In the letter to the editor (link to “Asking the Tough Questions” and comment printed this issue), Outlook reader John Sheldon seems to be raising the possibility that the recent General Assembly has broken covenant. What does it look like to break covenant with God?
In the context of marriage we catch a glimpse of covenant breaking. One spouse engages in an extramarital affair, thereby violating the covenant. If the violator apologizes, and if the violated forgives, then the covenant is restored. If either partner for any reason does not enact such restorative acts, then the covenant breaks.
When congregations organize themselves as voluntary associations of the likeminded–and together form a covenant with attendant promises and stipulations–then those who commit to that covenant and maintain it faithfully enjoy its privileges. Those who disobey its requirements break it.
But what happens to the covenant community that is formed not by voluntary association but by sovereign election?
We Presbyterians proclaim with passion that the church of Jesus Christ has been formed by God’s initiative, not our own. It is constituted by God as the “body of Christ,” not by the state government as a 501.c.3 organization. Indeed our central commonly held value is the affirmation that our place in the Church comes not by our choosing but by God’s calling–as expressed through the waters of baptism applied to most of us long before we could have exercised any choice in the matter.
We often declare that the particular place where we find ourselves–as spouse of a particular person, as pastor or officer or choir member of a particular congregation, as member of a particular denomination, came about not by our own choosing but by the sovereign call of God.
Nevertheless, the church has always clothed itself in its lofty identity as awkwardly as a toddler wears its mother’s bathrobe. The Pauline epistles speak of the church as a company of saints–holy people–but in almost every case the Apostle excoriates them for their unholy behavior. The fractured state of that church into which we were baptized is at best a “provisional demonstration of the kingdom of heaven to the world.”
The Reformers, recognizing that awkwardness, the God-made oxymoron of sinners-called-saints, coined the expressions, “visible church” and “invisible church,” the one being the appearance and the other being the authentic. They understood that the invisible church was held together by constitutional covenant making, and that the covenant was established neither by them nor for them. It was instituted by God and for God.
Sure, they found themselves embarrassed by some of the beliefs and behaviors that arose in their company. They exercised discipline accordingly, albeit inconsistently. But most of them hesitated to declare anathemas on others with whom they disagreed. They feared the prospect of separating themselves from those who just might occupy an elected place in the body of Christ–even as misguided and disobedient as they might appear.
Yes, they could conceive the possibility of declaring a community apostate. But they did so only under the most extreme situations, particularly when the explicit and imposed teaching of the church bureaucracy blatantly prohibited the proclamation of the gospel.
In most times of error our predecessors simply reminded one another, “Councils of churches can err.”
Did the recent General Assembly err? You bet they did. We will debate for years which actions were misguided, but let there be no doubt that time will prove some of those actions to have been erroneous. Every GA I’ve attended has erred, if only by allowing me admission. But this GA did not prohibit the proclamation of the gospel.
As in times past, the sovereign God has all power at God’s hand to restore and repair any damage done to God’s covenant. That covenant stands as strong as its maker. God can make all needed repairs without us pronouncing anathemas upon one another’s heads … without us disfellowshipping one another … without us accusing one another of breaking covenant.
