What Churches Can Do to Reconcile with Those Who Left
Written by R. Scott Clark |
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
It is likely some pastors and elders, however few, erred and even sinned in their response to Covid and to the congregation. Where that happened they must confess those mistakes and sins and ask for forgiveness from their congregations. That act might be the most powerful sermon they preach to their congregations all year.
A few days ago I made an appeal to those who left their congregations over disagreements with church leadership about how the visible church responded to Covid. I asked for understanding and forgiveness. I also argued that, in most cases, those who left did so for the wrong reason: they were asking the visible church to be and do something that the visible church is neither called nor equipped to do. At least some of the comments published under that essay support that analysis. To the degree that is true, what happened was a case of conflicting expectations. The church leadership expected the church to manifest the marks of the true church: preach the gospel purely, administer the sacraments purely, and administer church discipline (Belgic Confession, art. 29) and some of those who left wanted the church to be an institutional advocate for civil liberties, to become, in effect, something like the American Center for Law and Justice, FIRE, or the Pacific Justice Institute. These are all fine organizations and they do good work in helping citizens secure their civil liberties. I have advocated for civil liberties consistently in this space but the visible church is not a civil liberties advocacy group. It is the embassy of King Jesus to the world. The message he has entrusted to her is the moral law and the good news of free salvation in Christ.
Further, during Covid, I was critical of some congregations not for practicing civil disobedience (I defended their right to follow their conscience and to obey God rather than man according to Acts 5:29), but for aligning the visible church with a political candidate and turning a worship service into a political rally and using it to score points in the culture war. Again, none of these things is in the church’s brief. One simply cannot find any evidence in the New Testament of that sort of response to civil authorities.
One response I have received, however, is cogent: What about the role of the visible church in the rupture of the relationship between members and the church? What I saw was pastors and elders trying to serve their congregations as best they could in a situation for which few of them were prepared. They did so in a time when the nation had become deeply fractured along cultural and political lines. Almost immediately, how one responded to Covid came to symbolize, regardless of whether one intended to send a cultural-political signal, a cultural-political stance. Again, see the comments on the original post. The discussion moved almost immediately to the question of who was right or wrong about “the science.” In other words, the discussion moved from grace (e.g., how to forgive one another) to nature (i.e., who was wrong about Covid).
Nevertheless, some critics have expressed a valid concern. What if the leadership of the visible church erred or sinned? We may not say a priori that it could not happen. Popes and councils do err. Every consistory and session (ministers and elders) is composed of sinners, and sinners sin. They violate the moral law of God. They fail to love God perfectly and they fail to love their neighbors as themselves.
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Promises So Certain
I hope that you reach the end of your life and can say with Joshua, “I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed” (Josh 23:14).
Now Joshua was old and advanced in years, and the LORD said to him, “You are old and advanced in years, and there remains yet very much land to possess… Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance to the nine tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh”
Joshua 13:1, 7
Can you imagine promises so certain? The Israelites had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their unbelief. God had promised them a land, and they refused to believe Him. Fast-forward and Joshua has brought them in and they have begun the conquest of Canaan. They had defeated king after king, but there was still work to be done. Joshua is too old to continue with the Israelites, so what is he to do? “…divide this land for an inheritance…”
Can you imagine promises so certain? Divide up the land. What land? The land you haven’t conquered yet, but the land that was promised.
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The Providential Love of God: Reflections on Psalm 107
The more immediate point drawn from Psalm 107 is this: The LORD’s love is a providential love by which he directs the affairs of humanity. He will not allow the human bent toward self-destruction to have its final way, and so in his love he directs men and women back towards him—even if by way of the purgatorial path.
Psalm 107 is a song celebrating the steadfast love of the LORD: “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” This love is experienced by God’s people after a particular historical pattern; one that deserves some reflection if for no other reason than the corrective it provides to the banal triumphalism that pervades so much of American evangelical celebration of the love of God in song.
Psalm 107 forms the final part of what was originally read as a kind of three-part epic, rehearsing the Israelite history from Exodus through Exile. The phrase in verse 3—“[whom he has] gathered in from the lands”—notably answers the previous psalm 106:47: “Save us, O Lord our God, and gather us from among the nations…,” indicating that the two are supposed to be read sequentially. Psalm 106, similarly, follows on from Psalm 105. After rehearsing the salvation of the LORD in the exodus event, 105:44 declares that God gave them the lands of the nations, “that they might keep his statutes.” Psalm 106 opens menacingly: “Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people… Both we and our fathers have sinned.” (vv. 5-6).
Together, then, these three psalms form a trilogy, describing the Jews’ liberation from Egypt and entrance into their promised land (Ps. 105); the Jews’ rebellion and exile from their land (Ps. 106); and God’s covenant love and rescue of his people from exile (Ps. 107). This trilogy provides the Christian a wonderful place to mentally camp-out, as it were, and contemplate the history of God’s salvific work amongst his people; for it is our history as well.
The Sovereign Love of God
In order to set the backdrop against which the love of God comes to the fore, the majority of Psalm 107 (vv. 4-32) is taken up with the various ways the exiled people experienced their exile.
Wanderers
“Some wandered in deserts wastes, finding no city to dwell in” (v. 4) These wanderers, precisely because of their wandering, were unable to meet their basic needs. Cities emerged in large part in response to the harshness and unpredictability of the wilds. There were places where people gathered together and worked together to stave off the wilds, the dangers, the deprivations of the wilderness. To make it on one’s own as a wanderer, a pioneer, was most difficult, and most simply could not.
These wanderers had no city, no community. They suffered the deprivation of those basic necessities of life to such a degree that they were ready to give up, to let death make its final mark on their sinewy bodies. “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, And he delivered them from the distress” (v. 6).
The Lord’s delivery led them to a city, a refuge, a place of safety and abundance. They had longed in their souls, and God had satisfied them. “For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things” (v. 9). And so, “let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love” (v. 8). Hospitably, God gathers in the wanderers and nourishes their desperate souls.
Prisoners
“Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons…” (v. 10). These prisoners were not unjustly condemned. They had rebelled against God, they had “spurned the counsel of the Most High” (v. 11). For this reason they were punished with prison camps. They were made to work hard labor, the psalm says; their hearts were bowed low (v. 12).
Their rebellion against God was an indication that they had elevated themselves in pride. The Lord justly brings the proud low.
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Greg Abbott, Alistair Begg, and the Law of Fashion
Written by Ben C. Dunson |
Thursday, February 15, 2024
It is bad enough when anyone gives in to the sinister pressures of culture, but it is significantly worse when people in positions of prominence (like Begg) do so. It makes it all the harder for non-prominent Christians to stand firm, because strident advocates of immorality and unbelief will point to such capitulations as evidence that the biblical position isn’t so clear after all. This is already occurring with regard to Begg’s comments. While Christians cannot single-handedly, and instantly, change the law of fashion prevalent in their nation, they can direct the law of fashion toward just goals in their own communities.Laws change behavior. While they cannot make everyone do the right thing, if penalties are sufficiently stringent, and if they are actually enforced, good laws can at least make most people do the right thing most of the time. Without just laws justly applied a healthy society is impossible. But laws are not enough to ensure that justice prevails in a nation. There must also be widespread social pressure for people to do the right thing. Thomas West notes, in fact, in The Political Theory of the American Founding (quotes from chapter 11), that for the American founders, social pressure was seen to be even more important than good laws. James Madison called this social pressure the “law of fashion.” Indeed, “public opinion,” Madison maintained, “sets bounds to every government and is the real sovereign in every free one.” John Adams agreed and therefore insisted that
it is a principal end of government to regulate this passion, which in its turn becomes a principal means of government. It is the only adequate instrument of order and subordination in society, and alone commands effective obedience to laws, since without it neither human reason, nor standing armies, would ever produce that great effect.
The last week provides several clear illustrations of how central the “law of fashion” is in determining how things go in our country. First, there is the border crisis. In the past, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has not been particularly quick to act in preventing mass illegal crossings into his state. Time will tell if this is all a piece of political theatre, but it appears that Abbott is finally willing to take significant steps to close the border. This includes calling the mass influx of illegal crossing an invasion (thus invoking Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution) and defying the recent Supreme Court decision that the Border Patrol can begin cutting razor wire along the border. Abbott is not the kind of Governor to take risky actions. Unless, that is, he perceives that doing so will be widely popular. Abbott knows that most Americans are troubled by the massive numbers of illegal aliens coming into America and want Abbott to stand firm, but even more than that, he has likely been encouraged to continue standing up to the border malfeasance of the Federal government because of the extremely positive response his actions received among the Governors of 25 other states. These Governors signed letters showing they stand with Texas in support of the state’s constitutional right to defend its border regardless of Federal action or inaction. Some even pledged the use of their own states’ National Guard units. The U.S. Constitution clearly gives Abbott the right to secure Texas’ border, but it wasn’t until the “law of fashion” did its work that Abbott became willing to act. That is to say, a just law wasn’t enough; social pressure, more than anything else, is what pushed Abbott over the edge.
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