The latest round of slander against us has come up with a new one, or at least an old one expressed in a new way. This slander is the argument for the necessity of anonymity, for if our local critics identified themselves, so the thinking goes, we would send some deacons around to bust their kneecaps. No one objects to samizdat publications under the Soviets — so it is here. Right?
This is an accusation that should be answered (briefly, as it deserves), but then in turn it raises a theological point that needs to be addressed as well.
The new expression of this old charge is that I am guilty of “destroying people’s lives,” and that behind this “jovial exterior” of mine lurks a sinister malice. I mean, if you would have evidence, these people say, just look at all the “destroyed lives.” It is quite true that some people I know over the last few years have destroyed careers, friendships, and businesses. This happened because they initiated unsuccessful attacks on Christ Church in an attempt to destroy or split the church and they encountered shepherds who actually know how to fight, and who were willing to defend the flock. There was conflict, which they lost. But once someone has done something like that, and is unwilling to repent, he cannot just go back to the way things were for him before. There is no such thing as risk-free church-split attempts. You are shooting the moon, and you either hit it or you don’t. There is a way back — called repentance — but the elders of the church have no right to allow unrepentant animosity to continue in the church unmolested. On a personal level, do I feel bad for these people who threw away so much? Yes, I certainly do. Do I feel guilty for fighting them off? Not even a little bit. A good shepherd protects the flock (John 10:11-14), and a hireling does not.
Now here is the theological question. It is quite true that one tendency of the FV is to broaden the boundaries of the covenant. In Peter Leithart’s very fine commentary on Kings, he says this:
“American fundamentalists and conservative evangelicals in particular tend to operate with free church ecclesiologies in which they regard themselves as the remnant, the true Israel, separated from the false church in the mainline. Thinking that they are following Luther, they withdraw from contact with the mainline churches, largely ignoring them and leaving them to their own devices. To be sure Elijah and Elisha set up their own network of prophetic communities, but they remain in regular, if confrontational, contact with Israel’s mainline” (p. 125).
Remember that word “confrontational.” Liberalism broadens the boundaries of the covenant in order to have a schmooze-fest. “We’re all saying the same thing, really!” “We are all climbing the same mountain by different paths.” Conservatism narrows the boundaries of the covenant in order to stay faithful to Christ and the gospel, but they lose catholicity, which is an aspect of the gospel. FV is proposing another alternative. Elijah recognized Ahab as a fellow Jew, but that didn’t make them pals.
A few posts ago, I posted a variation of a WW2 poster, “Man the Guns,” with a statement at the bottom making fun of Christians fighting each other instead of the enemy. The point of this was to poke our tendency to strangle gnats. We ought not to be fighting each other over sprinkling vs. dunking, sibboleth/shibboleth, tomato/tomahto issues. Of course not. But for those Christians who want to ordain homosexuals, deny the gospel, fund the pro-aborts, and so on, covenantal faithfulness requires constant conflict — “confrontational contact.” To declare “peace” simply on the basis of the objective covenant bond is to capitulate to liberalism. If that is what broadening the covenant necessarily means, then I would prefer sectarian faithfulness to compromised ecumenism. But of course sectarianism is also a form of faithlessness — if that sectarianism is adopted as a doctrinal stance (as opposed to having it imposed on you by persecuting bishops, say).
So this means that I am willing to fight fellow Christians when the analogia Scripturae demands it. I am unwilling to fight faithful Baptists, Methodists, charismatics, and so on, even though we have marked differences (e.g. David and Jonathan). I am more than willing to fight with Bishop Spong, with Bishop Robinson, et al (e.g. Elijah and Ahab). I don’t fight with them because they are not in the covenant; I fight with them because they are. And last, I am reluctantly willing to fight (defensively) with conservative believers who have taken it into their heads to launch an unnecessary attack on us (e.g. David and Saul). The world is a messy place, and so we do the best we can to sort it out.
One of the things that FV critics say is that they are worried about the FV extension of the boundaries of the covenant. They are afraid of another round of the liberal schmooze-fest, and it is a reasonable concern. I have seen some troublesome applications of this myself in FV circles. But you can’t maintain this concern, and also have trouble with FV Christians who are willing to confront sin and wrong within the covenant. This point is a variation of Christ’s “we played the banjo and you did not dance, we played the oboe and you did not mourn.” You can’t have it both ways. “We extend the right hand of fellowship and you cry ‘liberalism’! We fight and you cry ‘bellicose combativeness’!”
Of course it should go without saying that there is a time and place for everything. The only difference between salad and garbage is timing.