Church Discipline & The Borders of the Church
If the Church is ever again to be thought of as a rival to secular social centers then it must regain its unique sense of identity.
Undefined & Unguarded Borders
The Church lost all clearly defined borders when Christianity splintered after the sixteenth century Reformation. The distinction between the secular City of Man and the higher City of God has become more blurred than that separating Mexico from America. If we look at Christendom broadly, we can identify a full spectrum of beliefs and doctrines. On one end of the spectrum is the high conservative bodies, like Catholicism, who defend the divinity of Christ, claim direct succession from the apostles, and teach against moral abominations like homosexuality and gluttony. On the other end of the spectrum we find a loss of hierarchy (Church of Christ), a loss of traditional morality (Church of Denmark), and even those who deny the divinity of Christ, the existence of God, and the supremacy of Christianity (Unitarian Universalists and leftist Anglicans). Eventually, the spectrum deludes itself into Marxism, nihilism, postmodernism, agnosticism, and many other ideological replacements.
Each of these positions along the Christian spectrum denies the legitimacy of other positions. Catholics disfellowship everyone else, Anglicans view fundamentalist evangelicals as racist homophobes, Pentecostals often deny the Holy Spirit's work in those who cannot speak in tongues, and Marxists claim Jesus was a socialist revolutionary who would disown almost every theological tradition once espoused by the church. However, powerful branches of the ecumenical movement are now trying to pull these disparate positions together by building consensus around the claim that all who confess faith in Jesus should be recognized as members of Christ's kingdom.
The picture is nearly as convoluted within the Churches of Christ. The so called "antis" occupy one end of the spectrum by refusing to eat in church buildings and requiring women to wear head coverings. On the other end are congregations like Richland Hills Church of Christ who advocate unity with other denominations and accept musical instruments in worship. Even within the city of Montgomery, Alabama (where I am now writing) there are right wing Churches of Christ like Panama Street claiming congregations like Landmark have abandoned New Testament Christianity, and they refuse to fellowship them. Church of Christ colleges are now among the few unifying forces outside our dwindling number of increasingly polarized publications. However, even these colleges range from left leaning Pepperdine to conservative Freed-Hardeman, and parents often refuse to send their kids to various schools because they perceive them as heretical.
From a historical perspective, there can be little doubt that the church's borders have never been more poorly defined than they now are. Christian writer and editor Jim Wallis often devotes his 'Sojourners' magazine to disparaging every Christian who opposes homosexual marriage, while Westboro Baptist Church pickets soldier's funerals while screaming "God hates fags!" Can both these extremes be said to represent aspects of Christian truth? Frankly, it is unlikely both these groups reside within God's Church. Christ's Kingdom is now engaged in a massive, protracted, and deeply confusing civil war.
The Apostle Peter informed Christians that "you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people." Today's generation is without moorings, a priesthood worshiping seemingly different gods, a nation fracturing, and a special people with no idea of how to identify its own claim to being special.
It seems vital that Christians regain some sense of control over their identity. The present state of confusion is nearly unbearable. Without certain definite standards Christians may increasingly be swept beyond the borders of salvation without ever knowing they have crossed it. A kingdom without borders is not a kingdom. Our borders have become so diffuse for so long that few appear able to clearly articulate where they once were. Catholics claim the border is at the edge of their communion, ecumenicals might argue it resides at faith in Christ, and Pentacostals might correlate it with the work of the Holy Spirit. The Church of Christ is deeply divided over this question, many of us seem to think the Church's borders are drawn at hand clapping in worship while others believe it is drawn at Christ's divinity.
How can Christianity reestablish its borders? How can it repair its frontier fortifications? How can it restore the legitimacy and identity of Christ's Kingdom? Is there anything in the Bible or early church that might clarify which hills we should die on?
This paper will attempt to parallel the Old Testament Nation of Israel with the New Testament Church. Specifically, it will focus on how the borders of ancient Israel should be reflected in the modern Church. The Church's long border crosses questions of baptism, morality, Christology, and ecclesiology. However, this paper will focus on the Church's border along the area of excommunication and church discipline (I will be using the term "excommunication" to refer to what members of the Church of Christ commonly refer to as "being disfellowshiped" or "withdrawn from"). Hopefully, by reevaluating some basic biblical and early Church facts we can rediscover some clarity on the question of who is and who is not a citizen of the Church. Possessing clear borders does not equate to protecting them, however, and I will suggest some practices that might assist discipline in the modern Church in an effort to help defend our borders.
Israel's Borders Parallel Theoretical Christian Borders
For four centuries, the descendants of Israel (Jacob) were a nation without a country, and they were held captive in the land of Egypt. God, however, planned to create a geopolitical state for this nation and prophesied to Abraham that the borders would extend "from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." God's border promise was repeated centuries later in the book of Exodus: "I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River." The coming of Christ upgraded the Nation of Israel into the Christian Church. The Church became the new Nation of Israel, [1] or perhaps the true Nation of Israel, [2] and we might expect that God established borders for the Church just as he established physical borders for his ancient Israelite ethnostate.
Ancient Israel's geographical borders were paralleled by its strong citizenship restrictions. Leviticus listed several spiritual and legal offenses which were supposed to result in the forfeiture of one's citizenship. There are two such examples in Leviticus chapter 20:
"If a man takes his sister, his father's daughter or his mother's daughter, and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is a wicked thing. And they shall be cut off in the sight of their people. He has uncovered his sister's nakedness. He shall bear his guilt… If a man lies with a woman during her sickness and uncovers her nakedness, he has exposed her flow, and she has uncovered the flow of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from their people."
These laws foreshadowed the Christian practice of excommunication found in the New Testament Church.
In I Corinthians 5:6-8, Paul made the connection between excommunication and Old Testament purity:
"Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."
Paul chose the Passover feast as an image to press for the excommunication of a fallen Christian from the Church. Perhaps Paul chose this image because God twice mandated that those who consumed leaven during the Passover week should be "cut off from their people" in Exodus 12. [3]
Ephesians 5:27 might also contain a reference to Old Testament purity laws: "That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." In the context of chapter 5, Paul told the Ephesians to "be not ye therefore partakers with" those who participated in a list of blemishes including drunkenness, fornication, and uncleanness. [4]
It appears that in Ephesians 5 Paul alluded to the priestly and sacrificial requirements of the Old Testament like those found in Leviticus 21:17-23. Peter referred to the Church as both a priesthood and nation after warning Christians to put away evil behavior: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." [5]
In I Corinthians 5:9-12, Paul advocated excommunicating a fallen Christian brother by referring to the Nation of Israel's purity laws.
"I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people… now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people… Expel the wicked person from among you."
Paul was quoting from Deuteronomy 13:5: "So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee."
There appears to be enough precedent to establish that uncleanness, manifested in any form of ungodliness, puts one beyond the borders of the Church: "For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." [6] The New Testament seems to connect the language associated with the Nation of Israel's "cutting off" punishments with that used to describe excommunication from the New Testament Church.
The New Testament's admonitions to purity can only be understood if one is familiar with the long catalogs of impurities listed in the Old Testament for which a person faced some form of exile from God's people. These impurities included: leprosy, sexual offenses, touching dead animals, drinking blood, eating an offering while unclean, incorrectly using objects before worship, etc. [7] Similar lists of impurity can be found throughout the New Testament. [8]
New Testament Offenses Warranting Excommunication
Not every instance of impurity warrants excommunication from the Church. The Old Testament did not mandate the "cutting off" of an unclean brother in every instance, and neither has the New Testament. Therefore, modern Christians need to find biblical precedent before excommunicating brothers and sisters. What forms of human leaven must be severed from the bread? What kinds can be corrected or tolerated? We must answer this question if we hope to form a sound clarification of who should be identified as being within the Church's borders.
The New Testament provides several informative passages about excommunication, and these provide information about the offenses and process. A quick survey of the clear and appropriate passages is necessary.
Several offenses qualifying a Christian for excommunication can be found in I Corinthians 5:11: "But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler - not even to eat with such a one."
Immorality was considered grounds for excommunication in 1 Corinthians 5: "It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you."
2 Thessalonians 3:6-10 suggests that Christians should be excommunicated for laziness:
"Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you… If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat."
Offenses related to doctrinal heresy were discussed in Titus 3.9-11: "avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned." Romans 16:17-18 contains a similar warning: "Now I urge you, brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple."
The Apostle John warned in his second epistle, chapter one verses seven through 11, that Christians should excommunicate any person claiming Christ never lived in the flesh (Gnosticism):
"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist… Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."
In 1 Timothy 1:20, there is a somewhat obscure reference to excommunication in which Paul condemned blasphemy: "having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme." 1 Timothy 2:17 provides some clarity in that Hymenaeus was teaching that the resurrection of the dead had already happened in the past.
In Matthew 18:15-17, Jesus established the process through which excommunication should be carried out:
"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses even to listen to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector."
The borders of the Church become more clear after surveying these passages, and the reasons for excommunicating Christians beyond those borders can be established. A list of offenses can be amassed that justify the excommunication of a fallen Christian. These offenses include: (1) sexual immorality (fornication, adultery, homosexuality, incest, etc), (2) greed, (3) idolatry, (4) reviling (subjecting others to verbal abuse), (5) drunkenness, (6) swindling or extortion, [9] (7) idleness (laziness/being an unnecessary burden on others) , [10] (8) creating division over arguments about pointless matters of the law, [11] (9) causing division by introducing new doctrine, [12] (10) preaching that Jesus did not come in the flesh, [13] and (11) blasphemy. [14]
Characteristics of New Testament Excommunication
There are two New Testament passages in which Christians were admonished to pre-warn a candidate for excommunication multiple times. Jesus taught to provide three warnings, [15] and Paul told Titus to give two. [16] The New Testament does not suggest the Church can suddenly apply its harshest sanctions without preliminary discussion with the offender.
The application of excommunication can also be discerned from the above survey of passages. The disciplinary practice included: (1) not eating with the offender, (2) removing the offender from among the Christians, (3) not assisting with the offender, (4) avoiding the offender, (5) the offender should be treated as a pagan or tax collector (sinner/stranger?), [17] (6) the offender should not be invited into a Christian's house, [18] and (7) the offender should not be encouraged (wished "godspeed"). [19]
Excommunication As Imagined & Practiced by the Ante-Nicene Church
We can also evaluate the extra-biblical writings of early Christianity to help us better understand how discipline was practiced in the early Church.
Sources suggest that the early Church strongly believed in a muscular form of excommunication. Tertullian wrote in the late second century: "Rebukes and sacred censures are administered. That is because the work of judging is carried on among us with great seriousness… and you have the most notable example of judgment to come when anyone has sinned so grievously as to require his severance from us in prayer, in the congregation, and in all sacred matters." [20]
The Church practiced excommunication in the case of heresy. Ignatius wrote in the early second century: "It is fitting, therefore, that you should keep aloof from such persons [Gnostics]. You should not speak to them either in private or in public." [21] Such a complete form of excommunication seems extreme by today's standards, but it was recommended as church practice in some of the earliest Christian texts.
The early church appears to have condemned both sinners and their supporters during certain periods. Irenaes wrote in AD 180: "Therefore, be not partakers with them. Back then, the condemnation of sinners extended to others who approved of them and joined in their society. And the case at present is still the same, 'a little leaven leavens the whole lump.'" [22] Once again, we find the image of leaven being used in relation to Church purity.
Tertullian echoed Old Testament purity laws when he explained that the lepers exiled from the Israelite camp were object lessons for contemporary Christians to consider when dealing with those who had become corrupted with sin: "In this example of a leper… [the Law] prohibited any contact with a person who was defiled with sin. The apostle also forbids us even to eat food with such a one. For the taint of sins can be communicated as if contagious, wherever a man mixes himself with the sinner." [23] Early Christians viewed the Old Testament connection between uncleanness and national purity as being carried over into the New Testament's concept of sin defiling the corporate Church.
The early Church was defined by the excommunication of all those who did not live by the strict moral code of Christian life. Tertullian wrote: "it will be said that some of us, too, depart from the rules of our discipline. In that case, however, we count such persons no longer Christians." [24] Rather than trying to excuse stumbling Christians as imperfect travelers, the early Church seems to have quickly distanced itself from anyone who might bring embarrassment upon the larger body. Tertullian repeated his rapid dismissal of Christian delinquents in the late second century while addressing a pagan readership:
"Persons of this doubtful mold do not assemble with us. Neither do they belong to our communion. By their delinquency, they become yours once more. For we are unwilling to mix even with those whom your violence and cruelty have compelled to recant. Yet, we should, of course, be more ready to have included among us those who have unwillingly forsaken our discipline, than apostates. However, you have no right to call them Christians to who Christians themselves deny that name." [25]Early Christians developed a technique for securing the borders of the church and maintaining purity within Christ's body. This process was known as "penitence," and it was spoken about by Origin in the mid-third century:
"Christians lament as dead those who have been conquered by immorality or any others sin. For they are lost and dead to God. At some future time [if they repent], they receive them as being risen from the dead. However, this is after a greater interval than in the case of those who were admitted at first [the catechumen period]. However, those who have lapsed and fallen after professing the Gospel are not placed in any office or post of rank in the church of God." [26]
There were strict disciplinary penalties enforced for falling away from the early Church, and there were long lasting restrictions on those who lapsed from the Church after having entered it. The Church's borders were defined by the penitence process, and the purity of the leadership was maintained by preventing the weak from being elevated to formal leadership.
Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, told Christians to record only faithful Christians as members on the communion rolls: "For this reason, I beg you that you will designate by name in the certificate [of communion] only those whom you yourselves witness, whom you have known, whose penitence you see to be very near full satisfaction." [27] This concern for the purity of the membership rolls demonstrates a deep interest in clearly defining the borders of the Church. Early Church leaders wanted to maintain a clear understanding of who was in the Church and who was outside it.
The requirements for citizenship in the Kingdom of God were laid out by Cyprian 1,800 years ago: "Those persons cannot remain in God's church who have not maintained its divine and ecclesiastical discipline - either in the manner of their life or in the peace of their character." [28] Cyprian's strong statement about who was and was not a citizen of God's Church nation can be translated as a desire to firmly establish borders.
The 'Apostolic Constitutes' further discussed the distinctions between the Church and the world: "In the present world, the righteous and the wicked are mingled together in the common affairs of life – but not in the holy communion."
Twenty First Century Church Discipline & Its Practice
This paper's informational review is useless, however, if discipline in no longer practiced in the twenty first century Church. In a study carried out in 1996, Robert Whiddon Jr conducted a survey entitled 'The Current Status of the Practice of Church Discipline in the Churches of Christ in America.' Whiddon discovered that several court cases from the 1960s to the 1980s had inflicted significant damage on the practice of Church discipline by ruling that several crucial parts of excommunication were illegal on grounds that included slander. The media coverage of the cases portrayed the Churches of Christ in a very negative light, and the congregations that lost the cases were forced to pay significant damages. Whiddon reported a nearly 50% drop in articles published in Church of Christ periodicals about church discipline following the cases. [30] The case of 'Guinn v Collinsville Church of Christ' was singled out by Whiddon as being especially damaging. Whiddon wrote: "In a very real way the Churches of Christ have developed a fear of church discipline. The culprit seems to be the disastrous court case in Collinsville." [31]
Whiddon found more discouraging information while conducting his survey. He discovered that the majority of churches had not excommunicated anyone in the previous five years. When congregations were asked whether discipline was being administered in the Churches of Christ, one third answered "not enough" or "almost never," and only four percent claimed it was being conducted "as necessary." [32]
The situation looks no less dim in the denomination world. American theologian and former president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Doctor R Albert Mohler Jr said:
"The decline of church discipline is perhaps the most visible failure of the contemporary church. No longer concerned with maintaining purity of confession or lifestyle, the contemporary church sees itself as a voluntary association of autonomous members, with minimal moral accountability to God, much less to each other. The absence of church discipline is no longer remarkable - it is generally not even noticed. Regulative and restorative church discipline is, to many church members, no longer a meaningful category, or even a memory. The present generation of both ministers and church members is virtually without experience of biblical church discipline." [33]In his book 'Handbook of Church Discipline,' Jay E Adams recorded the sinful conditions of several individuals suffering from unrepentant sin before bemoaning that the modern Church would never give them the discipline they needed:
"In one way or another they all need the blessings and the benefits of church discipline. But if they belong to the average church, none, or at best few of them, would be able to profit from the healing, purifying balm of discipline. And discipline, in such churches, would not be considered a blessing or benefit, but an out-moded relic of the Dark Ages… That is the tragedy of the church of our time." [34]
The borders were not always as untidy as they are today. Historian Gregory Wills wrote: "To an antebellum Baptist, a church without discipline would hardly have counted as a church." [35] In the past, congregations considered the maintenance of borders an extremely important obligation, but that emphasis has been almost completely lost.
Suggestions for Improving Church Borders by Discipline
The Church must first rediscover the desire and will to discipline before it can begin trying to reestablish the normal institutional forms of carrying out that discipline. Discipline will not work properly if neither the leaders nor average Christians believe it to be an appropriate practice.
After studying the issue, I no longer have much hope that the Church's borders can be clarified or defended within our present twenty first century social paradigm. However, I do think there are some basic steps that might be taken.
Firstly, the Church cannot continue distributing cheap grace. The early church practiced a system of penitence that ensured sinners were devoted to repentance and felt the seriousness of their sins. Some form of this penitence system should perhaps be revived to combat our culture of permissiveness.
Secondly, membership rolls should be edited more rigorously. Communion should be restricted. The early Church was concerned with clarifying who was within and without, who was a citizen of God's Kingdom and who resided outside its borders. Today, open communion and fellowship is the norm. Anyone can walk through our doors and worship and partake of the Lord's Supper. Very few leaderships question newcomers. This lack of concern for identity is partly responsible for the modern Kingdom of God's porous and poorly defined borders.
Christ warned his disciples in Matthew 13: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared." Ultimately, the Kingdom's borders can never be totally purified of the weeds that have been sown in among the wheat, but this should not be used as an excuse to allow the Church to become indistinguishable from the world around it.
NOTES
For more information on this topic refer to 'How Much Authority Do Church Elders Have?'
[1] Philippians 3:3 & Ephesians 2:11-22 (English Standard Version)
[2] Thomas Schreiner "The Church as the New Israel and the Future of Ethnic Israel in Paul." Studio Biblica Et Theologica 13 (1983): 17-38
[3] Exodus 12:15 & Exodus 12:19 (English Standard Version)
[4] Ephesians 5:5 & 5:9 (King James Version)
[5] I Peter 2:9 (King James Version)
[6] Ephesians 5:5 (King James Version)
[7] Leprosy (Numbers 5:4), sexual offenses (Leviticus 20:18), touching dead animals (Leviticus 7:21), blood consumption (Leviticus 17:14), unclean consumption of offerings (Leviticus 7:21), objects before worship (Leviticus 22:3) (King James Version)
[8] Galatians 5:19-21 (King James Version)
[9] (1) – (6) located in 1 Corinthians 5:11 (King James Version)
[10] 1 Thessalonians 3:6-10 (King James Version)
[11] Titus 3:9-11 (King James Version)
[12] Romans 16:17-18 (King James Version)
[13] 2 John 1:7-11 (King James Version)
[14] 1 Timothy 1:20 (King James Version)
[15] Matthew 18:15-17 (King James Version)
[16] Titus 3:9-11 (King James Version)
[17] Matthew 18:15-17 (King James Version)
[18] 2 John 1:7-11 (King James Version)
[19] 2 John 1:7-11 (King James Version)
[20] David Bercot, 'A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More Than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers' (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), 212
[21] Ibid, 211
[22] Ibid, 212
[23] Ibid
[24] Ibid
[25] Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. 'The Ante-Nicene Fathers, American Reprint of Edinburgh Edition (Albany: Sage Softwear, 1996) "Latin Christianity: Its Founder Tertullian."
[26] Bercot, 'Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs,' 213
[27] Ibid
[28] Ibid
[29] Ibid
[30] Robert Whiddon Jr. 'The Current Status of the Practice of Church Discipline in the Churches of Christ' (Newburgh: Trinity Theological Seminary, 1998), 19
[31] Ibid, 20
[32] Ibid, 56
[33] R Albert Mohler Jr. 'The Compromised Church: The Present Evangelical Crisis' (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1998), 201
[34] Jay E Adams. 'Handbook of Church Discipline.' Joan Johnson (Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Publishing House, 1986), 9
[35] Gregary A Wills. 'Democratic Religion: Freedom, Authority, and Church Discipline in the Baptist South 1785–1900' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 12