Church discipline, theological controversy & the internet

Prof John Frame has some good and useful stuff to say about how we have neglected church discipline and how theologians are often guilty of ignoring the principles of Matthew 18 and of damaging the reputations of others, especially over the interweb. The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R) pp842-3 are well worth reading and almost worth typing out. Look out, he warns, for "the self-appointed modern guardians of orthodoxy".

Many theological controversialists today set themselves up as Internet gurus, declaring brothers and sisters to be excommunicate on their say-so alone, showing contempt for the authority of the church, which alone has been authorized by God to make such judgments, and violating God's standards requiring protection for the accused. Many of these have no scruples about spreading lies to anyone who will listen.

Towards a Policy on Church Discipline

Often we should just overlook the fact that we think we may have been wronged in some petty way. We should take the logs out of our own eye before we start poking around in other people's eyes looking for specks!

Personal sins are best dealt with personally if possible. Private sins between Christians are best dealt with privately if possible.

If you have a real serious problem with another Christian or they have a real problem with you and you cannot sort it out easily and happily between yourselves you would do well to ask the advice of the Elders of the church. I suggest you ask to talk to the Vicar! :)

If a matter cannot be sorted our privately, others will need to be involved - at first privately and more publicly if things fail to be resolved.

Obvious serious public sins of which someone repeatedly refuses to repent should be rebuked publicly and the sinner should be excommunicated (shut out from the fellowship of the church and from the Lord’s Table) in the hope that they will come to their senses, repent and be restored. (This does not mean that they should be completely ignored or forbidden to come to church but they should feel a great loss of the privileges of church membership.)

Someone should only be excommunicated for a sin that risks shutting them out of heaven: they are being told in their excommunication that they are behaving satanically, like a non-Christian and if they go on in that way without trusting in Christ they will go to hell.

The Church of England is in a mess over this and the evangelical church in the UK has generally been pretty terrible at it in our generation. We probably wont get it perfectly right over night.

Right? Comments? Suggestions? Refinements?

Form for Excommunications

Calvin's Form for celebrating the Lord's Supper includes the following general excommunication:

We have heard, brethren, how our Lord makes his Supper among his disciples, and thereby shows that strangers - in other words, those who are not of the company of the faithful - ought not to be admitted. Wherefore, in accordance with this rule, in the name and authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, I excommunicate all idolaters, blasphemers, despisers of God, heretics, and all who form sects apart to break the unity of the Church, all perjurers, all who are rebellious to parents and to their superiors, all who are seditious, mutinous, quarrelsome, injurious, all adulterers, fornicators, thieves, misers, ravishers, drunkards, gluttons, and all who lead a scandalous life; declaring to them that they must abstain from this holy table, for fear of polluting and contaminating the sacred viands which our Lord Jesus Christ gives only to his household and believers.

Calvin's Tracts, vol 2, trans. Beveridge p120


The BCP also directs the curate that "Briefs, Citations and Excommunications" should be read after the Creed and before the Offertory in the Communion service.

False Teachers in the Church of England

Here are some comments I made over at Daniel Newman's new blog (a wordpress thing with a funny latin title about the Trinity, I think). He is considering seeking ordination in the C of E sometime and from the little I know of him and it, I think he should go forward with that.

Who says you should publicly say so whenever you disagree with the Bishop or Archbishop on a serious issue? Surely no one assumes you agree. Disagreements in the C of E are all over the papers. I would have to spend a lot of time placarding my disagreements!

Always remember the distinction between believing and teaching many false things (which no doubt we all do) and being a False Teacher who will be damned and lead others to hell, with whom we must not associate or even eat.

And whoes job is it to deal with false teachers? Granted that there may be some false teachers in the C of E, they should be excommunicated by the church, its elders and people acting together after a due public quasi-legal process. It is not for you or me to excommunicate them on our own on our blogs though we must do what we can to promote biblical church discipline. As an elder, next year, d.v., I will have a responsibility to take a lead in that in my own congregation (under the vicar's oversight, under the Bishop...). Till then, if he's baptised and says "Jesus is Lord!" and is in good standing with the church, I'd have to have a pretty serious case made for having nothing to do with him.