Friday, February 13, 2009

 

When Is The Church Still The Church?

Mark Roberts recently linked to a Christianity Today interview with the pastor of the largest Episcopal church in the US. The essential question - "Why stay in a sick church?" Mark, with whom I share PC(USA) affiliation, says:
Oh, by the way, “sick” as in “Why stay in a sick church?” is Rev. Levenson’s word. I would feel hesitant to use this of another church or denomination, though I find it an apt description of my own denomination. We who are sick need healing. We need the Healer.
A necessary apology with which I wholeheartedly agree.

Now, to the meat of the matter. As I read through interview, I had to agree completely with the sentiments expressed, with this one contrary thought - Does not the church at some point cease to be the church? And if so, do I not at that point need to, as Christ instructed the disciples (Mark 6:7-12), to "shake the dust from the soles of my feet?"

God's amazing redemptive story of history has an end point. He is working with power and authority far beyond our understanding to bring us ALL into His bosom. However, there will be an end to those efforts and some of us will die. At that point, even resurrection will be no longer available.

I agree with pastor Russell Levenson Jr., as long as the possibility of redemption exists, one must stay with the church and work for that redemption. But at what point does the possibility die?

I have, to date, felt that point was when the authority of scripture was rejected. In the current debates over the role of homosexuality in the clergy and marriage, I have thought such a point imminent. Scripture is simply too clear about the sinful nature of homosexual behavior. The picture is more clear in the Episcopal Church than in my own. In the Episcopal Church, the ordination of Gene Robinson is a clear denial of this scriptural authority made by the church as a matter of policy.

In my own church the matter is less clear-cut, our decision has been to allow people to "follow their conscience." Thus the standard has not been formally abandoned, but room has been made for those that wish not to adhere to it.

Can I then decide that the Episcopal church is irredeemably dead, but the PC(USA) may yet live? It is a heck of a call. Not being in the Episcopal church it is probably not my place to decide anything about them, but I need to examine them to know what to do about my own.

And then there is the more basic question - Are we supposed to decide who is dead at all? After all, the final judgment is some distance off. Are we not to assume redeemability until God plainly tells us otherwise. And if so, can we justify our own protestant existence?

I have no answers at this writing.

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