No.   9

 

 

PROCLAIMING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAN SEPARATISM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CHURCH ACCORDING TO SEPARATIST DOCTRINE

 

Matthew 16:18

 

There is no antagonism between separat­ism and covenantalism. Covenantalism is based upon our covenant relationship with God, which is followed by the horizon­tal, covenantal vows which create the institutions of society. It is separatism which calls for separation from the world to unite ourselves in covenant with God. God has vowed only to enter into covenant with those who have separated themselves unto Him (2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1). Coven­antalism is predicated by separatism.

 

Church government is a matter of renewed concern in Christian circles today. Christian Reconstructionists, having foc­used on the school, the state, and the professions, are now turning their atten­tion toward the church as an institution in the Bible.

 

Sometimes, I use the word Church (capit­alized) as a proper name to refer to the "Church of Jesus Christ" in the universal sense, or to a specific local or denomi­national group (such as, the Church of Christ or the Church of the Living Way, etc.). When I refer to the church as an institution in society or as a building where believers congregate for religious worship, I do not capitalize it. I mention this to illustrate the many different definitions that can be applied to the word "church". The purpose of this article is not to explore the many connotations which can be applied to the word, however. It is my desire to explain the Separatist's understanding of the place and government of the Church in God's Kingdom.

 

What is the Church? First of all, we find in the Bible that there is the Church (singular, as in the Scripture cited above), and there are Churches (plural, as in the Church at Ephesus, the Church of Corinth, and the Churches of Galatia, etc.). Imaging the ontological Trinity and the principle of the one and the many, the Church is both singular and plural. It is wrong for us to have an undue emphasis on the unity of the Church or on its diversity. Just as it is wrong for us to emphasize the unity of the Godhead to the neglect of their diversity, and to emphasize the diversity to the neglect of their unity, so also it is wrong for us to obscure the manifes­tation of this aspect of the Trinity in the Church.

 

Therefore, we say that the Roman Cathol­ics have erred on the side of an all-absorbing unity. The Baptists have erred on the side of a disconnected diversity. A balanced and scriptural view will guard the equilibrium between the one and the many, both within the local congregation and without in its relations to other Christian bodies.

 

Second, properly speaking, Jesus Christ did not establish an organization or an institution when He created His Church. References to the Church as God's building or His temple or His body or His bride are not literal, but metaphorical. They serve as analogies to call attention to various aspects of the Church's relation­ship to God.

 

The Church is a race of people, the Christian race whose members are known only to God. The Church is a people called out (the ecclesia) from the fallen of Adam's race and are "born again" into the race of the second Adam, Jesus Christ. When we say "the Church," we are referring to all of God's people in heaven and on earth, assembled and unassembled: for our membership in the Church does not depend upon our relationship with each other, but our relationship to God through Jesus Christ.

 

Third, as to the place of the Five­fold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangel­ists, pastors, and teachers), the Separatist would say that it is provisional until the spiritual maturity of the Church has been achieved. It is not designed to be the government of the Church, but to be the “Council of Wisdom” to guide the Eldership, which is the government of the Church.

 

The Separatist believes apostolic or spiritual authority has been codified in the Holy Scriptures, and that no man can speak a new revelation binding upon the conscience of another, except (and it is an important exception), when a person, by a sacred vow, voluntarily submits himself to the tutelage of another. Thus, a bride surrenders herself to the spiritual authority of her husband, a student to his mentor, a catechumen to the presbytery, bishop, or parson. Even the Church of Rome may be valid for those who choose to submit to it.

 

However, no vow can establish absolute authority. A vow to violate the Law of God is void. Therefore, an authority cannot reveal something purportedly God's will to a subordinate which is in conflict with the Word of God. Subordination grows from the need for unlearned Christ­ians to be trained in proper Biblical interpretation. Some may choose to submit to a pope, others to councils, synods, or seminaries. But the goal is spiritual maturity where the believer is capable of finding the will of God on his own.

 

As to the matter of church government, that is, the regulation of religious wor­ship and ministry in a local congregation, separatism espouses congregationalism. Since the time of the Pilgrims, congregationalism has taught that each congregation of Christians, organized on Biblical prin­ciples, was independent and equal in station to each other. They are governed internally by the male membership through and with an elected hierarchy. Externally, they were regarded as complete bodies, owing only "sisterly affections and acti­vity" to each other.

 

By mutual covenant, a congregational body was segregated governmentally, but not to the exclusion of fellowship with other bodies, as Anabaptists were prone to do. Fraternal, but not paternal, rela­tions existed between congregational chur­ches. Synods were for advice only.

 

Although a congregational church was externally independent, internally, it was presbyterian. There was a functional hierarchy representing the body of believ­ers. It was not a pure democracy.

 

There were various shades of congrega­tionalism, but the kind that prevailed in New England was Robinsonism or Broad-Church Barrowism: the Congregationalism of the Pilgrims. Its distinctiveness can be reduced to two principles.

 

First, it was similar to Ainsworthism: the church elders (or presbytery) acted with assent (silent or vocal) of the church (the presbytery proposes, the church dispo­ses).

 

Second, there was the addition of a catholicizing element: the recognition of the reality, but not the regularity of other churches founded on different principles (a guarded communion).

 

Although not as strict as the Puritans, the Separatists of Plymouth did preserve the parish principle, which has been all but lost today. The parish was the terri­tory of the colony. Spiritual responsi­bilities were divided among several parsons (elders) and not to a bishop. The elders governed the same parish collect­ively. An anarchistic introduction of other church bodies into the colony was not permitted. Informal fellowships were permitted to some groups, such as the Baptists (although, the Quakers were out; they were an agitating bunch in those days.) But serious effort was made to create a stable religious atmosphere, while being open to change through approved channels.

 

The people aboard the Mayflower were not an accidental collection of individ­ualists with their own opinions and destin­ies. They were not a rabble of adventurers. It was a church body that transplanted itself into the American wilderness. It was a covenanted body, a united group of Christian families, an Ecclesia of Jesus Christ.

 

Even though the civil power was function­ally separated from the church, it was the same Christian body which chose the civil magistrates, as well as the church officials. As in church polity, so in civil polity, one man, one vote, governed the Plymouth Colony. And since the juris­diction of that Christian body extended only to the freehold estates of its members, so likewise was the extent of the jurisdiction of the civil power. Thus, there was no opportunity for tyranny. While the civil and religious powers ran parallel with each other, there was no amalgamation. Church officers decided such questions as doctrine and liturgy, while the civil magistrates decided such matters as law enforcement and defense.

 

Here, we have the pattern of New England colonization. From this concept grew the principle of localism, as evidenced in our system of township and county govern­ments. The townships were self-governing and became the building blocks of American government. As one historian explains:

 

When the people from England first came to dwell in the wilderness of Massachusetts Bay, they settled in groups upon small irregular-shaped patches of land, which soon came to be known as townships. There were several reasons why they settled thus in small groups, instead of scattering about over the country and carving out broad estates for themselves. In the first place, their principal reason for coming to New England was their dissatisfac­tion with the way in which church affairs were managed in the old coun­try. They wished to bring about a reform in the church, in such wise that the members of a congregation should have more voice than formerly in the church government, and that the minister of each congregation should be more independent than form­erly of the bishop and of the civil government. . . Hence it was quite natural that they should come in congregations, led by the favourite ministers. . . This migration, therefore, was a movement not of individ­uals or of separate families, but of church congregations, and it conti­nued to be so as the settlers made their way inland and westward. The first river towns of Connecticut were founded by congregations coming from Dorchester, Cambridge, and Watertown. This kind of settlement was favoured by the government of Massa­chusetts, which made grants of land, not to individuals but to companies of people who wished to live together and attend the same church.

 

Robinson's insistence on a trained clergy, and his prohibition of laymen to administer the sacraments kept Plymouth trapped to the clericalism of the past. Robinson's concerns were praiseworthy, but his attitude was unscriptural. Christ gave His Gospel to all believers and His royal powers to the "two or three that are gathered in [His] name."

 

Each freehold held by a family is a miniature kingdom of Jesus Christ: a little church and a little commonwealth. These family kingdoms together form a township. Townships unite to form a county, counties to form states, states to form nations. Beginning with the first, self-governing, building block, the edifice of Christ's empire grows until all the earth is His.

 

The hope for mankind does not rest upon man or upon human institutions. There, is no law, no divinely appointed king, no apostolic successor upon earth that can transform the human race. Only the procession of the Holy Ghost, who is the regenerating force in human history, can create the new order where Jesus is Lord. God works this redemption of history through His people, but it must never be forgotten: “it is God that worketh all in all.”

 

 

I am deeply indebted to Verna M. Hall as my primary source for quotes and general information used in this essay. See her monument­al collections The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Christian Self-Government, The Christian History of the Constitution of the United States of America, Christian Self-Government With Union, and The Christian History of the American Revolution, published by the Foundation for American Christian Educa­tion, Box 27035, San Francisco, CA 94127.