I can say without qualification that I have been grieved by
the mainstream Church's response to this outbreak. As I've talked about in
other pieces, I believe the Church (broadly speaking) has been too quick to bow
to the state and its dictates, its declaration that the assembly of the Church
is something less than an 'essential service'.
I am grieved because Church leaders have handed over the
authority of definition to the state
but again this in some respects isn't all that surprising. It's the culmination
of a long trajectory of compromise and capitulation.
Again, it may be prudent not to meet for a season but that
would be a decision made by the Church or (more realistically) churches on a
theological basis, considering questions of safety and love for neighbour.
Instead ecclesiastical leaders have allowed the state to dictate what is necessary
and what isn't and ecclesiastical leaders have responded by arguing the church
is subject to the laws of the state. This is an error, but in many cases the
Libertarian response (which continues to muddy the waters) is just as
erroneous. Contrary to their Enlightenment-driven, individualist and rights-focused
understanding of these issues, we as Christians are called to submit to the
powers that be (that Providence has ordained) but it must be made unequivocally
clear... the state has no jurisdiction when it comes to the Church.
Is this dilemma further complicated by bureaucracy, buildings
and the institutionalisation of the Church? It most certainly is and after
spending the last few weeks listening to and reading the responses of Church
leaders I am struck that for most, the shut-down is little more than a question
of procedural crisis, a bureaucratic and perhaps liturgical tangle. Missing the
forest through the trees we have suddenly been confronted with a stark (but
long present) reality... Evangelical and even Confessional ecclesiology has
been deeply even fatally compromised. It took a crisis to expose it for what it
really is – a business model masquerading
as the Church of Jesus Christ.
While there's been little protest or real concern with regard
to arrested church leaders – who in some cases are admittedly motivated by
flawed thinking, the focus has been directed toward legalities, rights and
constitutional issues, the very thing, the very distraction I feared.
The discussion is entangled by laws, questions of legal
authority, allegations of abuse of said authority and appeals to the state for
clearance to start meeting again. By sacralising the culture, sanctifying
secular law and the institutions of the state, they have literally entangled
themselves in a series of knots. They're tying their own hands and have
blinkered their own ability to see through these problems.
The state has nothing to say about when the Church meets or
doesn't meet. It's not their decision. When a sheriff says on television that
churches can have their meetings on line, he's to be ignored. He's acting as a
Beast-agent claiming Divine prerogatives.
And again I say this from an anti-Libertarian framework. This
must be clarified because of the growing influence and traction of that
movement's ethos, even upon some church leaders. This has nothing to do with
the First Amendment, the US Constitution or any kind of appeal to rights. These
are the wrong categories and while rooted in post-Enlightenment sociology
(which many Christians have heretically sanctified) they have nothing to do
with genuine New Testament thinking. The questions should not be cast in a
legal framework. New Testament Christians don't file lawsuits, appeal to the
courts or rely on the police and this is especially true when it comes to these
issues.
We don't recognise their authority with regard to the Kingdom
of Heaven. We do what we need to do and if necessary pay the price. We're
called to take up the cross and if that means arrest, loss of money, property
and possessions, flight or death, then we must submit in faith and praise God.
In accord with the New Testament we do not take up the sword in any sense and
we do not ask for permission to worship. If the state tolerates us, praise God.
If the state persecutes us, praise God. But either way God is our authority in
this. The state is ordained by God to restrain the evils of this present age. It's
a necessary evil that serves a good purpose even though its motives are self-serving
and given to idolatry. As it is the institutionalisation of the sword, Christians
can have no part in it, nor do we resist it through those same means. The state
is not holy, not covenantal, (and contrary to the confused theology of
Dominionism) it's not part of God's Kingdom. It will not survive the eschaton
and as such it has no part or say in the Church's affairs.
If such a posture is unacceptable to the state, then kill us
but we won't bend on this. The False Church will, but not the faithful remnant
Church.
We will happily obey their societal laws, pay our taxes and
be productive, and more importantly (though they mock the notion) we will pray
for the peace of the city and its rulers but there is a chasm between us and
them and depending on the nature of the state and its claims, this chasm, this
antithesis can give rise to great ire and ultimately persecution. Of course
this thinking is largely absent from today's Church and in most cases the Biblical
teaching is categorically rejected and often with no small amount of vitriol.
The modern Enlightenment-middle class expectation of
'citizenship' even while absent from the New Testament (though they attempt to
read it in) has been theologised, sanctified and for many is an imperative, an
act of piety and devotion. It's a clarion call to compromise and sin.
Libertarians may lament the present church-state arrangement
but their arguments fall within their humanistic frameworks often coupled with appeals
to nationalism, guns, other threats of violence and a pride born of rugged individualism
– a type of sanctified survivalism and moral purity rooted in the ethics of
capitalism, the sanctification of the gold standard or something along those
lines. They're the one faction that sees a problem with the current arrangement
but their framework for understanding it (let alone their solutions) are in the
end just as problematic and dangerous as the models which have sold out to the
state. Either way, the Church's identity and ethics are compromised.
If we can meet in a reasonably safe way and if we can do so
without openly or unnecessarily antagonising the authorities then we should do
so. We are commanded to do so. The denial of communion, the Word and the
assembly is a grievous thing and our leaders are failing us and failing Christ.
And if our meetings are in violation of the law, then we're in good company.
Such realities have been the lot of Christ's people throughout much of history
and at many different times and in many different places. There may be some
challenges but we can meet safely. This present confrontation is not just about
the virus. It's moved beyond that now. It's about state authority and the board
is being set for a new era in society. While I'm not among the blind and
obstinate who dismiss the virus as a hoax, I'm not so blind as to not see what
is happening and how this moment is being appropriated by those with other
agendas.
Have any of these people ever read Hebrews 11? Have they ever
read any Church history? Are they aware of what most Christians deal with
around the world? Their middle class assumptions won't allow them to seriously
entertain these questions. Maybe we'll have to meet in less than comfortable
conditions. Maybe we'll have to park in a dispersed fashion and walk some
distance to meet. Maybe we'll have to stagger our arrivals and departures over
several hours. Oh, and if meeting in such a fashion we'll certainly have to
leave our phone-tracking devices at home. If the thought of this is traumatic
to some, then perhaps they need to re-think their relationship with the
technology of our day. These inconveniences while so offensive to 'have it my
way' consumerist culture are part of normal Church life for many Christians and
again this sort of thing has a centuries-long heritage.
The compromised and corrupt false leaders and hireling
teachers have institutionalised the Church and have entangled it within a
bureaucracy connected to buildings, state sanction, the financial system and a
tax structure that places the Church of Jesus Christ under the aegis of the government,
even while they pretend otherwise. Ever in fear of losing the tax breaks deemed
so essential to the prosperity of their pseudo-Zion, many church leaders will
quickly crumble under threat, as indeed they have. Because they're so tied to
the concept of a building being essential for the function of the Church, they
necessarily submit to every building code and insurance requirement, adopting
the world's mindsets and categories when it comes to how the Church thinks
about its needs, uses, space, responsibilities and fiscal order. It is
revolting. When I read over my church's budget it literally makes me sick and
drives me to give my offerings someplace else. And I attend a church with no
more than eighty people on a Sunday morning, a good size congregation for my
area but considered very small on a national level.
Sacralism and the Dominionist quest to influence culture
deeply embed a desire for respectability and a solid place within the
mainstream. I am both amused and amazed as I watch the many videos posted by
pastors and ministry leaders. From what I can see of their homes and offices, they
live very well and many are clearly part of the upper class. To be associated
with the fringe elements of society, something assumed by the New Testament's
call to pilgrim status and its call to come out of the world, is heartily rejected
by this aberrant theology and the mindset it produces. Their refined version of
the prosperity gospel is still just that – a prosperity gospel with a Judaized
understanding of the Kingdom that thinks godliness is gain. 'God has blessed us,'
they insist as they revel in their decadence. They glory in their shame and
Paul's warning to the Philippians is every bit as pertinent to today as it was
in the first century.
These questions have been further clouded by an argument I
keep encountering by those who would defend virtual or Facebook-style church
services. 'The Church is not a building,' they say.
True enough, it certainly is not but these same people would
be unwilling to take it a step further and actually identify buildings as
potentially harmful and certain buildings and models as most definitely so. And
while the Church is not a building, a Facebook or Zoom meeting is not a valid
assembly – it's not the holy congregation gathering with the heavenly host on
Mt. Zion in the presence of the Divine Council, hearing the Word and partaking
of the Heavenly Bread and Cup, the Body and Blood which both signify and seal
our union and communion with Christ.
But at the same time, many do seem to act like the Church is
a building and seem more concerned with and hindered by occupancy rules, codes
and the like. The idea of meeting apart from the building seems to be
unthinkable. And thus for them the empty and evil threats of Mayor DeBlasio
carry real weight.
Can the New York City mayor shut down a building? Sure, but he can't shut down the Church. The
Church has bound its own hands by wedding its identity to a building that is
subject to the authority of the state, its rules and its categories. A flawed
ecclesiology gives great weight to what is in the end, a vile but truly empty
threat. The Church is continually thought of as a business-like institution
functioning within the wider arc of society. Again, this is not the New
Testament concept of the Church.
The erroneous mindset is further exemplified in the stimulus
emails I've been receiving. Since in
terms of the law, your congregation is a non-profit entity or non-profit small
business then it's possibly eligible for stimulus money – and I don't doubt
that many will quickly sign up to take it.
It's one thing for individuals to take a subsidy from the
state. It's Caesar's coin and Caesar's economy and thus Caesar's game but the
Church should never take money from the state, an issue further clouded by the
rise of the para-church and the many corrupt 'ministries' which purport to do
the Church's work, sometimes hand in hand with the state. Babylon does not build
Zion but if given the chance it will quickly corrupt and subvert the latter.
The enemy doesn't always work against the Church by attempting to persecute and
destroy it. Seduction and complacency are (in the end) more powerful and
effective weapons. It's the still unlearned lesson from the days of Constantine
and the warnings given within the New Testament itself.
And of course the Church could step in and at least support
its own in times of trouble but instead it wastes its money on its institutional
and bureaucratic structures and in many cases turns its own people to seek aid
from the state.
Buildings, superfluous and misguided programmes and staff,
and a host of extra-Scriptural innovations have corrupted the Church and caused
it to lose sight of its purpose. The crisis has revealed this and demonstrates
once again that most churches that profess Sola Scriptura have in practice rejected
its sufficiency – and this on a radical level when it comes to ecclesiology.
Many Confessionalists and High Church Traditionalists are in fact critical of a
thoroughgoing or comprehensive doctrine of Sola Scriptura and argue for the
necessity of creeds. But in truth there are very few churches that actually
believe in Sola Scripture let alone apply it. Most of the time the advocates of
Confessionalism are arguing against straw-men.
I keep encountering appeals that it's 'time to re-think how
Church is done', usually accompanied by some kind of new cyber-hybrid or
multi-site paradigm. While I'm all for splitting up large congregations into
smaller entities, they would (in accord with New Testament polity) each be led
by a plurality of elders... but today's model relies on the celebrity/CEO
pastor, the would-be Levitical praise team, sundry props, a tech-platform and a
host of other staff. The models being suggested are not rooted in the New
Testament but are innovations born of marketing strategies and a deformed
consumerist ecclesiology.
With these suggestions comes a threat and a warning – be prepared to confront and even force out
the dissenters who refuse to go along with the post-Covid 19 ecclesiology.
It reminds me of the huckster 'Church Consultant' we encountered a couple of
years ago. His hubris-saturated 'advice' included such warnings. He knew best
and his argument was tantamount to 'Obey, because I say so. I know what works
and you don't. If you dare to resist, then you must be forced out.'
It is time to re-think and re-visit basic ecclesiological
assumptions. I'm all for it but we don't need a new model, we need to return to
an old one, to old paths found in Dark Age dissenters and the earliest days of
the Church. The New Testament model is so simple if people would dare to follow
it. They must pity Paul because he did not have their tools – and yet he built
the Church in a way they cannot even fathom. Why? Because he understood
something they do not. The Church is built by the Holy Spirit using the means
that God has ordained. It is a living entity not an institution, not a facet of
the world system, not a business machine geared toward the acquisition of
revenue. It's the Holy Assembly, the Kingdom of Christ and it's not of this
world.
The sad truth is – even while they say 'amen', most of the
Church doesn't believe this anymore. You shall know a tree by its fruits.