Macrorepentance—Commentary on We Believe 2010

Gang,

This thread is inspired by Fran who said in the Ignoring We Believe 2010 thread,

“Bill, I would like to see the current form of the document, and also a written commentary on it from you-- generally what you feel is missing or how it is framed wrong, and then also comments on any specific statements that concern you. That would be helpful to me.”

I’ll be glad to provide a commentary on selected issues that cause me profound concern. Understand this could be a tome nearly equal to the 20,000 plus words of WB 2010.

Can you believe it? More that TWENTY THOUSAND words?

I promise you that I’m only highlighting issues that bother me so much they wake me up at night.

I will kept this as short as I can. There are seven sections in this post. Read one, maybe two, at a time. Don’t kill yourself over it.

Off the top of my head, these are the seven issues that are most compelling to me.

1. There is no justification either in Scripture or in church history for this kind of a doctrinal statement.

Set aside the reality that this document revises one that already exists. But, do consider how significantly the CGGC has declined spiritually and numerically since the original was published. Ask yourself why a document like this would be a good idea at all.

There is nothing in Scripture or our history to suggest that the church is well served with a Doctrinal Statement that exceeds 20,000 words. (I copied it into my word processor. 21,333 words!)

The early Jesus followers cared about defining and defending the gospel—i.e., those matters of belief upon which salvation depends. If we are to be true our claim that the Bible is our only rule of faith and practice, or as the current revision adjusts that language, “our only rule for following Jesus in every aspect of our life,” we will give ourselves heart and soul to understanding the good news we take to the world and we will practice tolerance with the rest of the things we believe.

A 20,000+ word tome on nearly every imaginable micro doctrine!

The Church of God was founded on Winebrenner’s assertion that

“The Church of God has no authoritative constitution, ritual, creed, catechism, book of discipline, or church standard, but the Bible. The Bible she believes to be the only creed, discipline church standard, the test-book, which God ever intended his church to have.”

20,000+ words!

What would the men and women who led the Church of God movement think?

2. WB 2010 requires of the people of the CGGC a view of human moral freedom that the church has always considered to be heresy. It requires the people of the CGGC to believe in free moral agency.

To be evenhanded, the most historically significant change from the original is that the article on Free Moral Agency has been removed from the revision. However, the doctrine of free moral agency is still very much present.

The revision moves the key material in the section on human freedom to the article on Humanity. It says in bold print,

“We believe Humanity is given the freedom to choose.” The fine print contains this language from the old WB: “We are free to live and think and act according to our own will (Joshua 24:15; John 1:12; John 6:67). These Scriptures and a cursory reading of both Old and New Testaments clearly indicate that we have freedom to accept or reject God, to obey or disobey.”

(BTW, check out John 6:67)

Throughout history, the church has consistently declared that humanity does not have freedom. Even the Arminians of the seventeenth century denied human freedom. Their Third Article at the Synod of Dort states,

“That man does not posses saving grace of himself, nor of the energy of his free will, inasmuch as in his state of apostasy and sin he can of and by himself neither think, will, nor do any thing that is truly good (such as saving Faith eminently is)…”

While belief in free moral agency has a long history in the Church of God, it has a longer history of being deemed heresy in the Body of Christ. I am uneasily comfortable accepting the fact that many of my brothers and sisters in our body hold to a belief that the broader church considers heresy. I do that because, in my opinion, freedom of will is not an issue of salvation—it’s not essential to the content of the gospel.

However, I think it's wrong to require people in the CGGC to assent to a belief that has always been deemed heresy in the wider Body of Christ. Such a demand is both sectarian and separatist.

This is extremely important to me. I myself do not believe in free moral agency. As a matter of conscience, I will not be able to accept this doctrinal statement if I am required to affirm belief the heresy of the freedom of the human will in matters of salvation.

3. WB 2010’s article on The Church ignores foundational teaching of Jesus regarding the church and is at odds with the CGGC’s new Mission and Vision Statements.

(This one could, and possibly should be a book, my friends.)

The Church has a Lord. And the CGGC has a Mission Statement and a Vision Statement. To read WB 2010 you wouldn’t know those authorities exist.

To read the article on the church in WB 2010 you’d think that Jesus didn’t teach anything about the Church in the Gospels and that the seven letters to the church of Revelation 2 and 3 are not in the Word. The fact is that Jesus gave His followers some very important teachings about who the church is and what the church does in the Gospel of Matthew. He spoke directly to seven congregations in the Book of Revelation.

It is beyond my understanding that the Administrative Council, which created the current Mission Statement and Vision Statement and which devoted so much time and energy and resources to creating the Missional Leadership Initiative, could have sent WB 2010’s article on the doctrine of the church to the larger body.

We have a Mission Statement which, among other things, is very clear about our understanding of the church. It says,

“As witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves to make more and better disciples by establishing churches on the New Testament plan and proclaiming the gospel around the world. (Matthew 28:16-20, Ephesians 3:8-11, Acts 1:8).”

We also have a Vision Statement which is clear about our understanding of the church. It says,

“We seek to establish and network vital reproducing churches.”

We say we are about making disciples and we are about creating in our time and place congregations modeled on the New Testament church.

There is nothing about those core truths in the article on the church in WB 2010.

WB 2010 ignores the spirit of the Mission and Vision Statements. Not surprisingly, therefore, it contains not a single reference to the Great Commission. It does not cite the Great Commandment. But, it is rich in references to nurturing and relationship. It affirms that believers exist as a body. It notes that “…the Church enjoys a special kind of fellowship.” Rather than speak of our Commission to make disciples, it says, “…the Church is to proclaim God’s redemptive mission.” It celebrates the shepherd concern for relationship as the end all and be all of our faith by proclaiming that, “Jesus chooses to minister His work of reconciliation and wholeness primarily through His Body, which is now the Church.”

And, it accurately demonstrates the tension between the congregational polity that we actually practice and the presbyterial polity to which we pay lip service. It highlights in bold print, “We believe the local church is a part of the Christian Church of all believers.” It tacks on not in bold print, “…the presbyterial system of elders (Acts 14:23) and deacons (1 Timothy 3:10) is the biblical form of church government….”

While I believe that any sort of faith document we write should be no longer than a paragraph and while I certainly have no interest in rewriting the 20,000+ document that is before us, I’ll suggest a pattern for what the bold print in the article on The Church could look like if it reflected the teachings of Jesus and our Mission and Vision Statements:

We believe Jesus created the church on the foundational truth that He is the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.

We believe that the church has been given a Great Command to love the Lord and its neighbor.

We believe that the church was given a New Command by Jesus to love one another as He has loved His people.

We believe that Jesus wants the church to engage in a continuing process of repentance.

We believe that the church has been given a Commission to go into all the world making disciples, baptizing them and teaching them to obey all that He has commanded.

We believe that Jesus continues to equip the church with leadership in the form of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. (See the Article on The Holy Spirit, p. 15)

We believe that human authority in the church lies in the hands of its elders, the community of the called.

We believe that in every age and culture the church should be built on the New Testament plan.

If we are going to make this document relevant, we need to give serious thought to how we define the church.

4. WB 2010 takes a position on the ordinances that is so sectarian that it isolates the CGGC from all of the rest of the Body of Christ.

The tradition that the core acts of worship practiced by the church are ordinances and not sacraments has a long and proud history in the Body of Christ. Many faith traditions embrace that understanding. Among the many millions of our brothers and sisters who share our understanding that those acts of worship are ordinances are people in the Anabaptist and the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions.

WB 2010 defines an ordinance is a way that no one else in the entire Body of Christ understands it. As we strive to return to our missional roots and to be more externally focused, we talk the talk of building Kingdom. The article on The Ordinances, however, is the very height of sectarianism.

The CGGC needs to decide if it seeks to be in the Kingdom and to join others in building the Kingdom or if it wants to be a separatist sect holding on to important distinct doctrines that separate it from every other believer.

5. WB 2010 takes a sectarian position on Feet Washing that separates it from every other follower of Jesus Christ.

The article on Feet Washing is a child of the article on The Ordinances. It serves the same separatist function. It separates the people of the CGGC from all other followers of Jesus, including every believer who affirms the ordinance of Feet Washing as a scriptural command.

When the first version of the revision was published a friend said to me, “I want this to be a document that will define my Tribe.” And, that’s what this article does.

I, however, want this to be a document that will connect us to Jesus and His Kingdom.

6. WB 2010 contains language on women in leadership that is confusing and will be divisive.

Those who know me know that I strongly affirm the biblical reality that women are called to serve in leadership roles. The first person alive in the New Testament era to be called a prophet was a woman. From what we can tell, one of the people called an apostle in the New Testament was a woman.

That said, I believe that what WB 2010 says about women in leadership is not well written. What's more, it is rooted in the Christendom myth of the church not on the New Testament plan described in our Mission Statement.

7. WB 2010 goes to the level of the absurd to micromanage the precise details of what all of us believe.

I’ll cite only a few of many examples:

If you are a delegate to General Conference, don’t cheat. By now you should have WB 2010 in your packet. There is a bold print sentence in the article on God that begins,

“We believe the work of God is primarily…”

Complete the sentence. We believe it is what?

What do all of us believe the work of God is primarily?

Do you think we all have the same idea about what the work of God primarily is?

Do you think it is necessary to dictate something of that nature in our Doctrinal Statement?

In the article on The Bible there is a bold print sentence that begins,

“We believe the central message of the Bible is…”

Don’t cheat. What is it? What do we believe the central message of the Bible is?

Oh, and don't look at the old WB!

Get this: There’s a similar sentence in the original WB and the new version changed what we believe the central message in the Bible is.

When did we do that? When, where and how did we determine that our understanding of the central message of the Bible changed? What if I believe that the central message of the Bible in the original is the right one? Does that make the new one too liberal? What does that make me? A WB fundie?

My favorite line in the entire 20,000+ word document is a bold print sentence in the article on Justification: A New Standing Before God. It says,

“We believe that Scripture teaches four essential results which occur at Justification: remission, restoration, God given righteousness and a new relationship with God, as His child.”

Now, undoubtedly someone once came up with a humdinger of a sermon on justification. And, if I still preached sermons I’d steal it. But is it appropriate for a Doctrinal Statement that we require that all of our people believe that justification results in four realities all of which have a key word that begins with the letter R? What if I think there’s a fifth? What, gasp!, if it begins with the letter K?

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These are just the high points, gang.

Because the Lord wired me as He did, these are all things that bother me so much that they keep me awake at night. There are many more that merely turn my dreams into nightmares. I’m sure that I could easily come up with my own 21,333 word anti-WB commentary.

If truth matters—if the centrality of the gospel matters—don’t take this lying down. WB 2010 is wrong and bad. And, at best, it will be ignored. At worst, it will be another nail in the coffin of the CGGC as we tread the treacherous ground of the coming years.