concerning worship and the
Christian life. Once again the Old Testament can be appealed to in order to
vindicate rock music (as in loud music as per the Old Testament), liturgical
dance, a focus on architecture, beauty in the Church building etc...
These all represent terrible
abuses of the Old Testament. This is a failure to rightly understand what the
Old Testament was actually about. They're reading it in a non-Christocentric
fashion because they have not understood the message of the New Testament.
Paul's identification of the Jewish order as 'weak and beggarly' is something
they have not grasped.
Though the Anabaptists (in my
opinion) got much wrong, on this point their New Testament primacy helped them
to rightly understand a very key doctrine....that of the Kingdom of God.
In the post-Reformation period
the Anabaptists almost alone seemed to grasp the Spiritual nature of the
Kingdom. They understood it to be a Holy Kingdom of Peace and Love, a Kingdom
of forgiveness and mercy, one which rejects the values and aspirations, the
pride and lusts of this world.
Only by reading the Old in
light of the New can we understand the Judgment so prevalent in the Old
Testament, the violence and the warfare. Only then can we grasp the nature of
Old Testament Israel and the task of the law, the office of king.
The New Testament helps us to
rightly understand Christ is both Saviour and Judge. He is the Way and if He is
rejected He will break their teeth, put their peoples to the sword that comes
from his mouth...the Word-Judgment.[vi]
We understand that the Kingdom
of the New Testament is Heaven itself in
its Already-Not Yet form. In Christ, we are already seated in the heavenlies. The
Kingdom we are part of is not a type-Kingdom, not a shadow/form Kingdom. We possess
the real and actual, the True. This Kingdom is not built with sword, defined by
political boundaries, nor is it subject to cultural disputes. It is a Holy and
Spiritual Kingdom accessed only by those who have been given eyes to see, ears
to hear, and a heart to understand.
The Anabaptists seemed to
understand this. I wish they might have understood a bit more and instead of
focusing just on the very important Already....they would have also grasped
something of the Not Yet.
That said, their understanding
of the Kingdom led them to rightly identify Christian Sacralism or as it came
to be known in the West...Constantinianism as a pernicious and perilous error....the
theological foundation for what we often call Antichrist...the merging of the
Whore (Apostate) Church with the Self-Deified State, also known as the Beast.[vii]
At this point, in the
Reformation period, they alone continued the Medieval protest legacy found in
so many communions and movements. Sadly the children of the Lollards and most
of the Waldenses succumbed to the temptations and in some cases the pragmatics
of the new Protestant Sacralism. Some of the Hussite remnants continued[viii]
and later groups would arise[ix]
but in the 16th century the Anabaptists stand almost alone and it would
seem in our present day they are one of the very few groups maintaining the
heritage and testimony.
This is a view of the Kingdom
that guides the reading of history and takes the Church back to the times of
the Roman persecution. This way of thinking about the Kingdom does not
celebrate the Constantinian Shift and in fact rightly identifies it as one of
the most calamitous events in the history of the Church. For 250 years (60-313)
the forces of Satan had attempted to physically destroy the Church through
bloodshed. When this failed within a very short time it's as if Satan's victory
was complete. The Church was not defeated by arms but subverted from within and
betrayed. Even today Christians fail to grasp this theological and historical point....the
Church's greatest threats are always internal. The World can only affect us as
much as we let it and there is a real danger in allowing worldly thought and
values into the Church. But the direct danger is not the world, but false
Christians within the body synthesizing the world's ideas and values with the
theology of Scripture. We're not fooled by the overtly anti-Christian ideologies
(Darwinism, Marxism etc...), but we are often fooled when worldly thought is
blended with Biblical teaching.[x]
These concepts are fundamental
to Restorationism.
For many years this was
generally understood if not consistently applied in thought and action. For
American Christians in particular, America as the New Christian Rome did not
seem inconsistent with also rejecting Constantine and his legacy. The Roman
Emperor and the Medieval Church were rejected and seemed historically,
geographically and theologically very far away.
Yet, America set down the same
road, embarked on the same path in just a different form. And today amidst the
Culture War many apologists have gone back to the precedents and the
philosophical arguments that justified the Medieval Sacralism. It is once more being
celebrated and championed. While this is lamentable it is bringing about a
situation akin to what the Church faced before. The lines of delineation are
becoming more clear, the issues are more polarized. Unless you are 'with' them
in this pseudo-Kingdom task, you almost certainly cannot function within their
circles. Once your eyes are opened to the error, suddenly wrong thinking and idolatry
surround you and it's a crushing burden on your soul and dashes fellowship.
Ideologically there is a great gulf and practically speaking it becomes almost
easier to engage pagans than those infected with the virus of Sacralism.
Go To Part 6
[i] Which would include the Amish who technically are a
breakaway group from the Mennonite movement.
[ii] Which focuses almost strictly on the temporal forms
and declares them to be reality.
[iii] I do not just refer to Theonomy proper,
Rushdoony's movement which arose in the
late 1960's. I would include much of the Reformed tradition and certainly
include the New England Puritans and many of the similar elements within
Scottish Presbyterianism.
[iv] Like Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer and others who are
Christian only in name, people who employ a Christian veneer for what is really
an entirely different religion.
[v] In 2003 I heard many so-called Christians appealing
to the Old Testament in order to justify civilian deaths in Iraq. The Old
Testament (to their way of thinking) provided them a cover for the murderous
war they wished to not only justify but celebrate.
[vi] The Conquest of Canaan was a typological picture of
the coming Day of Judgment, but even today great and terrible events,
catastrophes and disasters can remind of us of the Coming Judgment we all
deserve...and for those in Christ, have been delivered from.
[vii] This labeling is technically not correct. The Bible
uses the term 'man of sin' to denote the ecclesiastical force at work within
the New Covenant Temple/Church that claims the authority God alone possesses.
John identifies those who deny the Incarnation as antichrists and the book of
Revelation speaks of the Whore and the Beast. Often we amalgamate these
concepts together under the appellation of Antichrist. Undoubtedly the Medieval
Papacy (not the Popes specifically or in particular) fulfilled this role.
Today, we would probably have to look to another 'Christian' empire to find a
contemporary fulfillment.
[viii] The Unitas Fratrum and ultimately the Moravians.
Sadly they came under the influence of Zinzendorf and Pietism in the 18th
century and today are theologically liberal.
[ix] While not orthodox in a Biblical sense, the Quakers
also represent an anti-Sacralist theology.
[x] There are too many examples to list here. Just War
Theory, Democracy, various Economic theories etc.... are the types of things
I'm referring to. This is not to say that we have to entirely reject all these
concepts, but it is imperative that we do not confuse them with Biblical Truth.
For example I might say Democracy is valid option for the fallen world. It's
flawed (as every political model will be) but it's better than some of the
alternatives. This is far different from claiming that Democracy is somehow
Christian or that Democracy is somehow tied to Providence or the advance of the
Kingdom.