Recently I encountered (yet again) another example of what I
have termed The Presbyterian Fallacy.
Briefly by way of context, Episcopal forms of Church
government do not claim their authority is based on Scriptural exegesis. While they
believe their polity is 'Biblical' in the sense that it 'flows' from Scripture,
they will freely admit that it's not something that can be appealed to chapter
and verse. They would argue the New Testament does not prescribe a specific
form of polity. Or they might argue that the Apostles established a type of
regional hierarchy which over time legitimately developed into the episcopacy.
All well and good. I appreciate their honesty. They are not
trying to make a case that their form of Church Government is directly or
exegetically derived from Scripture. In other words Sola Scriptura or Scripture
Alone doesn't really apply when it comes to the question of polity or Church
Government. Sola Scriptura and the closely related concept of the Sufficiency
of Scripture are more or less limited to gospel-connected questions, not the
entirety of Church life. This is also reflects the Lutheran understanding of
Sola Scriptura.
I disagree with them, but at least I know where they stand.
Presbyterians on the other hand are cut from a different
cloth. They insist their hierarchical form of polity is Scriptural. They insist
it conforms with Sola Scriptura and the Sufficiency of Scripture. We can happily
report they agree with the Biblicist, that Scripture must govern everything for
the Church and the life of the Christian.
But there's a problem here. In some cases it's a question of
honesty. For example they chafe at the identification of their polity as
hierarchical, when clearly it is. The Presbytery, a term they have taken from
Scripture and redefined as the Regional Body exercises an authority over
individual congregations. This is why John Milton rightly described
Presbyterianism as 'priest writ large'... it is just Episcopacy in another
guise.
And like Episcopacy it has no actual basis in Scripture. But again
the difference with Presbyterianism is that it claims to be rooted in and
derived from Scripture. That's where the problem comes in. Because they believe
it to be Scriptural, they believe it's binding on the conscience.
There are many more examples we could appeal to in terms of Presbyterianism
and its problems with being honest about what it actually is.
But there's another more principled problem.
It claims to be Scriptural and yet when pressed, the Presbyterian
will struggle to back up the claim. A plurality of elders? Certainly, every
Congregationalist accepts that.
A regional body? Where do we find that? Acts 15, they argue.
And yet in Acts 15 we find James presiding over the council in a way not at all
congruent with Presbyterian understandings of polity. Additionally, the way in
which the conclusions were distributed were not in accord with the notion of an
authoritative decree. It was a ruling, almost in an advisory sense. Obviously
the fact that it came from the Apostles gave it an authority no one today
possesses. The rulings in Acts 15 were charismatic, not the fruit of
bureaucratic procedure.
Presbyterians cannot say it seems good to us and to the Holy Ghost.
They cannot claim that kind of Divine and Apostolic
authority. Some will try to, but this will take them down roads they do not
wish to go. Those that do, quickly show their true colours. Not a few
Presbyterians believe in apostolic succession and if given the chance would
claim powers that would make their congregants (and all students of the
Scripture) recoil. The Bereans so praised by Luke and Paul are an offense to
many a Presbyterian cleric and not a few will openly admit to this. In the wake
of the Confessions, the Berean impulse is something they would suppress and
root out.
At this point in the polity discussion most Presbyterians
will argue the council provides an example, a
rough outline of how the Church is to be administered.
Do they really mean that? So, in other words the Scriptures do
not provide a specific government. Rather, it's up to the appointed
hierarchy to develop a system which includes canon law (represented in
the historical directories and in the modern Books of Church Order),
courts, committees and the inclusion of such 'Biblical' procedural tools as that
of 'Robert's Rules of Order'?*
Yes, that's just what the Apostles had in mind.
Pardon the sarcasm but the claims are really quite absurd.
Even if someone wanted to make this fairly ridiculous
argument, they've already conceded the larger principle. They've admitted the
Scriptures are not sufficient but instead only provide a starting point.
In essence this is the same argument given by Lutherans,
Episcopalians and even Roman Catholics. The Presbyterian at this point will
hide behind what almost functions as the literary deus ex machina, what they call 'good and necessary consequence'.
It's the seemingly magic formula which saves not only their bogus polity but
justifies a host of theological leaps and assumptions.
What they mean is that when the Scriptures don't provide the
answers they're looking for, answers that will round out their system or permit
them to pursue the holistic agenda they believe necessary, they will resort to
using the tools of philosophy. Good and Necessary Consequence is code for deductive
logic verified by coherence. Defined by and dependent upon man's experiential
categories this synthetic and syncretist methodology will allow them to build
upon Scripture. They believe this honours God even while they heap on a massive
pile of man-made constructs. Of course there's no way of stopping the developmental
process other than creating Confessionalist narratives in which they say,
'Here's the stopping point, no further'!
But why would anyone accept that? Clearly many of their own
have not. You've already moved beyond Scripture. You've already adopted a
Scripture (plus) mindset. Rather than accept that the Scriptures are indeed
sufficient you have defined sufficiency as a starting point for further deductive
and inferential development. In terms of Church History they are their own
worst enemy. The tools they would use to hold their institutional forms
together, are the seeds sown for its own destruction.
Good and necessary consequence is used as a cover for a
multitude of man-made innovations in the realm of theology and in the sacral cultural
project. By invoking this deceptive phrase a host of ideas can be declared
'Biblical' when they are nothing of the kind. Even on their terms the argument
fails. Good? How do you define that? What determines if creating a bureaucracy
and canon law is good? Necessary? By what standard is it necessary? Convenient
is more like it. Good and necessary becomes a cover for justifying whatever
viewpoint those in authority want to take.
I mentioned The Presbyterian Fallacy and this is when it
comes into play. The Presbyterian apologetic usually goes something like
this...
Was the Jerusalem
Council meant to provide an example for polity or was the Church just left to
its own devices to come up with some form of government?
This false framing is meant to drive you to the only solution...Presbyterianism.
It is a case of non sequitir on a
grand scale.
This is their argument against Episcopacy and/or some of the
spurious variants of Congregationalism. By the latter I refer to rule by
trustees or as is often the case, absolute pastoral rule. The former is common
in Evangelical congregations and the latter among independent Baptists. These
forms of Congregationalism must also be rejected as unbiblical.
They derisively condemn Congregationalism as being dismissive
of the rest of the Church... another case of prevarication. It begs the
question in assuming that 'caring about the Church' involves some kind of
political form wedded to a bureaucratic institution... a notion Congregationalists
reject, a notion absent from the New Testament.
The Jerusalem Council argument fails again because rejecting
it as an exact or literal norm does not mean that therefore the New Testament
has nothing to say about Church government and we're just 'left on our own' to
come up with something. It must be said again that Presbyterians hardly follow
Acts 15 to the jot and tittle. They too 'necessarily' reject or explain away
much that is happening there... but on what basis? From their standpoint (claiming
Sufficiency) they cannot do this. From the standpoint of Biblicist Congregationalism
(rooted in a Redemptive-Historical Hermeneutic) we can rightly place the Acts
15 episode as belonging to the Apostolic period (and polity) and therefore not
normative to the life of the Church in the post-Apostolic age.
There are solid Biblical reasons for arguing the Jerusalem
Council was not meant to be normative for the post-Apostolic Church. Advisory and
investigatory councils are indeed Biblical, and can (to a degree) emulate Acts
15, but politicised institutional (denominational) councils have no leg to
stand on. I speak of both regional presbytery meetings as well as the so-called
General Assembly. They are without warrant in form, purpose and authoritative claim.
This is why Presbyterianism as a government is sub-biblical and the authority
claims of Confessionalism are spurious and to be rejected. They pretend to
speak for The Church, but have no authority to do so and have pretentiously
done so through erecting man-made and conceived institutions.
The Presbyterian fallacy begs the question concerning its own
assumptions regarding Church polity and thus again, it's hardly surprising that
its conclusions result in a series of non sequitirs. It doesn't follow that a
non-normative Jerusalem council results in anarchy or in no viable New
Testament polity. It doesn't follow that a non-normative Jerusalem Council
results in a rejection of Biblical authority in terms of ecclesiastical
governance.
Their weak foundation results in many a straw-man argument.
From my standpoint they are left looking desperate.... desperate to save the
false system they have erected and the many false narratives that accompany it.
Apart from the blasphemous claims of the Papacy, nothing is
so offensive as the fictitious notion of 'Divine Right' Presbyterianism.
What's the alternative? A simple Congregationalism led by a
plurality of elders.** Such an arrangement can still relate to the larger
church and even engage in cross-congregational exchange. In fact the
opportunities for doing so are greater because congregationalism liberates the
Church from faction and bureaucratic restriction. Communion and fellowship are
no longer defined by accreditation, education, contrived membership structures,
by-laws, and pseudo-oaths made to man-made documents and institutions.
Will such an arrangement allow great culture shaping
institutions to be built? Will it create a mighty financial pool of influence?
By no means, but such aspirations are utterly foreign to New Testament norms
and expectations. The drive to find answers to such out-of-bounds questions
finds solace in its fallacious utilisation of so-called 'good and necessary
consequence'.
The New Testament does not provide a great deal of
information about polity, but the basics are there. Episcopalians and other
thinkers committed to a Christendom model would deride the New Testament polity
as 'primitive' or 'underdeveloped' and certainly inadequate for our day and age
by which they mean the demands of the sacral Christendom project. They are entitled
to hold such opinions but the divide at that point isn't over the particulars
of polity but the nature of Scriptural Authority, the Kingdom and much more.
Personally I am probably more offended by the Presbyterian
position because though patently extra-Scriptural it pretentiously claims to be
a reflection of New Testament doctrine. This is not only where it fails but
quickly succumbs to tyranny. Once again it is particularly ironic that its apologists
will try to defend it (on practical terms) as a system that protects the
Church, congregations and individuals from ecclesiastical tyranny. On the
contrary the clerical system at the heart of Presbyterianism immediately
becomes an 'old boy' network and one doesn't have to look too hard to find a
myriad of voices (both congregational and individual) that have suffered at its
hands... often deceitful ones at that. This charge will offend some but I stand
by it without hesitation or apology. Presbyterianism protects itself and vests
the authority of the Church, yea it defines the Church in terms of
the clerical body known as the Presbytery. Again it is as Milton said but a pluralised
Episcopalianism, essentially a priesthood. That's the dirty secret about
Presbyterianism. They're crypto-Episcopalians and in the past this included
designs for an Established Church and all.
Do not fall prey to the fallacies and disingenuous
apologetics for their political system.
*In seminary I was advised to master Robert Rules of Order.
That was the essential key to being an effective leader in the Church. If I
wanted to get anything done I had to master the in's and out's of parliamentary
procedure. To me this was but another confirmation that Presbyterianism is a
system quite alien to ethos of the New Testament.
**The Three Office (Teaching Elders, Ruling Elders and
Deacons) view of most Presbyterians is without warrant and rests on eisegetical
impulses. The New Testament does not make a distinction between Teaching and
Ruling Elders. In practice this distinction between ordained 'pastors' and
so-called 'lay' elders is nothing more than a retention of clericalism... which
again is at the heart of the Presbyterian system. This is why the Teaching
Elder/Pastors are not congregational 'members' (another ex-scriptural category)
but members of the Presbytery. Presbytery or Council of Elders is a Biblical
term and concept but in the Presbyterian system it is changed to refer to a
regional body. They invent a term 'the session' to refer to the local body of
presbyters... lay elders who are members of the congregation and ordained
teaching elders who are members of the regional presbytery.
It's interesting how not only is bureaucratic/denominational
membership absent from Scripture, but certainly there is no notion or hint of
such a thing as Presbyterial membership on the part of 'teaching' elders. It is
a contrivance rooted in systemic integrity and political expediency and has no
basis in anything found in the New Testament.
It's really quite silly or rather what makes it so is that
like stubborn children they continue to insist this monstrosity they've created
reflects the polity of the New Testament as laid out by the Apostles. It's an
obscene claim.
These waters are further muddied by organisations like the
Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) which plays yet another game and pretends
that it adheres to a Two Office system (Elders and Deacons) but in reality
holds to the same Three Office View. It's a semantic shell game.
As an aside it might also be questioned as to whether or not
the diaconate is an 'office' at all, if by office we mean a position with
authority. To this day, there remains a lot of confusion over the office of
deacon.
For those familiar with Fundamentalist circles, the Deacon is
basically what Presbyterians would call a lay elder. The Baptists at this point
demonstrate their confused descent from older Calvinist forms of polity in that
they retain the cleric-pastor which they believe is the Presbyter-Bishop of
Scripture and the Deacons become (in Scriptural terms) Elder-Deacons. Sometimes
the diaconate role is fulfilled by another contrived office. Like Presbyterians
they get rather picky about the definitions of bishop and deacon but
subsequently invent any number of additional offices to fulfill whatever
position or programme they deem 'necessary'.