Toward a unified witness.
Toward a unified witness.
Navigating ecclesiological challenges in a post-Reformation era.
In the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, a new dilemma was poised to threaten what the reformers had accomplished in the form of denominationalism. As prominent pastors and theologians across the European continent continued to develop doctrine outside of the auspices of the papacy, the nuanced differences between the reformers themselves likewise began to swell from mere disagreements to outright feuds. The parallel initiatives of the Protestant reformers soon evolved into perpendicular ambitions that would only become exacerbated in subsequent generations. Consequently, as the church becomes further distanced from the Reformation era, so, too, do the denominational divides become sharper, leading to dwindling given to the doctrine of the church since there is no abiding catholic “mere ecclesiology” to which local churches ascribe.
Whether an ecumenical “mere ecclesiology” that adheres to the bounds of orthodoxy is possible or not remains to be seen. In the meantime, however, some modern theologians have vied for denominational intersection in order to reclaim some semblance of catholicity among congregations of different doctrinal persuasions. A notable contribution to that end was a 2005 article published by R. Albert Mohler Jr. entitled, “A Call for Theological Triage and Christian Maturity,” in which he proposed a method for sorting doctrinal distinctives into tiers in order to diagnose the viability agreement without compromise. An emergency room triage nurse assessing the urgency of her patients’ needs endures as a trenchant way to gauge whether biblical dissociation is necessary or not (Rom. 16:17).
In contrast to the separatism that pervades certain sectors of conservative evangelicalism stands the need to pursue faithful and honest ecumenism, not to reinstate the institutional hierarchies that disemboweled the church in previous decades, but to reclaim the understanding that, as the apostle Paul put it, there is “one body and one Spirit” among the redeemed (Eph. 4:4–6). While biblical integrity remains paramount in these conversations, critical to a healthy understanding of ecclesiology is the recovery of the confession of Christ’s “holy catholic church” and the “communion of the saints,” as is affirmed in the Apostles’ Creed. “It is likely,” concludes Jeremy M. Kimble, “that a robust view of our ecclesiology will further help all of us to see the beauty of Christ’s bride and the need we have for one another as we continue to grow as his disciples” (359). To that end, the scriptural call for worship and discipleship is not possible apart from fellowship.
Works cited:
Charles G. Finney, Lectures on Revivals of Religion (London: Thomas Tegg, 1839).
Jeremy M. Kimble, “The Church,” Historical Theology for the Church, edited by Jason G. Duesing and Nathan A. Finn (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2021).