Bad Blog Etiquette?

Maybe, but a couple recent comments more informative than my original post make redirecting your attention to the discussion of discipline and repentance worthwhile.

Three Guys Who Didn't Have a Vote Have Their Say

At least that's the way the participants described it on Al Mohler's daily radio program.

Quick summary if you don't have reliable audio over the web:
Mohler's hope is that this pope is the last pope—that he renounces his authority and proclaims Sola Scriptura.

They note some common ground evangelicals will find with Benedict XVI: agreement on life issues, objectivity and reality of truth, and the fact that God has spoken. We'll disagree on the Protestant view of Scripture versus the Roman Catholic subjection of Scripture to the tradition of the church church with the pope as its head.

Their most interesting observation is that conservative evangelicals and conservative Roman Catholics may be the last people on earth who can have an honest disagreement. As Ratzinger said, "Truth is one thing, not many things."

The Changing Face of Ecclesiastical Separation

Bob Jones University recently achieved candidate status with TRACS, a national accrediting body for Christian colleges and schools. Other fundamentalist schools are also candidate institutions or are fully accredited already. The official BJU statement as well as a recent Collegian article are both available.

What is not surprising is that TRACS has seen fit to extend candidate status to BJU. There can be no doubt that the academic reputation of BJU will actually increase TRACS' own credibility rather than vice versa, which would seem to be a more conventional objective of academic accreditation. At least two knowledgeable sources said that TRACS lobbied BJU to pursue membership in the 1980s, but BJU was not interested. What is so surprising is the fact that BJU pursuing accreditation at all. This development presents the opportunity to consider accreditation as a case study in the changing face of ecclesiastical separation.

Gerry Carlson's recent article, "Accreditation: Testimony of Integrity or Accommodation to Compromise?", alluded to this issue. In the 1980s, Dr. Carlson was the Executive Director for the American Association of Christian Schools. One of his responsibilities was "to secure recognition for the accreditation programs of the AACS and the American Association of Christian Colleges," now known as the American Association of Christian Colleges and Seminaries. He writes concerning his historical perspective:

Great changes have transpired in fundamentalist thinking about accreditation over the past 25 years. This writer thinks these changes have primarily been a good development. During those years, there has been a shift toward the idea that accreditation is more about testimony, integrity and accountability, rather than about government control or external intrusion into God’s ministry.

And later:

The question of involvement with secular or Christian agencies likewise can be problematic. My experience in the late ‘80s with TRACS and several other agencies underscored the potential conflict. During 1986 and 1987 I developed and proposed a consortium concept that would have allowed the fundamentalist accrediting agencies to be recognized by the federal government alongside of TRACS and a charismatic group. The concept proposed was to keep the agencies apart for ecclesiastical separation purposes, but to mutually affirm similar basic standards that could be recognized by the Department of Education. The idea failed to gain a majority vote of the AACS state leaders and was shelved.

In other words, the fundamentalists of the ‘80s felt that even a disconnected relationship with non-fundamentalists was a breach of the ecclesiastical separation principle. The consortium concept was developed around the idea of religious freedom, not organizational cooperation and intermingling. It was explored because the AAEU staff made it clear that their firm policy precluded recognizing a proliferation of Christian accrediting groups. The AAEU staff was willing to embrace the consortium concept, if the separate accrediting bodies were willing to affirm mutual standards for non-theological matters. However, the majority in AACS saw that as a first step toward the slippery slope. That development opened the way for TRACS to be recognized as the sole accrediting voice for Christian education, aside from the Bible College accrediting body.

Carlson's insights into the thinking of fundamentalist leaders is further documented by an article by Dr. Bob Jones III and apparently co-authored or at least endorsed by a number of other men. This article, "The Accreditation Trap," was written and initially published in the late 1970s or early 1980s, according to a BJU administrator. TRACS came into existence about that same time, in 1979. The article was published again in 1988 as the last chapter in A Fresh Look at Christian Education by James Deuink of the BJU administration. The above link to the full text of the article connects to a Google cache created in September, 2004, of the Gospel Fellowship Association web site. The GFA is an affiliated ministry of BJU, and although the article is no longer available at the GFA site, Google maintains the cache, which is essentially a "snapshot" of the page as it once existed.

The article makes some valid points. It also makes some points that seem to be inconsistent with BJU's current pursuit of TRACS accreditation. Below is the most clear example:

Inter-Religious Accreditation

Accreditation, even by religious agencies, that weakens the historical and biblical practice of separation from unbelief and compromise always results in the removal of Heaven's blessing in exchange for earthly prestige and approval. The loss of God's blessing from any wrong alliance, whether secular or religiously ecumenical, is the price which will be paid for the short-term economic survival which often motivates these unholy relationships.

Seeking approval from a religious organization of any kind has historically resulted in hierarchical control and heinous tyranny. A cursory knowledge of Christian history will reveal that this is always a step away from the religious freedom we value so highly, however sincerely motivated this idea or purpose may be. [emphasis added]

Dr. Carlson and Dr. Jones' articles illustrate a strikingly different attitude toward religious accreditation that existed in the late 1970s and continued at least until the publication of Dr. Deuink's book in the late 1980s. At that point, TRACS had been in existence for almost a decade. The conclusion seems unavoidable that some substantial shift has taken place between then and now. Has TRACS somehow changed its philosophical underpinnings since that time? No one is suggesting that. Its membership is quite diverse, including everything from evangelical Lutherans to Liberty University to charismatic Jack Hayford's King's College and Seminary.

It is doubtful that BJU has escaped criticism for this change. My expectation, which arises from my attempts to obtain answers to some of these questions, is that BJU will explain their reasoning at some point, but it is the administration and board's responsibility to choose the expedient time and manner. It would be easy for critics of BJU to level charges of hypocrisy, but anyone who has written a theological paper in his or her early semesters of grad school only to read the paper again years or even (for me) months later will agree that circumstances, reasoning, and opinions change. People ought to have the right to grow in understanding and to change their minds on non-essentials. I believe that BJU ought to be extended charity for reconsidering their strong opposition to accreditation and be permitted to explain their reasons for a difficult choice.

But critiquing or defending this choice is really outside my purpose. What I really want to know is this: What is different between the way fundamentalists view ecclesiastical separation now and the way they understood it 20-25 years ago? Let's face it. Association with Jack Hayford and Jerry Falwell in any form would have been unthinkable back then. Accreditation involves a significant level of a cooperation, since it consists of mutual endorsement that member ministries are accomplishing their missional objectives. This is not solely my conclusion, because it was also the opinion of fundamentalist leaders in the 1980s as documented by Dr. Carlson's article.

I believe this shift and the questions it begs reach far beyond BJU. This example is simply one documentable example of these new perspectives on separation. I am convinced that some kind of paradigm shift has taken place very quietly over the years without any public explanation. Not surprisingly, fundamentalists seem quite reticent to admit openly when real change has taken place. Fundamentalists like certainty, and certainty does not mesh well with change. I find this tendency to deny change unhealthy at best.

I will be the first to admit that I do not have the answers to when, how, and why this paradigm shift occurred. My speculative thoughts would likely be just as unhealthy as the silence of others when change occurs. Nevertheless, I am convinced that some readers share my questions, and other readers have the answers, or at least some more educated speculations. No doubt, more thorny questions will arise in the future, and generations that are now in positions of learning, not leadership, will have to confront them. As one of those who is learning, I would like to have a better understanding of our past before those new questions challenge me.

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For more details on accreditation at BJU, the Collegian published an informative article in September, 2004.

For Church History Dunderheads Like Me

I have the worst time putting all the pieces together. Phil Johnson's graphical illustration has been as helpful to me as Sesame Street was in helping me learn my vowel sounds.

I Am Resting

Another song fitly sung in due season: the second verse of "Jesus, I Am Resting."

O, how great Thy loving kindness,
Vaster, broader than the sea!
O, how marvelous Thy goodness,
Lavished all on me!
Yes, I rest in Thee, Beloved,
Know what wealth of grace is Thine,
Know Thy certainty of promise,
And have made it mine.

Jesus, I am resting, resting,
In the joy of what Thou art;
I am finding out the greatness
Of Thy loving heart.

(Apologies to those who take accurate note of the biblical pattern of prayer to the Father in the name of Jesus.)

The Purpose Driven Copycat

This is Max Lucado's contribution to keep the momentum alive. I guess we all should have seen it coming. I won't dignify this with a URL, but enterprising folk that you are, you should be able to track it down. I'd love to do a biography of the church growth movement. I have a title: Oceans Wide, Inches Deep. Feel free to steal it if you actually have plans to write the book, since I don't.

Roe vs. Wade and the Polarization of America

Everyone talks about polarization. David Brooks of the New York Times offers a plausible explanation and solution (free registration required).

Here's the gist: Because of Roe vs. Wade,

Religious conservatives became alienated from their own government, feeling that their democratic rights had been usurped by robed elitists. Liberals lost touch with working-class Americans because they never had to have a conversation about values with those voters; they could just rely on the courts to impose their views. The parties polarized as they each became dominated by absolutist activists.

Unable to lobby for their pro-life or pro-choice views in normal ways, abortion activists focused their attention on judicial nominations. Dozens of groups on the right and left have been created to destroy nominees who might oppose their side of the fight. But abortion is never the explicit subject of these confirmation battles. Instead, the groups try to find some other pretext to destroy their foes.

And the solution:

The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Harry Blackmun and his colleagues suppressed that democratic abortion debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Roe v. Wade is overturned, politics will never get better.

Dear Ohioans, We Need You Again

I was pretty proud to be a native Ohioan last November 2nd. My heart swelled with pride when I heard about men in John Deere hats and Carhartt attire standing in line at the polls for hours and about overcrowded hitching posts in Amish precincts. The day after the election, Rush Limbaugh played his goofy theme song from start to finish. It's got to be one of the most vapid songs from a vapid musical era, but it has something to do with Ohio, and on that day it just about made me cry like a baby.

My emotions are quite different today. It's great and all that Ohio has two "Republican" senators. I just wish they would act like it.

In the last few days I've learned that Senator Mike DeWine is one of the key obstacles to Republicans moving forward on exercising the Constitutional option to gain a floor vote for judicial nominees.

"Although U. S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) has committed to vote to stop judicial filibusters, CCV staff spoke to U.S. Senator Mike DeWine's (R-OH) office on Friday, April 15 and he is still refusing to state his intentions on the issue."

Then news broke yesterday that Senator George Voinovich was unprepared to support the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N. at yesterday's Foreign Relations Committee hearing. Without Voinovich's support, the nomination would have failed. And why was the Senator not prepared to vote for Bolton?

"Voinovich, apologizing that he had been absent for hearings last week at which the panel heard from Bolton and from a harsh critic who alleged that Bolton had behaved improperly, said he had been impressed by the passionate opposition of committee Democrats."

How noble. Voinovich was ignorant and the Democrats were passionate, so the Senator was paralyzed. Reminds me of an ancient Roman official named Pontius Pilate. Apparently, Committee Chairman Richard Lugar was completely blindsided by Voinovich's pandering, so he was forced to delay the vote.

We need you again, Ohio. As a registered voter in North Carolina, there's nothing I can do but put information in your hands. Contact info for both senators is available here.

(Note that the contact info page is talking about a different issue, but the phone numbers should be the same.)

Polity Matters (Part 5): It's Why They Get the Big Bucks

Great discussion going on at Sharper Iron spurred by an interview with Pastor Chuck Phelps, a well-respected pastor within the fundamentalist movement. Pastor Phelps supports a plurality of elders provided that all the elders are paid--"those who labor in the gospel are to live by the gospel." He says:

The Bible is very clear in 2 Corinthians that the ox is not to be kept from feeding. In fact, the Bible says that those who labor in the gospel are to live by the gospel. And so, the congregation has a responsibility to pay, I believe, those who are serving in that regard. Now, that may not happen immediately, but it must be the goal. A church planter may come and be bi-vocational for a time, but the goal is that the church provide for the one who labors among them. The quandary I face, and actually, it saddens me to review church constitutions that set up plurality of elders, and have some that are paid, and some that are going to be unpaid, and they constitutionalize that. Now that’s wrong. That’s putting in a constitution something that is evidently against the advisement of the Scriptures- that those who are laboring in the gospel need to live of [sic] the gospel. And so, I would take umbrage with anyone who says there ought to be lay elders and then paid elders- professional elders. I think that’s wrong. I would take umbrage with those who would say that some elders are administrative- I think you’re on weak exegesis to call some administrative and some teaching. I think every elder needs to be apt to teach, and I think every elder needs to be, at least the goal of the congregation, ultimately paid by that congregation.

I fully agree with his criticism of a distinction between administrative elders and teaching elders. He is absolutely right to demand that all elders be capable of and given to teaching other believers the truth of Scripture. See evanC's salient response in the comments section for an explanation of a view I share with him that "teaching" should not be defined exclusively as public teaching of the congregation. Some of the best teachers in churches I've attended were often not the best pulpiteers. One of the most godly examples I knew in my time in Wisconsin never stepped near a pulpit as far as I am aware. But he was apt to teach in every conversation I ever had with him.

I'm sympathetic to Pastor Phelps' emphasis on the responsibility of the congregation to provide for those who minister to them spiritually. His reference to a Corinthian epistle is actually from 1 Corinthians 9:8-18. Second Corinthians 11:7-11; 12:11-18; and 1 Timothy 5:17-18 are also pertinent to the discussion. The Apostle Paul's interactions with the Corinthian church were obviously characterized by some conflict. We find numerous indications in the two epistles that individuals in the church resented his authority and ministry. It is not surprising, then that the emphasis of these Corinthians passages is on the responsibility of believers to provide willingly for those who minister to them, since many of the Corinthians may have been resentful of giving money to support a man they viewed as an enemy. Therefore, these passages need not be construed to demand that the ministers accept financial support, since that is not the point of the passage.

Paul's reference to the Lord's instruction may connect back to the occasion described in Matthew 10 and Luke 10 when He sent out his disciples to preach the gospel and gave them instructions on how to receive hospitality from the townspeople. It is tempting to argue from the evangelistic context of Christ's instruction combined with Paul's itinerant apostolic ministry that the context excludes elders from the application of these passages, but that may well be drawing too fine a distinction. It is more likely that we find a legitimate principle that any ministers of the gospel, including elders, should be paid.

The 1 Timothy passage specifically refers to elders. But notice that it does not prescribe that all elders must be paid. The point is that they are worthy of pay. It seems that the attitude of the congregation ought to be to do all it can to reward the laborers. Pastor Phelps' points that a constitutional differentiation between paid and unpaid elder roles is wrong and that paying every elder ought to be the goal of the congregation are well taken. I would contend, however, that elders should have the latitude likewise to refuse payment as Paul did.

The bottom line to me is that plurality of elders in the New Testament is not a luxury for large churches. It's the pattern.

Appointing a plurality "in every church" was Paul's practice on his first missionary journey (Acts 14:23), and "in every city" was his instruction to Titus (1:5). It seems highly unlikely that all of these churches were immediately capable of providing for the financial needs of all their pastors.

If the choice is between sacrificing the biblical model of plurality and sacrificing the biblical model of pay, I'll choose to keep the plurality every time, provided that some elders are willing to forego pay in order to minister to the needs of the body. Ultimately, we need to strive toward finding ways to implement all aspects of the biblical pattern, rather than finding excuses for why we cannot. (I'm not implying, of course, that Pastor Phelps is one who makes excuses, since he does have a plurality of elders.) When we make excuses, we settle for a deficient and extra-biblical model of leadership for our churches.

Discipline and Repentance: A New Paradigm for the Dorms?

Just the good ole boys.
Never meanin' no harm.
Beats all you never saw,
Been in trouble with the law,
Since the day they was born.

Straight'nin' the curve,
Flat'nin' the hills.
Someday the moutain might get 'em, but the law never will.

Makin' their way,
The only way they know how,
That's just a little bit more than the law will allow.

Just the good ol' boys,
Wouldn't change if they could,
Fightin' the system like a true modern day Robin Hood.

Admit it. You watched the Dukes of Hazzard when you were a kid. At least when your parents weren't around. The song was pretty catchy. Never lived it out much myself in high school. As far as college goes, let's just say that I knew plenty of people who did. Were they rebels, or just mischievous juveniles who got a little squirrely about Bible Conference time?

Well, long about two years after I left the university I wound up on "the other side of the law" as a dorm supervisor in a Bible college. I hope that anyone who has ever served in a position responsible for meting out discipline for walking on the grass shares my distaste for that aspect of the job. But what's the alternative? Surely college kids aren't prepared for an environment of complete freedom without restriction, right? Drop the demerits and surely a recapitulation of the Book of Judges would not be far behind.

Now cross those thoughts with your theology of church discipline. All the listening and reading I've been doing the past week or so related to my polity blogging has caused me to do just that. The cornerstone is that I believe most everyone would agree that the objective of church discipline is restoration. For that reason, we impose discipline for the failure to repent, not for the sin itself.

What would our Christian schools and colleges look like if they used that approach, as well?

I can hear the thousands of you who read this blog crying as one, "Impossible! No way that would ever work." You might be right. It might not work. We might have to rename our guys' dorm "Sons of Belial" and the ladies' "Daughters of Lot."

But did we ever think to try it? What would it take to give it a chance to work?

Step One: We'd have to be prepared not to kick out immediately every kid who goes out drinking, cheats on a final, sneaks off campus with his girlfriend, or even worse. That's a major paradigm shift, and it would have its drawbacks. But think about it in conjunction with step two.

Step Two: We'd have to make a major commitment to accountability and counseling. We'd have to make the dorm sups and RA's responsible for much more than making sure kids shut their lights out at 11:00. They would need to be capable and equipped to counsel heart issues, not just pin a demerit slip on someone's door. We would have to be prepared to make an investment in young people's lives to the point that we are willing to confront rule-breaking with a loving understanding of progressive sanctification and a perceptive nose for a rebellious spirit. That investment would have to go far beyond a one-time confrontation with the ultimate objective of fostering a pastoral relationship.

Step Three: We'd have to be willing to ask not to return those students who don't demonstrate genuine repentance over time. This may be the really tough part. It's easy to want the rebel to be gone. It's fairly simple (if you catch them) to kick someone out for violating one of the big rules. It's much harder to decide which of those little straws of rebellion is the one that ought to be the last one. It's downright frightening to think of trying to differentiate between the immature believer and the scorner of Proverbs.

I've not said all that needs to be said, probably because I didn't think of it. But right now I simply can't escape the possibility that if it's the way we need to be building up disciples in our churches, then maybe it's also the way we should be discipling in our schools.

I'm willing to be wrong on this one. Fire away.