by R. K. Maiden
Questions to be answered in this article:
The counsels of
perfection of the Apostles regarding unity are not of union of organization,
but of keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. That was the
essential requirement of the apostolic church, where variety of organization
was already experienced. Many therefore regard what is called "the need
for external unity" as outside the program of those who follow God's Word.
There is deep truth in the recent utterance of a minister who said, "I do not
see any object in sweeping churches into one organization. It will be a peril
rather than a help. High religious organization always has been a peril."
. . . Those beliefs of doctrine which are based upon the Written Word have
always produced the same unique spiritual experience everywhere in all places
and ages.
Preliminary observations. Some of my readers, not aware of the present aggressions of liberalism, may think me unduly exercised over Liberalistic programs and advances. But such readers would not register surprise at my attitude if they were conversant with all the facts. I have no disposition to exaggerate current conditions and trends, but am deeply concerned. Our Baptist Zion is either unaware of the menace of ecclesiological liberalism or else supinely indifferent, The chief concern so far shown among us seems to be with theological liberalism, This, too, is a menace of prodigious proportions. But this giant heresy is being recognized for what it is and is being courageously opposed and exposed, while little is being said or done in defense of New Testament ecclesiology--the New Testament Church. I do not hesitate to go on record as firmly holding the belief that Baptists have more to fear from ecclesiological liberalism than from theological liberalism. If, as all true Baptists believe, Baptists have a heaven-given mission in the world and message for the world, and would faithfully perform their mission and deliver their message, at all costs they must maintain their separateness, loyalty and integrity,
Baptists
not "Protestants."
When I use here the terms "Protestant" and "Protestantism,"
I do not include Baptists, who should never be classified with Protestants.
Such classification does violence to the facts of history. Baptists were
bravely protesting against the doctrines and practices of
New
Testament meaning of "church." It is important to keep definitely in mind the fact
that in its beginning the great apostasy was ecclesiastical. It was a departure
by gradual almost insensible, processes from the simple, independent,
self-governing polity of the earlier churches. The drift toward episcopacy had
set in before the death of the last Apostles. Baptists have held and taught
that Christ "built" a church. "I will build my church." Ecclesia
(church) He named it. Let the meaning of the word be examined. In what sense
did Christ and the writers of the New Testament use it? Christ did not invent
it, nor did He put into it any unfamiliar or unusual meaning. It was borrowed
from the Greeks, and is a compound of two Greek words, a preposition and a
verb, meaning primarily "called out." Omitting three or four doubtful
instances, the word translated "church" occurs 113 times in the New
Testament. It is used in three senses. In ninety-two instances it is used in the
primary and ordinary sense; that is, of a particular, independent, autonomous
body, as "The Church at
Parent
ecclesiological heresy. The
conception and adoption of the "universal church" theory is the
parent heresy in ecclesiology. How, when and where did this theory originate?
The change from the idea of the individual, self-governing church to the
universal church had its origin in one of the most colossal blunders of all
Christian history--that of making ecclesia and basileia
identical. So far from being identical, the difference between
"Church" and "Kingdom" is so great as to require that they
be contrasted rather than compared. Jesus and the writers of the New Testament
never confused the two terms; never used one where the other can be substituted
without doing violence to both terms. With two or three exceptions, ecclesia
is used in the New Testament in the local, particular, multiple sense, while, without
a single exception, basileia is used in the
singular and universal sense. The taproot of the universal church theory is the
identification of the Church and the Kingdom, making these two coincident,
co-extensive and co-terminous. The theory
of the identity of Church and Kingdom and of the universality of the church
were twin-born. New Testament writers knew nothing of a world church. As
nearly as can be determined, the first formal, official identification of
Church and Kingdom was projected when the
Protestantism
adopted
Church
"branch" theory. The
"branch" theory is the natural offspring of the universal, invisible,
which was born of the mother heresy--making Church and Kingdom identical. When
the 1936 Preaching Mission, sponsored by the Federal Council of Churches, was
underway, E. Stanley Jones acted as the special spokesman for the Council,
keeping it and its aims before the people. While this is being written, my eye
caught the following paragraph in the Watchman-Examiner of
"Dr. E. Stanley
Jones, in the interest church union, urges the formation of a kind of
super-church entitled 'The Church of Christ in
This, "The Church of Christ In America," is the logical sequence of the "universal, invisible, spiritual" theory and the "branch" theory of the church. Beyond doubt Dr. Jones speaks not only his own mind but the mind of the Federal Council of Churches, and incidently reveals the Council's ultimate objective. What he proposes is similar to what was proposed and undertaken by the "Follow-Up" Committee of the Edinburgh Conference. That committee, it is recalled, took a swing around the world, visiting mission fields and holding conferences to foster the idea of unifying different mission interests, bringing them into co-operative relation and under common control, and to unionize and nationalize the churches--Baptist, Methodist and what not. Happily this undertaking ended in inglorious failure. This church branch program did not eventuate as its promoters planned and expected, but it had an educational value in the interest of its heretical theory. The leaven of ecclesiastical liberalism was carried abroad. Seeds were sown that will germinate and grow into a harvest of "universal church" sentiment and practice. The position assumed and the program revealed by Dr. Jones and the Federal Council is practically the same as that of the Edinburgh "Follow-Up Committee."
Baptists
infested with the theory. Our Baptist
churches should refuse to be deceived by the wooing and cooing of the Federal
Council of Churches. It is making "a nose of wax" of New Testament
teaching concerning the church. Where it is not doing this, New Testament
teaching is ignored and treated as of little consequence, and New Testament
authority is nonchalantly flouted. It would if it could, and will if it can,
dominate Baptist churches and disintegrate the Baptist denomination. Concerning
the church, a false and misleading terminology is gaining currency, and that,
too, among Baptists. More and more Baptists are yielding to the clamor for a
more liberal interpretation of the term church, and more and more they are
thinking, speaking and writing of the church in pedo-Baptist
terms and with pedo-Baptist meaning. In his book: Can
a Man be a Christian Today?, Dr. W. L. Poteat,
former president of Wake Forest College, in referring to organized
Christianity, calls it "The Christian Church." Here is a quotation
from a sermon preached by Prof. Marshall, Bible teacher of
Will Baptists dig their own grave? The Baptist denomination digs its own grave when it consents to be counted as one of the "fifty-seven Varieties." It cannot survive, and has neither need nor right to survive, if it suffer itself to be classified as a "section" or "branch" of the so-called "universal, invisible, spiritual church." A Baptist church that thinks of itself as a "branch" or "section" of a "universal, invisible, spiritual church," or "the Christian Church," is a Baptist church in name only. Baptist churches that co-ordinate the Baptist denomination and themselves with the churches of other denominations, and accord to these churches New Testament standing, are acting consistently, not with Baptist principles and polity, but with their liberal attitude and practice, when they affiliate, federate and co-operate with non-Baptist bodies. By their liberal attitude and practice they put themselves under obligation to practice inter-denominational comity to its utmost limits, to accept the baptisms of non-Baptist bodies as scriptural and valid, to exchange letters with non-Baptist bodies, to practice open communion, and adopt the policy of open membership. This is the inescapable logic of the "Church branch" theory.
Baptists must resist the disintegrating program. The consistent, self-respecting, self-preserving, Christ-honoring position for our Baptist churches in this day of shallow thinking, dissolving convictions, loose loyalty and effervescing sentimentality, is to
deny New Testament
church standing to all religious bodies that refuse to practice New Testament
polity and reject as unscriptural and invalid any and all of their
ecclesiastical acts. Baptists need desperately to review their own Baptist
history, rethink the Baptist position and rediscover the Baptist conscience.
"The anvil on which the Jesuit hammer will break to pieces is the Baptist
conscience. I would like all the world through to put
the Baptist conscience against the Jesuits." This is true witness by Hugh
Price Hughes, noted Wesleyan Minister in
Recapitulation. The false identification of Church and Kingdom begat
the empire theory of Papal Rome, and the universal, invisible, spiritual theory
of Protestantism, which begat the Church branch theory, which begat the Federal
Council, which begat--what? The Luther Reformation was not a full break with
Unionism raised to 'nth power.
Once off the New Testament reservation and out into the wide spaces there is no
telling how far those afflicted with unionitis
may wander, or what crazy notions they may get into their heads. In
ecclesiological liberalism, which invariably ripens into unionism, there is a
whole brood of potential follies. Recently, in a public address at
The
"
To rob Christ
of His glory the ultimate objective.
A while ago a prominent churchman voiced the hope for a consolidation of
Christendom that would take in Unitarians and the papal hierarchy. The vastly
wealthy John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who has withdrawn all support from the
Northern Baptist Program, announces his purpose from now on to march with the
liberalists and unionists, and put his money behind their program. When all the
denominations are blended into one he would call it, "The Church of the
Living God." Some time ago announcement was made in the public press of a
movement to be launched at
Baptists Must Awake. Baptists and Baptist churches here and there are dipping their colors to this ecclesiastically evaporating, disintegrating movement. The simple, specific, serious purpose of this discussion is to plead with all the earnestness and conviction of my soul the cause of the simple New Testament church, the independent, self-governing body of baptized believers, as against the visible empire conception of Romanism and the universal, invisible, spiritual conception of Protestantism The New Testament church, opposed and oppressed by the visible empire church theory of papal Rome on one side and the universal, invisible, spiritual church theory of Protestantism on the other side, must awake to its danger and rise to its defense.
[Pastor Wilson's comments: This excellent article appeared in Re-thinking Baptist Doctrines, a book published in 1937 by The Western Recorder, a Southern Baptist periodical. The book is a compilation of the writings of some of the leading pastors and educators in the Southern Baptist Convention. It is indeed sad that the convictions expressed in this article and in the others that appeared in that book are completely foreign to Southern Baptists of our day. To quote from the author of this article: "A Baptist church that thinks of itself as a 'branch' or 'section' of a 'universal, invisible, spiritual church,' or 'the Christian Church,' is a Baptist church in name only." This unfortunately applies, perhaps without exception, to the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention today.]