Why She Shouldn't Have Left The Church

She doesn't really know me from Adam, but Rachel Held Evans and I really don't see eye to eye very often. Her latest blog post is no exception. In it, she offers 15 reasons why she "left the church." Now, I freely confess that I don't know what she means by the term, since she claims to be in the process of looking for a church where she fits in. I'm assuming she now sees herself as "out" of the church somehow, but am too terrified to read the 400+ comments on the post for more clues, as they almost always seem bring out the worst in everyone. Perhaps a braver soul than myself will journey into that abyss and report back.

Regardless of the poor ecclesiology which almost certainly underlies her entire post, and whatever she means by saying she has "left the church," one thing is for sure: she considers herself "out." In the post, she offers 15 reasons for her departure, and I have some frank observations, though I admit my title is a bit deceptive. I don't have 15 reasons why she shouldn't have left the church, but I hope to comment on many of her reasons.

Before I begin, I wish to openly observe that Mrs. Evans would almost certainly add blog posts like the one I am writing to her list of grievances with the church. Therefore, Mrs. Evans, if you are reading this post right now, I hope you will hear me out in spite of the fact that I am choosing to disagree with you. As G.K. Chesterton said, minds are meant to be open in order to let something in and then close again.

Several of the reasons Evans lists for leaving the church have to do with gender roles in the church. I don't know her personal experience, but it seems like there are more than a few denominations which allow women to preach and teach. The Methodist Church down the street... the Congregational church down the street... the Anglican church next door... The Free Methodist Church down the street...

She lists one reason: "1. I left the church because I’m better at planning Bible studies than baby showers...but they only wanted me to plan baby showers." The PCA, to which I belong, would allow her to teach Sunday School to other women and to children. Perhaps she wants the whole kit-and-caboodle and won't settle for anything less than the pulpit. If so, she can join my club. I am not licensed to preach in my denomination, either, but I get to do lots of Sunday School teaching and leading small groups, which I consider to be no small thing.

"4. I left the church because sometimes it felt like a cult, or a country club, and I wasn’t sure which was worse." When given a shot at making this work, I'm sure Mrs. Evans was able to keep her house church from feeling neither cult-like or country club like. Actually, I take that back. All house churches feel cult-like. There's no avoiding it.

"8. I left the church because it was often assumed that everyone in the congregation voted for Republicans." She could have come to our church. We're all libertarians, as best I can tell.

"9. I left the church because I felt like I was the only one troubled by stories of violence and misogyny and genocide found in the Bible, and I was tired of people telling me not to worry about it because 'God’s ways are higher than our ways.' " Didn't she have access to any books? Just because people in her church didn't have satisfying answers isn't a reason to leave. Perhaps Mrs. Evans should have been the one to find the answers and help out. My thinking is, if my church is lacking something, I should seek to build it up, not retreat from it.

"13. I left the church because I had learned more from Oprah about addressing poverty and injustice than I had learned from 25 years of Sunday school." Give them all free cars! The keys are under your seats, ladies and gentlemen.

Her most honest admission of all: "10. I left the church because of my own selfishness and pride." I don't mean this in an accusatory or cruel way, but if you read through the list of 15 reason she left the church, they are all profoundly self-centered and self-focused. This is very revealing, because this answer (#10) should really be appended to each of her 15 points. How does it benefit the church for Mrs. Evans to leave it? In what sense does she build up the body of Christ by removing herself from it? Her church clearly doesn't seem to have had knowledgeable people who could explain something as simple as violence and misogyny in the OT. There appear to have been needs there which people were not stepping up to fill.

In the end, we do have a whole world of selfish human beings. Some of them choose to attend church for numerous reasons - some good, and often some self-serving - but those who choose to run from it while manufacturing smug, self-justifying excuses couched in self-righteous condemnation of their former places of worship are doing harm to themselves by kidding themselves that separation from Christ's body on earth is actually a moral, righteous, and good thing to do. (Maybe they should join Harold Camping in proclaiming the end of the Church Age.)

I am no fan of Mrs. Evans' theology, and I am certainly no fan of her ecclesiology. But if Mrs. Evans is indwelt by the Spirit of Christ and considers herself saved of Jesus Christ, she owes it to herself to return to her family - her brothers and sisters.

"14. I left the church because there are days when I’m not sure I believe in God, and no one told me that “dark nights of the soul” can be part of the faith experience." I go to one of those traditional, conservative, scary Calvinistic churches, and people are so open with me there. One morning I asked one of our elders how he was doing and he just paused and said to me, "Sometimes it's hard to follow Jesus. And it's really hard to come in to church when you were only yelling at your kids 5 minutes ago in the car. But I'm glad Christ's still lets me come and worship him anyway." I guess her problem makes me feel really grateful to be part of a body where transparency is encouraged and sin is looked at as something to be defeated rather than celebrated.

I don't share these things to say, "Look! I found a perfect church!" but rather to say that every church will have blind spots and areas they're really good at. Rather than contributing and making her church more the way she thinks Jesus wants it to be, she has left it. And leaving it altogether is a mistake. (I keep repeating this point because it's my main point.) It does seem, to me, that there are plenty of liberal mainline churches where she could go and feel welcome.

I'm trying to speak to Mrs. Evans on her own terms and not to bring her around to my Reformed, Presbyterian way of thinking of the Church (though I'd like that) because it's wiser to deal with the big error and then deal with the small ones. My gut feeling on posts like Mrs. Evans' is that they arise out of a need to justify oneself before one's peers. When two people break up, questions are inevitable. It's impossible to answer the question of why the breakup happened without insulting the other. The fact is, Mrs. Evans sees problems in the church, and that's enough for her to break it off. We should be grateful that Christ doesn't divorce the church just because he sees his church when she wakes up in the morning with that nasty green facemask with cucumbers over her eyes and rollers in her hair.

King and Servant Show 19

Jonathan is joined with special guest Pastor Stephen Goundry (his favorite person in ministry) to discuss biblical ecclesiology and how the local church under the authority of scripture and the oversight of elders can safeguard itself from both a hierarchy and anarchy.

The Exclusive Psalmody Debate

Listen to part 1 here and part 2 here

New Covenant Hymnody

I. A Survey of The Regulative Principle of Worship
A. The RPW in the Old Testament
1. Edenic Covenant (Works)
2. Adamic Covenant (Promise)
3. Noahic Covenant (Dominion)
4. Abrahamic Covenant (Royal Land Grant)
5. Mosaic Covenant (Typological Kingdom)
6. Davidic Covenant (Messianic)
B. The RPW in the New Testament
1. New Covenant (All covenants fulfilled in Christ)
- We are now in the semi-theocracy with the Word and the Spirit
- No longer the typological kingdom
- But we still have the RPW
2. New Covenant, New Acts of God, New Songs
- The Psalms instructs us to sing new songs when God does something new
- The New Covenant is new act of God and therefore warrants new songs (Isa 42:10)
C. The New Covenant commands the following elements of worship:
1. The Word (Preached and Taught)
2. Ordinances (Communion and Baptism), Church discipline
3. Prayers, fellowship, offerings
4. The sing of psalms, hymns and Spiritual songs

II. What does Col 3:16 and Eph 5:18 command/Teach
A. We are to meditate on the Word of God to be filled with the Spirit
1. The Word of Christ in Col is the mystery of Christ (Col 1:26-28)
2. In Eph the infilling of the Spirit is be under the influence of the Spirit not infallible inspiration of the Spirit(Eph 5:17)
B. We are then to teach, admonish, and speak to one another in Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.
C. The context is private not public
1. instruction to Christian households
2. instruction to slaves
3. instruction to inter-personal conduct

III. Exegesis of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs
A. All wisdom is needed when giving instruction
B. It is in the imperative, so we are commanded to do this
C. Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs are all in the dative; however Psalms and Hymns are masculine, whereas Spiritual Songs is famine.
1. Therefore it is either (a) speaking of different kinds of songs
2. or (b) the same kind of songs having Psalms and Hymns and songs as all spiritual
D. Regardless Spiritual songs in context Col 1:9 means doctrinally pure songs as opposed to worldly songs
E. Therefore Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs is a Triadic expression for New Covenant songs (Col 1:26-28)
F. Psalms are normally personally, Hymns are normally doxological, Spiritual songs are normally both.

IV. The extension to public worship
A. This now can be applied to public worship as a corporate means of fulfilling the same command
B. The New Testament is the full revelation of Christ. Heb 1:1-3 We therefore are to sing the propositional truth found in the New Testament, hence the Word of Christ in Col 3:16 is the lyrical content of the Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.

Holy Days?

Here is a link to an extract from Samuel Miller's book Presbyterianism the truly primitive and Apostolical Constitution of the Church of Christ. Miller is discussing “The Worship of the Presbyterian Church.” Miller in 1813 was appointed professor of church history and government at the newly established Princeton Theological Seminary.

This excerpt is timely as we are in the heart of the Christian 'holy season' of Easter. Many in the Church today think that discussions like these are pointless, but our Reformed ancestors did not agree. They spent much time and energy in this important issue that needs to be brought back to the forefront of American Presbyterianism. Our worship needs to be governed by God in his word. We have no right telling God how he is to be worshiped.

Miller starts this section with this confession.

We believe, and teach, in our public formularies, that there is no day, under the Gospel dispensation, commanded to be kept holy, except the Lord's day, which is the Christian 'Sabbath.'

We believe, indeed, and declare, in the same formula, that it is both scriptural and rational, to observe special days of Fasting and Thanksgiving, as the extraordinary dispensations of Divine Providence may direct. But we are persuaded, that even the keeping of these days, when they are made stated observances, recurring, of course, at particular times, whatever the aspect of Providence may be, is calculated to promote formality and superstition, rather than the edification of the body of Christ.

He then gives seven reasons why this is the case. Points three and six are of particular interest.

3. The observance of Fasts and Festivals, by divine direction, under the Old Testament economy, makes nothing in favor of such observances under the New Testament dispensation. That economy was no longer binding, or even lawful after the New Testament Church was set up. It were just as reasonable to plead for the present use of the Passover, the incense, and the burnt offerings of the Old economy, which were confessedly done away by the coming of Christ, as to argue in favor of human inventions, bearing some resemblance to them, as binding in the Christian Church.

6. It being evident, then, that stated fasts and festivals have no divine warrant, and that their use under the New Testament economy is a mere human invention; we may ask those who are friendly to their observance, what limits ought to be set to their adoption and use in the Christian Church? If it be lawful to introduce five such days for stated observance, why not ten, twenty, or five score? A small number were, at an early period, brought into use by serious men, who thought they were thereby rendering God service, and extending the reign of religion. But one after another was added, as superstition increased, until the calendar became burdened with between two and three hundred fasts and festivals, or saint's days, in each year; thus materially interfering with the claims of secular industry, and loading the worship of God with a mass of superstitious observances, equally unfriendly to the temporal and the eternal interests of men. Let the principle once be admitted, that stated days of religious observance, which God has no where commanded, may properly be introduced into the Christian ritual, and, by parity of reasoning, every one who, from good motives, can effect the introduction of a new religious festival, is at liberty to do so. Upon this principle was built up the enormous mass of superstition which now distinguishes and corrupts the Romish Church.

Galatians 5 and Friendship

Galatians 5:22-23

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

I realize that the point of this text is not about friendship, but I think that the idea of faithfulness is more than just to God. Yes, faithfulness to God is the primary focus in this text, but I do not think that this exclude other kinds of faithfulness—faithfulness to one’s job, faithfulness to one’s family and faithfulness to one’s friends.

As Christians we should be the best kind of friends. We should be the ones that listen longer, love deeper and work harder at being friends than the world. But the sad fact is that many of my non-Christian friends are better friends than my Christian ones. Yes, this is sad, but it is true.

At the heart of friendship is faithfulness and loyalty. These are the biblical bed rocks for Christian friendship. If you do not think this is so, look back at the friendship of David and Jonathan. This friendship was so close that moderns look at it and think they must have been gay. Of course they were not, but they were close friends. This is the biblical picture of friendship. Why is it that the world is better at this then the Church? I am not completely sure, but my guess would be that the Church is full of people that want right doctrine to such an extent that they do not care how they treat others. They walk over their ‘friends’ as long as they feel fulfilled; as long as they are getting something out of the friendship. This is Worldly with a capital ‘w.’ We need to repent of our sins and step up and be friends; be loyal friends, be faithful friends and as a result be God glorifying friends.

The irrelevant Church?

I do not think for a moment that the church should aspire to become irrelevant. There is always a need for Christians to speak the gospel into their own context. Rather, my concern is with the ever present danger of over-contextualizing. Consider what happens to a church that is always trying to appeal to an increasingly post-Christian culture. Almost inevitably, the church itself becomes post- Christian. This is what happened to the liberal church during the twentieth century, and it is what is happening to the evangelical church right now. As James Montgomery Boice has argued, evangelicals are accepting the world’s wisdom, embracing the world’s theology, adopting the world’s agenda, and employing the world’s methods. In theology a revision of evangelical doctrine is now underway that seeks to bring Christianity more in line with postmodern thought. The obvious difficulty is that in a post-Christian culture, a church that tries too hard to be relevant may in the process lose its very identity as the church. Rather than confronting the world the church gets co-opted by. It no longer stands a city on a hill, but sinks to the level of the surrounding culture.

Philip Ryken
City on a Hill, p. 22.