When the Homily is about Immunology

Four Tragic Opinions on the Visble Church

Episode One
Sola Scriptura and the Praxis of the Church

The "Anabaptist" directed me to this article by one Jon Zens. The author ends his piece with a call for all believers to "stop contributing to the perpetuation of non-edifying ecclesiastical patterns." By this he means, amongst many others, my beloved Church. Ouch.

Having read the article, there are mighty hordes of issues that need to have some closer examination, and of course I intend to do so…after all must I not justify the rationale by which I choose to stay in an ecclesiastical pattern which so clearly (according to Zens) is “not rooted in the New Testament.”

First the big picture. Sola Scriptura.

Zens, amongst many others, is utilizing the tired and dead end hermeneutic of Sola Scriptura to determine what the Church should be like. In the same way that this doctrine as applied strictly to theology has born the fruit of thousands upon thousands of schism causing opinions, what makes us think applying it to the organization of the Church would do anything less? The author makes the staggering claim (really staggering, had to sit down) that “Church historians of all theological and ecclesiastical backgrounds” (emphasis mine) agree with the history he presents! Really? Hmmmm….no history is without interpretation. Getting the facts correct is one thing, but how you present them can certainly skew reality.

I always ask the following question of people who are trying to return to or rather recreate or rather reenact the “pristine”(Zens word) church of the New Testament:

1. So you are not going to be using your New Testament anymore?

You see – as we all know, but sometimes forget - that pristine Church lacked a New Testament canon. So, if you wish to return to that pristine condition, toss those books out. I’d gladly take them if you like, but just not the NIV…given my blog’s name I simply cannot accept a translation that cannot translate my name correctly. But I digress.

To make matters worse that New Testament which is being used to try and recreate the Church did not exist as such until WELL AFTER the evil emperor Constantine (We call him a Saint by the way…boy talk about historical disagreement…didn’t Zens say “indisputable”?) had delivered “institutional ease” to the Church. The “institutional church” decided what the New Testament would consist of ya know? I reckon they got lucky, certainly had nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, because as Zens points out the “institutional church” stopped depending on the Holy Spirit and “trusted in itself.” (Not sure how you can tell the difference, I wonder if any early believers looked at the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 as the Church trusting itself? Or for that matter, my God, what must they have thought of casting lots to replace Judas?!?!?! Hey, maybe THAT is the pattern we should follow in choosing our leaders? Leaders? We don’t need no stinking leaders…we are a dynamic organism, we evolve naturally into spirit-lead leadership roles. And if not, we roll dice like the Holy Apostles.)

Lets face it, the New Testament is NOT…I repeat it is NOT a guide on how to recreate the Church. Hell, the very idea that the Church was ever lost to begin with is profoundly assumptive and if I do say so myself (being quite full of my own arrogance – thank you very much) thoroughly unscriptural. But as I note, that is beside the point and would fall into that trecherous realm of interpretation. None-the-less, when the time comes I will appeal to parts of scripture which Zens somehow skips over. Funny, we Orthodox converts often hear that Orthodoxy can be found clearly in the Bible; amongst all the verses you didn't underline as a protestant. But seriously, an article that purports to show the clear path for returning to the apostolic model of Church leadership/structure ought to reference the pastoral epistles to St. Timothy, no?

However before I try and address specifics of the article, I want to call the attention of the readers to some of the words (phrases) he uses, which we might too quickly pass over. They are venerable buzz words (phrases) in the emerging church community, but really they aren’t all that new…many Christian denominations and cults were founded on the energy that such fiery words can create in the human mind when presented in that beautiful, albeit misleading dichotomy:

The “Dynamic Organism” vs. the “Hardened Institution.”

Soon to come…