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But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5

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Friday, March 2, 2018

When Should The Church Disipline Its Members For Their Beliefs About Society

Should a church that is concerned with being faithful to its beliefs ever discipline a member, especially a church officeholder, for their personal views on politics or public policy issues? Certainly, religiously conservative Christians should be no strangers seeing their churches discipline  members for their religious beliefs. But what about their political and public policy beliefs?

On the podcast the Mortification Of Spin, Carl Trueman (click here for a bio), Aimee Byrd (click here for a bio), and Todd Pruitt (click here for a bio) address that issue in a recent podcast edition.  The discussion produces both helpful statements and problematic ones (click here for the podcast). 

 In addressing this issue, the threesome addressed the above subject using the issues of abortion racism, and marriage including same-sex marriage. Of these 3 issues, the one that produced the greatest consensus upon regarding what was acceptable and what wasn't was racism. The next issue was abortion and then the issue of marriage including same-sex marriage made a cameo appearance in the discussion. In addition, according to the three, different standards in terms of leniency on one's view of abortion issue was made according to whether one was a church officeholder as well as one's background and understanding of the subject. Also, a PCA church officeholder and Texas gubernatorial candidate has strong pro-choice views. And so one of the questions being raised is, is that candidate subject to church discipline for his political views and positions?

One of the positive contributions made in the podcast is that it is important to address the above issues starting with a proper Biblical view of anthropology. That is it is important to recognize how the Scriptures define what it means to be human. From there, many of the issues become easier to answer.



Also,  no leniency, and rightfully so, was shown for those believers or officeholders who demonstrate racist views. Reeducation was proposed as a way to remedy or reduce the number of these instances. For the Church cannot  be both faithful to a Biblical view of anthropology and hold to racism. All believers are to be held to that standard.

A somewhat positive contribution was made when they discussed how a church should react to those who are pro-choice. While the three talked about considering a believer's knowledge and position as a believer in terms of whether they would allow them to be a member, it was clear that pro-choice officeholders should be disciplined with the possibility of being booted out. This is where Andrew White's name was mentioned. That is because he is both a PCA officeholder and the Democratic gubernatorial candidate. The expressed opinion during the discussion stated that it was necessary for this candidate to be disciplined by his church for his extreme pro-choice stance. It was also briefly mentioned that he supported same-sex marriage. Though not explicitly stated, it seems that his belief regarded same-sex marriage regarded society, not the Church. Not much was said about that belief.

On the negative side, the confessions were referred to far more than the Scriptures when addressing what political positions Christians should take. Referencing the confessions more than the Scriptures on these issues is more of an authoritarian move and neglects what the Scriptures say. In fact, this practice can remind one of one of Jesus's run-ins with the Pharisees. This particular case was about the issue of  setting aside resources as Corban rather than honoring one's parents by taking care of them (click here for Mark 7:1-13). The Pharisees, according to Jesus, were following their traditions instead of the Scriptures. Considering that a denomination's set of confessions is the equivalent of the traditions employed by the Pharisees, we need to be vigilant about relying on the Scriptures more than on our confessions.

The discussion on abortion also had problems. In this case Carl Trueman's treatment of Paul Wooley's minority report for the OPC  on abortion was dismissive. We should note that Wooley's minority report held to a weak-to-moderate pro-choice stance. For the most part, Trueman tried to discredit the report by criticizing Wooley by saying that he did not have the facts we have today as well as describing him as not being very intellectual.  Trueman went on to praise the majority report written by John Frame. But besides the dismissive attitude Trueman showed to Wooley, Trueman omitted the fact that part of Wooley's defense for his weak-to-moderate pro-choice stance was to quote from the majority report whose main author was just praised by Trueman. In the end, Trueman wasn't really prepared to reference Paul Wooley in the discussion.

One final weakness was the small list of political issues that the three considered whether the Church should discipline members for the views they hold to. Yes, they needed to include the 3 subjects they discussed. At the same time, unjust wars, exploitive economic systems, and Western ways of life that damages the environment were not test issues on which the three were willing to consider Church discipline on those who stray too far. This is despite what James has to say to the rich who exploit their workers (click here for the Bible passage).

The podcast discussion, though making some helpful statements while discussing the issues, was neither good nor bad overall. However, they did discuss an important subject that is rarely mentioned in churches.

 




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