A few days ago I made an appeal to those who left their congregations over disagreements with church leadership about how the visible church responded to Covid. I asked for understanding and forgiveness. I also argued that, in most cases, those who left did so for the wrong reason: they were asking the visible church to be and do something that the visible church is neither called nor equipped to do. At least some of the comments published under that essay support that analysis. To the degree that is true, what happened was a case of conflicting expectations. The church leadership expected the church to manifest the marks of the true church: preach the gospel purely, administer the sacraments purely, and administer church discipline (Belgic Confession, art. 29) and some of those who left wanted the church to be an institutional advocate for civil liberties, to become, in effect, something like the American Center for Law and Justice, FIRE, or the Pacific Justice Institute. These are all fine organizations and they do good work in helping citizens secure their civil liberties. I have advocated for civil liberties consistently in this space but the visible church is not a civil liberties advocacy group. It is the embassy of King Jesus to the world. The message he has entrusted to her is the moral law and the good news of free salvation in Christ.
Further, during Covid, I was critical of some congregations not for practicing civil disobedience (I defended their right to follow their conscience and to obey God rather than man according to Acts 5:29), but for aligning the visible church with a political candidate and turning a worship service into a political rally and using it to score points in the culture war. Again, none of these things is in the church’s brief. One simply cannot find any evidence in the New Testament of that sort of response to civil authorities.
One response I have received, however, is cogent: What about the role of the visible church in the rupture of the relationship between members and the church? What I saw was pastors and elders trying to serve their congregations as best they could in a situation for which few of them were prepared. They did so in a time when the nation had become deeply fractured along cultural and political lines. Almost immediately, how one responded to Covid came to symbolize, regardless of whether one intended to send a cultural-political signal, a cultural-political stance. Again, see the comments on the original post. The discussion moved almost immediately to the question of who was right or wrong about “the science.” In other words, the discussion moved from grace (e.g., how to forgive one another) to nature (i.e., who was wrong about Covid).
Nevertheless, some critics have expressed a valid concern. What if the leadership of the visible church erred or sinned? We may not say a priori that it could not happen. Popes and councils do err. Every consistory and session (ministers and elders) is composed of sinners, and sinners sin. They violate the moral law of God. They fail to love God perfectly and they fail to love their neighbors as themselves.
One reader complained that the church leadership was not transparent about their Covid-related decisions. They did not explain the rationale for their policy. One can imagine a scenario where the leadership of a congregation worked out a Covid policy (e.g., they closed the church and went to online services) without consulting the congregation at all or who, when criticized, responded dismissively or in a heavy-handed manner. One can imagine cases where the leadership was unduly fearful and over-reacted to the virus by closing the church longer than needed or who, out of fear of sickness or death, refused to provide any pastoral care to members who became sick.
Where the leadership of churches failed to communicate the reasoning for their policy or where they refused to hear the concerns of their people, where they showed undue fear, where they aligned the church with one side or other in the cultural-political war over Covid (e.g., their policy was more to signal their alliance with Dr. Fauci’s “lockdown” regime), or where they took the opportunity offered by the early Covid lockdowns to ignore the flock, then the leaders or those bodies who adopted such policies should confess their sins and be reconciled to the offended among the congregation.
The grounds for this are entirely Reformed. The visible church is the sphere in which the covenant of grace is administered. Under the covenant of grace we are free to acknowledge our sins. The first thing a Christian must know is the greatness of his sin and misery. The second thing he must know is how he is redeemed—by grace alone, through faith alone, from all his sins and misery. The third is how he is to be thankful for such redemption (Heidelberg Catechism, 2). Church leadership is not exempt from these truths. Because we are not in a covenant of works, our standing with God does not depend upon our performance. Because we are in a covenant of grace, the communion of the saints is not a legal communion. It is a gracious communion.
There is an analogy with parenting. One of the most powerful and restorative things a parent can do is to confess to his children when he has sinned against them. Not only does God’s Word require believers to confess their sins to one another and to seek forgiveness, but it also sends a very powerful message to children when parents confess their sins. It says, “I really believe this stuff. This is real.” How many parent-child relationships have been gravely damaged because a parent would not bend his neck and humble himself to say, “Child, I sinned against you. Please forgive me?” In the church, when a person is known to have committed a sin and refuses to acknowledge that sin, he is subject to discipline in the hope that the Lord will use that process to teach him the greatness of his sin and misery and to drive him to the loving, gracious arms of the Savior and back to gracious arms of the church.
Most of the stories I heard during Covid were from pastors who suffered considerably during this period. Most of the pastors and elders I know are faithful, godly men who went above and beyond the call of duty to love and serve their congregations. Most of them were under assault from both sides of the cultural-political war that bled over into the church. No matter what decision they made they were criticized and sometimes savagely so. I began ministry in 1987 and was ordained the next year. I have been teaching future pastors since 1997. Never have so many pastors said to me that they were utterly worn out and seriously contemplating leaving the ministry. Surveys suggest that this is a broad problem in pastoral ministry.
Further, I should say that I am not writing about my local congregation, lest anyone draw a false inference. Our elders and ministers were models of probity, patience, and piety throughout this whole thing. Certainly there were disagreements among them, and certainly some in the congregation disagreed with the decisions made and the policies adopted, and a few people even left, but I cannot see how they could have done better. To be sure, in Escondido, we have advantages that just do not exist in some places. We shut down briefly and then we returned to worship in our cars, in the parking lot as our pastor, Chris Gordon, gamely preached to us from the back of a truck using a PA system. Then we got a small radio transmitter. Then we moved across the street to the Christian school courtyard, where we met under tents for months outdoors. In a lot of places in the USA (and elsewhere) those adaptations were simply not feasible, and thus churches were faced with stark choices: meet indoors or online, to disobey public health authorities or not. We are in a relatively red part of a very blue state. Our local authorities were tolerant. That was not true in some places, where the authorities lost their minds and covered outdoor play areas with sand in order to drive people back indoors, which turns out to have been the worst possible decision they could have made. To compound matters, it is becoming increasingly clear that some civil-secular leadership became what can only be described as petulant in their refusal to adapt to the changing facts and circumstances. They used their emergency powers (California is still under a state of emergency) to expand their control over the daily lives of citizens.
Still, it stands to reason that it is likely some pastors and elders, however few, erred and even sinned in their response to Covid and to the congregation. Where that happened they must confess those mistakes and sins and ask for forgiveness from their congregations. That act might be the most powerful sermon they preach to their congregations all year.
©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.
RESOURCES
- How To Subscribe To Heidelmedia
- How to support Heidelmedia: use the donate button below this post or on the front page.
- The Heidelblog Resource Page
- Heidelmedia Resources
- The Ecumenical Creeds
- The Reformed Confessions
- The Heidelberg Catechism
- Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008)
- Resources On Covid And Religious Liberty
- Who Stopped Attending To The Due Use Of The Means Of Grace During Covid And Why
If I rank the things that church leadership might be doing wrong, the response to Covid and civil authorities is way down the list. If the medical experts have been proven to be often wrong, who am I to think that I have any better answers? I am sure that church members have not shown any exceptional resistance to Covid when compared to the secular population. To believe that you as a Christian have some special protection it seems to me is not an example of faith but rather presumption. There are many examples of Biblical figures fleeing from danger: David from Saul, Elijah from Ahab and Jezebel, etc. I personally subscribe to the boxing maxim: “protect yourself at all times.” If I look after my own safety, it matters not one whit what others do or believe.
They were obviously wrong from the beginning and Jesus laid hands on people with all manner of diseases. This should be how people bless one another. Social distancing is obviously unbiblical and can’t be defended unless you assume Theocracy.
I read all the time in the press “experts say….” How does one become an expert quoted by the press?
Walt: We can debate the qualifications for “medical expert” but for the vast majority who opine in this forum, their qualifications (other than in their own mind) do not even rise to the level of being debatable. It doesn’t matter though. Last time I checked, medical expertise was not among biblical qualifications for the office of elder. That is precisely why we need to err on the side of love and understanding for all the members of the Body of Christ in dealing with these complex matters.
The press is bringing opinions of “experts” to us and we use these opinions against each-other. How does the press decide who is an experts? What if the experts don’t agree? For example, many experts created the Great Barrington Declaration, but these experts were deemed wrong presumably by other experts. This is never explained.
Elders are experts in our spiritual health and are required to balance our spiritual health against our physical health for the entire congregation. This required them to evaluate the claims to public officials in physical health against the spiritual needs of the congregation. Disease kills the temporal body, but sin kills the eternal soul which animates the body. Without regular word and sacrament we cannot learn how to be saved.
To many of us it was not political, nor about safety or who was right or wrong.
We simply wanted to worship our God, we were unable to congregate and do so not because of Covid, but because of fear and hysteria stoked by the government and media alike.
Many elders and pastors jumped head on into this arena of fear and hysteria, closed the churches. Where was the urgency, where were people dropping dead on the streets?
As much as I can appreciate the opinion(s), sir you have missed what many of us wanted most.
Church does NOT belong to the government, and the doors were shuttered far to quickly.
Paranoia and fear ruled the day, not logic and godliness!
It is my hope and prayer that in the next “pandemic” we will not be locked out of the one place that is essential to our well being.
I’m an elder in a Reformed Baptist church.
The challenge for me has been: how best to love my neighbor during the hysteria.
For instance:
—when I learn vaxxed teens have 51X the mortality of unvaxxed teens—do I have a moral responsibility to warn my congregation? Warn my neighbor? Some pastors felt a responsibility to actually endorse an experimental vaxx!
—when I learn that graphine oxide in the jab is a poison… do I have a moral responsibility to say something?
—Do I have a moral responsibility to call out evil when my government won’t disseminate game-changing facts? For instance, when less than 1% mortality does not a pandemic make; when safe, effective, and inexpensive interventions like Ivermectin and HCQ save hundreds of thousands of lives; when Pfizer admits the vaxx is technically and legally not a “vaccine” but gene therapy; leaky vaxxes cause variants that lead to reduced immunity and increased hospitalizations, etc. The list goes on and on. Anyone with an internet connection could know these things—ignorance is a choice. At the very least, should a pastor call out the deadly ignorance of government authorities?
Too many pastors believed they could be neutral through it all—no COVID talk here! But neutrality is a myth and doing nothing often means you just don’t care.
“If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?” —James 2:15-16
So, then, have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?
Galatians 4:16
And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.
Matthew 16:3
R J,
We Christians have a twofold citizenship so, as a member of the secular sphere (under the Lordship of Christ) you have every right to advocate for your views of the science/medicine.
The question is what a minister as an officer of the church is called to say. He is called as a minister of God’s Word. He is not called to practice medicine. He is not called to pontificate on politics. He is not called to speak out of his office on engineering.
It doesn’t follow that our general obligation to love our neighbor requires to speak, in our office or out of it regarding public health.
Indeed it is a great temptation for ministers to assume omnicompetence. It’s a trap, to trade on our authority or to transfer the authority of our office to our opinions regarding nature (e.g., medicine).
So, as a member of the secular, civil order advocate away but in his office, the minister is not being neutral but faithful to his vocation.
RJ,
I’d like to know what source you are referring to when you give the 51x mortality statistic.
A quick google search leads me to https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2118471 and references therein, which indicate that the vaccine is highly effective for adolescents against ICU admission and need for life support.
You may be thinking about myocarditis being a side effect of vaccines in teens? That is true, but it is even more common for myocarditis to be a side effect of the actual COVID infection in teens. That is, vaccination reduces the likelihood of myocarditis.
I did not find (but again–I didn’t spend a lot of effort in searching) anything confirming this 51x statistic, other than, basically, “somebody said so on a podcast.” So I’d like to know where you’re seeing this, to take a look at the data. Thanks.
Hi Don,
Not surprised you couldn’t find much about this online—especially from Google, which has been incentivized to obscure such evidence.
The study I cited is from Britain’s Office for National Statistics (ONS). Here is one of many links reporting on it: https://nexusnewsfeed.com/article/human-rights/british-children-up-to-52-times-more-likely-to-die-following-a-covid-shot-government-report/
Britain’s study is much larger than the one cited in the ‘editorial’ (not the actual study) from The New England Journal of Medicine you cited, which looked at “445 case patients and 777 controls,” and admits to “Nearly three quarters of both the case patients and the controls had underlying medical conditions, including obesity.”
The under-20 age group was never at risk—virtually zero mortality unless there are serious underlying conditions. In such cases, early interventions like Ivermectin and HCQ would offer natural immunity, which is 27X more effective than the vaxxes. There is simply no warrant to introduce an untested experimental therapy to a group not at risk.
Dr. Peter McCullough’s website is very helpful, and his 3 hour interview with Joe Rogan is a good place to start. You’ll see his credentials are nonpareil, and he cites actual studies, names and methodology. As an editor of medical journals himself, he penetrates the data better than most physicians and researchers.
Assuming for the sake of argument that Britain’s findings of 52X greater mortality were [a mere] 1X greater, that is, 100% greater—would that be sufficient to trigger one’s conscience?
New findings are getting more worrisome still… vaccine-induced AIDS, due to lowered immunity caused by multiple shots. This was predicted months ago by France’s epidemiologist Dr. Luc Montagnier, the preeminent AIDS researcher in the world.
The RCT of the Pfizer vaccine in 12-18 year-olds was underpowered to measure known side-effects like myocarditis, so the FDA approval was based off of the modeling. The ad com intended to approve it so that children with high risk would have access, not so that every kid would take it.
False, at least in people under 40. Several papers have been published on this. There’s a reason several countries stopped using Moderna and recommend only 1 Pfizer dose in younger people, especially young men
Walt,
Please show those studies to me. (Thanks in advance.) Because I’m finding the exact opposite, such as:
https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998
“Myocarditis (or pericarditis or myopericarditis) from primary COVID19 infection occurred at a rate as high as 450 per million in young males. Young males infected with the virus are up 6 times more likely to develop myocarditis as those who have received the vaccine.”
No. I mentioned authors in the last thread and they’ve provided extensive links. I’m not your research assistant.
Also your original article failed to discuss why kids who’ve already had COVID need vaccination. Did you look at the author’s disclosures?
Walt,
I did not intend to call you my research assistant. Apologies if I implied that.
Nevertheless, you made a series of claims for which you implied you had evidence, but you didn’t show any evidence. I am interested in evaluating the evidence for your claims, but it’s not really my job to provide evidence for your claim.
> Also your original article failed to discuss why kids who’ve already had COVID need vaccination. Did you look at the author’s disclosures?
1) That’s an important question, but it’s not the one I was discussing. I’m not sure why you’re bringing it up.
2) It’s a review article. It’s probably more accessible to most people than the references, which is where the actual data and analyses are. Go to the sources, that is, the cited references.
Neither is it my job to hunt for evidence you can find on your own given the leads I’ve provided. Punching my claims on the Moderna vax into a search engine can turn up a lot of articles if you are so interested. If you want to hire me to find links for you, I charge $60/hr.
RJ,
> The under-20 age group was never at risk—virtually zero mortality unless there are serious underlying conditions.
All I can tell for sure (using the most recent Excel spreadsheet) is that for 15-19 year olds in Britain, 22 unvaccinated children died and 4 partially or fully vaccinated children died, or 2.6 times more likely to die from COVID-19.
Unfortunately, this source provides no details on the non-COVID-19 deaths. If it is children with serious underlying conditions who mostly were vaccinated, then it may be reasonable that their mortality rate is higher than the general population. Or maybe not. There’s no way to tell, either way, from these data alone.
What can churches do to reconcile with those whom the churches have left?
Repent. Admit that they closed their doors and cancelled worship when they should have done the exact opposite. Those who did not want to come because of concerns over a genuine virus – as opposed to the political & media panic pandemic – should not have their consciences forced, but neither does “safety” or the concerns of even sick or weaker brethren automatically pre-empt the public worship of God.
Yet as someone in the process of leaving a modern reformed congregation for one that is a little more historically connected – they met outside in a field for 17 weeks, while the first closed for 12 weeks with nothing to stop them from also meeting outside other than tradition and a tenuous grasp of first principles – I have no hard feelings per se, but I will take advantage of the opportunity to move. If brethren are offended and some are, that can’t be helped.
Neither does Romans 13 necessarily justify obeying unconstitutional, never mind stupid “mandates” if not actually lies when it came to the computer model predictions, the lockdowns masquerading as quarantines – of the healthy, who were presumed infected due to notoriously erroneous PCR tests – anti-social distancing, mask hysteria or gene therapy “vaccines” which neither sterilize not immunize. (If we can’t read the handwriting on the wall when it came to the numbers for the Diamond Princess cruise ship, we ought to at least be old enough to remember the ’09 Swine Flu vaccine fiasco.)
Which is all to say that: “…my people know not the judgment of the LORD” Jer. 8:7
“For thou hast hid their heart from understanding.” Job 17:4
All to the end that “that those things which cannot be shaken may remain” Heb. 12:27.
Bob,
The Constitution is wonderful but it isn’t canonical. God’s Word is. Christians may and should advocate for civil liberties. I do it here but is the church as an institution called to advocate to civil liberties? Where might we find this in Scripture? Acts 5:29 is our guide.
RSC,
Exactly, Acts 5:29.
We obey God rather than men, when the magistrate forbids the worship of God.
Much more the civil confession i.e. Constitution which the authorities are ministers of, forbids govt. meddling with/guarantees the free exercise of religion.
Granted, in these lawless days, I do not expect the magistrate to follow his own rules.
Still I do not consider it a good work to obey the magistrate when he clamps down on and cancels worship – at least a good work that God will reward, however the magistrate might (Rom.13:3).
Are we fighting a war that is over? I’m not suggesting that Covid has been eradicated. What I’m asking is if there currently is any civil authority in the US which is forbidding church services? It seem that there are bigger fish to fry.
The reason I’ve “dropped out” of the church I’m a member of is it ceased to be a church. We shut down. The purpose of a church is to gather and worship, hear the word, encourage each other, et al.
When you don’t gather how can you be a visible body of God?
Simultaneously church leadership turned left culturally and politically.
I didn’t turn left or right. NO POLITICS IN CHURCH used to be a standard. No longer.
Yet I’m told by many in my church and other Christians I’m the one sinning by not coming back.
As soon as I can be guaranteed that we won’t shut down again FOR ANY REASON AND political/cultural issues are left outside the doors of the church, I’ll happily return!.
Gary Mitchell
Gary,
So, the church sinned (so that you couldn’t go) and you’re not returning (i.e., you won’t go) until they promise never to sin again?
Help me understand this logic.
What Scripture or which part of the Reformed confession is shaping your thinking here?
Have you read Belgic Confession articles 27 and 29?
RSC
As for the false church, it assigns more authority to itself and its ordinances than to the Word of God; it does not want to subject itself to the yoke of Christ; it does not administer the sacraments as Christ commanded in his Word; it rather adds to them or subtracts from them as it pleases; it bases itself on men, more than on Jesus Christ; it persecutes those who live holy lives according to the Word of God and who rebuke it for its faults, greed, and idolatry. These two churches are easy to recognize and thus to distinguish from each other.
Res ipsa loquitur.
In the opinion of this pew warmer, yes it really is that bad. In similar circumstances, our p&r father’s called for a day of prayer. The modern American church largely obeyed the earthly magistrate and closed their doors.
Bob,
The false Church in Belgic 29 is Rome. I don’t know of a single Reformed church that closed because the pope told them to close.
Churches have closed because of plague throughout the history of the church. Churches closed in the 16th century because of plague. Churches closed during the Spanish flu in 1918.
It is true, however, that some congregations were perhaps overly cautious. Fear is contagious. I don’t know that anyone got it just right.
There have been, to my knowledge, many days of prayer since Covid began.
And saw nothing wrong in doing so.
RSC,
That was quick.
At the Reformation, Rome was the deformed Christian church of the day. There is nothing to say that the modern P&R church cannot/will not go that route today. Church history is all about declension and a remnant. The PCUSA with goddess worship is arguably already there.
Perhaps this is a tangential issue, but as church members how are we to handle other church members or even church leadership who “do their own research” [on YouTube and Reddit] and then feel the need to fervently share with others during church fellowship time the sort of wild-eyed ‘George Soros put microchips in the vaccine and will now control us through the 5G towers, especially once people go to get their microchip software update [booster shot]’ – type stuff. It seems like the more hokey the story, the more fervent is the person in their efforts to persuade others in the church about their ‘discovery’ [YouTube video]. To me, this kind of thing is very disruptive and I wonder how we as church members are to handle situations like this in the church?
Interesting to note that Is a lot of this kind of stuff sloshes around via peoples social media-connected newsfeeds. And if this article (and others) are even mostly accurate, a vast majority ‘Christian’ Facebook groups are actually run by Russian and Eastern European ‘troll farms’ which disseminate disinformation in order to divide and harm targeted groups.
https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/tech-gaming/almost-all-of-facebooks-top-christian-pages-are-run-by-foreign-troll-farms/
The prince of the power of the air, it seems, is alive and well on Facebook.
RSC. A little more confessional information to answer Gary:
WCF 25.4 “This catholic church has been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure…”
WCF 25.5 “The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error…”
WCF 31:3 “All synods or councils, since the Apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err; and many have erred.”
That a church may or has erred, does not automatically make it an unfaithful church. The error must be judged in light of the marks of the church as noted above.
What I have seen is that individuals have used their own conscience as the sole determination of whether a church is faithful or not. True, WCF 20.2 declares that “God alone is Lord of the conscience…” Yet, conscience is affected by the Fall, and is not above Scripture.
Yet, conscience is affected by the Fall, and is not above Scripture.
Neither is the church above Scripture. The prophets have something to say to those who think it is.
With all due respect Mr Clark I did not say or imply I wouldn’t return to the visible church until it stops sinning. Actually nothing I wrote came remotely close to drawing a conclusion like that.
I’m pretty certain I asked how the visible church, i.e. local bodies of gathered believers in Jesus Christ, can be considered a church when gathering is suspended for close to 2 years?
Additionally, the gradual political/cultural drift left as well as aberrant teaching on (final) salvation/justification of the John Piper views has just left me in a difficult situation.
Am I sinning by not being joined to a body of believers? Yes.
Can I/should I just attend any church body so I’m not outside the bounds of not gathering together as instructed in Heb 10:25? No, I’m pretty sure not, as there are definitive biblical standards for what constitutes a local body of Christian believers in Jesus.
Is sinlessness one of those standards? No, most definitely not, as I’m a struggling sinner seeking to be more and more conformed to the image of my Savior Jesus.
I hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith and the 1689 LBCF.
I guess I’ll end by stating there’s quite a number of us that feel betrayed by their local church body suspending gathering as well as theological and political/culture drift upon re-opening.
One might want to look at THAT trend occurring in much of the at large church before one is so quick to rebuke another for what is most definitely a struggle trying to return to church.
Gary Mitchell
Gary,
I’m glad to be corrected. Thank you. I genuinely understood you to be setting up a test for returning to the church that could not be met. Re-read your original comment and try to see why I might have drawn the inference I did. Perhaps there’s no basis whatever in what you wrote but perhaps there is?
It seems that we agree more than I first thought. I wrote the essay to encourage churches to recognize where they over-reacted and drove people away, where they gave reasons for people not to trust them and to confess that sinful fear and to be reconciled, as much as lies within them, to those who were offended by their fearfulness.
We agree on this, right?
I agree that any congregation that has been closed for 2 years has over-reacted to the virus.
I agree very much with your concern about Piper’s doctrine of final salvation through good works. I’ve been warning about it for some time, e.g.:
Resources On The Controversy Over “Final Salvation Through Works”
We agree that it is sin to be outside the visible church.
To be perfectly clear, I don’t think one should be in “just any church body.” As a Reformed pastor I am committed to the historic Reformed understanding of the visible church, to the doctrine that there essentially three kinds of bodies that call themselves churches: 1) the false church (Rome), sects (Anabaptists and a lot of American evangelicalism, and the true church). It would help if we came to agreed definition of what constitutes, as the Reformed churches say, “the true church.”
We agree about sinlessness. Amen.
I am puzzled by your assertion that you hold to both the WCF and the Second London. The writers of the Second London didn’t hold to the WCF else they wouldn’t have written the Second London, which was intended to revise the WCF rather significantly. These two confessions do contradict each other at key points.
1) they read the history of redemption differently at key points
2) they draw very contradictory inferences about what the history of salvation means for the New Testament church and believer today.
Wouldn’t be more accurate to say that you agree with the WCF insofar as it agrees with the Second London?
I understand that yo and others feel betrayed. I’ve been hearing from quite a few of you. That’s why I wrote this essay. Did you read the essay itself? I ask because people have been known to read only the headline and respond to that. If you’ve read the essay maybe try reading it again, more slowly (now that maybe your blood pressure is lower) and see if we don’t actually agree more than you first thought?
My goal here is to foster reconciliation.
Grace and peace Gary. I’m sorry for what you went through for the last two years. I’m sorry that some congregations over-reacted and where that happened I really do think that the leadership should own up to it, confess their sin, and be reconciled to those whom they offended.
Mr Clark, please be assured, I DO see how my remarks could be construed by you in the manner which you understood them, for which I apologize. I did read the article essay in its entirety and it is excellent, as all that you write is. I always read you when I see anything on Aquila or other sites you contribute to, as well I love the Heidlblog.
This is all probably more my fault, but I find myself sinfully losing my patience over the lack of true biblical leadership in the at large church.
My church has doubled down on closing, I might even say tripled down(!), defending the closures and marching in lock step with civil authority’s overreach during covid, here in Oregon the overreach continues unabated as the governor and legislature have decreed, not legislated, but DECREED unlimited dictatorial power to the office of the governor to implement emergency powers in whatever circumstance they deem appropriate.
And my church, almost all of the churches in Oregon, comply and will undoubtedly comply in any future conditions.
As well, I live in a very rural area of Oregon, and have some severe physical limitations which prevents me from commuting to the Portland area as I had been doing pre-Covid/shutdowns.
I love your precision, and your knowledge, and your firm convictions re the great Confessions, the Westminster, 3 forms of unity, and I would add the 1689, and I write this understanding some, though not all, of the differences.
I am Reformed Baptist. I know your not.
Wish I lived in your area, or next door to you! I’d happily come to your church and probably bug you so much you’d possibly wish I DIDN’T live so close!
And yes, I have been reading your articles on “Final” Salvation/Justification, they’re so good.
I look forward to reading more from you,
God richly bless you, your ministries
Gary Mitchell
Overall, I appreciate this article and don’t disagree with Professor Scott, but as one who left my congregation for another during Covid, I have some additional thoughts to offer:
1. One of the biblical (and foundational) marks of a true church is that it gathers. While there were many vocal parishoners who got too political during the lockdowns, I don’t think it’s really partisan to say that churches should have remained open when it became clear that this virus was a relatively low threat to healthy people. Throughout history, government overreach should be expected, but there were many pastors these past two years who were just derelict in gathering the flock. Some were probably irrationally fearful of the virus. (Yes, there are Reformed churches that were online the better part of two years.) Others were probably fearful of how some of their members would react if they remained open. I’m sure others truly believed they were honoring the governing authorities properly. Others were probably fearful of the State. This wasn’t an easy matter to navigate, but many churches seemed to think that as long as they were doing church online, that was sufficient.
2. It may be worth noting that there may be a connection to the primacy of preaching in Reformed circles and the ease with which many pastors took to prolonged online services. As long as they were preaching the Word, some probably felt that they were discharging their duty. Some pastors (in my estimation, absurdly) sought to keep the Lord’s Table virtually. That signaled to me that they saw “when you come together” as not so essential.
3. As I mentioned above, I left my broadly Reformed church during Covid, but in doing so, I met with the pastor, invited a meeting with the elders, wrote to them respectfully, and ultimately joined a more confessionally Reformed congregation. One of the ugly things about the “reshuffling of the deck” that took place in the Church through Covid, is that individual churches sometimes treated members who left them for another congregation as “those who went out from us.” That’s cultic behavior that does not recognize the catholicity of the Church–something that also calls for repentance among church leaders who were threatened by members leaving them for churches that remained open. I’m sure there were many who left angrily, without discussion, but I believe there were plenty who met with their pastors and elders to reason and pray with them, and who agonized over a decision to congregate with a new fellowship of believers. At the end of the day, I think the ultimate issue for most people who left their church for another was whether the church was open.
3. Just as many parishoners became very political through all of this, some pastors did as well. (Prof. Scott seems to recognize this.) I know of pastors who used social media to promote the vaccine. Some even said it was the moral and responsible thing to do. Others said it was irresponsible and unloving to congregate without masks. I know of elders who hosted and attended Christmas parties with church members while their bodies weren’t gathering for worship. I even know of a Reformed pastor who attended a civic rally to protest systemic racism/injustice while his flock was prohibited from gathering–something he condoned. I think there should be some soul searching if there were inconsistencies.
4. Yes, indeed, many pastors suffered through this ordeal–there is no doubt about that. But much of the flock did as well. Many people I know (including my wife), lost their jobs because they conscienciously objected to getting the vaccine. I’ve seen a number of articles that have been posted commenting on how pastors have suffered greatly during this time, but not nearly as many on how ordinary people lost livelihoods and vocations.
5. Safetyism seems to be a religion that has influenced the Church. During this pandemic, did we demonstrate to the world that we have a transcendant hope in a Savior who has conquered death, not to mention fear? I’m afraid that a great opportunity was missed.
6. I truly respect Professor Scott’s goal to foster reconciliation. This is truly a helpful article.