New Calvinism’s Dirty Little Secret: How They Practice “Redemptive” Church Discipline
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not crazy about how most churches practice church discipline to begin with; for example, I don’t think Matthew 18:15-35 is a grid for church discipline—I think it’s a grid for resolving conflict among Christians. I also think the term is unbiblical as well; there is self discipline in the Bible, and there is God’s discipline, but there is no discipline practiced by the church. The church is to put certain procedures into motion that will pave the way for God to discipline, but the church does not perform the discipline. It’s an important distinction.
Nevertheless, churches need to be proactive in a biblical way in regard to resolving conflict and confronting sin. But the best kept secret of the New Calvinist movement (Gospel Sanctification / Sonship Theology, hereafter NCGSS) is its creepy, cultish way of practicing what they call “redemptive church discipline” (hereafter RCD). RCD is mostly practiced by Reformed elders in Baptist circles where local churches are not accountable to higher authorities. However, that will change as church hierarchies continue to show a lack of intestinal fortitude in regard to standing up against the big names of New Calvinism (hereafter NC).
It all begins with what is becoming clearer to me as I understand more, and more about this movement—everything is about an extreme form of justification, ie., being justified by Christ and His works alone. You would think that it would be impossible to take that belief to an extreme, but NC certainly does. Whether they will admit it or not, among other extremes, they teach that our present obedience was imputed to us by Christ in His atonement and presently performed by Him, and not us. They call this “the imputed active obedience of Christ.” They often speak of the necessity that Christ lived a perfect life while here in the flesh so that His perfect obedience could be imputed to us along with a legal declaration of righteousness. So, other than His death on the cross (what they call His “passive” obedience) and His resurrection being efficacious for the atonement—His perfect life (“active” obedience) is not assumed by virtue of the fact that He is Christ, and was also needed so that obedience could be imputed to us as well.
However, while pounding that point home, when you ask them if Christ’s obedience is still active, you get the deer in the headlight look. Why? Because if they say “yes” (and trust me, according to their doctrine, the answer is “yes”), that can only mean that He is presently obeying in our place. If you pay attention, you can see hints of this in their unguarded statements. In an informal document written by Jon Zens that recounts his conversations with Robert Brinsmead, the subject at hand was “the centrality of Christ in obedience.” A reader coined a phrase yesterday that may be apt: “imputed sanctification.”
This extreme view of justification also leads NC to deny the centrality of the Father and the new birth. Logical conclusions also point to unorthodox teachings such as daily justification, or the need to be resaved on a continual bases. This blog is replete with quotes that affirm these accusations.
It therfore stands to reason that church discipline must concern justification as well. The problem this poses for NC is the fact that orthodox church discipline calls for obedience on the part of the believer—which shifts the “emphasis to the believer and away from Christ” (what they call an erroneous subjective justification rather than an objective justification). Therefore, they had to come up with a church discipline that focuses away from demands upon the Christian and implements the works of Christ instead. Hence, “redemptive” church discipline.
How does it work? First, the sin really isn’t the issue per se. Elders may announce to any parishioner at any time that they have been placed into the process of RCD. In RCD, the “steps” are not the Matthew 18 steps that could lead to disfellowship, rather, the steps are part of the process of which you are either in or out of—via elder announcement. If the elders perceive that you have a cooperation or colaboring view of sanctification, you can be placed into the process to correct your view of redemption—that’s why they call it RDC. Therefore, a member could find him/herself in the process because of a theological discussion with an elder, and in fact, this has happened. Once in the process the parishioner is not free to vacate his membership until the elders determine “fruit meet for repentance.” The process can move from step to step (supposedly per Matthew 18) within the process if the individual in the process shows no acclimation to the “proper” view of redemption. Eventually, no movement in the desired direction (months, or even years later) can lead to the fourth and final step—disfellowship.
Those who try to leave that particular church in the midst of the process are also disfellowshipped—the congregation naturally assumes this happened because the member attempted to vacate membership before an offended party, or those confronting sin could confront him in a second or third step with witnesses in a traditional church discipline. In other words, parishioners in NC churches usually don’t know that their elders are practicing this kind of discipline, but rather assume the more traditional practice. Worse yet, the congregation also assumes sin of the baser sort as the reason for the excommunication.
Secondly, any kind of sin can be cause for RCD because sin really isn’t the issue; the sin is merely the result of the person’s view of redemption—fix his/her’s view of redemption, and Jesus will start obeying for them—problem solved. Furthermore, since redemption is the goal, elders who practice RCD can also (so they think) bring non-members into the process because the church has a mandate from Christ to make disciples of all nations. Therefore, a parishioner who pretends to be converted to NCGSS in order to escape a church without being disfellowshipped can still be excommunicated if they tattle on the elders to existing members after they leave. In fact, this has happened.
Lastly, this puts counselees in a very precarious situation. Many churches who are NANC certified practice RCD. Basically, counselees can find themselves held hostage at a church via threat of public humiliation. This ministry is aware of many testimonies accordingly: people being placed in RDC for tithing issues, priority issues—you name it, while discussion of this form of discipline is nowhere to found. A more vile consideration is marriage counseling where one spouse accepts Gospel Sanctification and the other spouse doesn’t—resulting in the conclusion that it is a mixed marriage (believer/unbeliever). This of course, puts the marriage in a very dangerous circumstance.
Would proponents of NC like to deny this? Well then, simply answer this question: “Why do you call it “redemptive” church discipline? Isn’t the word, “redemption” a little strong when we are talking about reconciliation? Please explain, and for once without hiding behind the word, “gospel.”
paul
A Biblical View of Resurgent Church Discipline in a Neo-Reformed Era: Parts 1-4
As a blogger on WordPress, I have seen a significant spike in interest regarding church discipline. I think this is because of its recent resurgence in Reformed circles. My missionary son-in-law, David Ingram, informed me that a single article regarding church discipline on his ministry website is downloaded at least 60 times per month. Unfortunately, many of the search terms I see on WordPress stats are “unbiblical church discipline.” Furthermore, in a church culture vastly uninformed regarding church discipline to begin with, the subject is coming out of a Neo-Reformed theology that is morphing at break-neck speed. I can only assume that confusion is ruling the day on this subject. The following four essays are from my book and a recent post.
In part one, I attempt to give an overview of church discipline and some new approaches. In parts 2, 3 and 4, I explain how some of these new approaches effect counseling and other areas of church life. I sincerely hope it clarifies this issue for many. Keep in mind, on the published pdf files, you can zoom in for easier reading.
The links to each part are the following:
Part 1: http://eldersresolution.org/Discipline%20Part%201.PDF
Part 2: http://eldersresolution.org/Disciplne%20Part%202.PDF
Part 3: http://eldersresolution.org/Discipline%20Part%203.pdf
Part 4: http://eldersresolution.org/Discipline%20Part%204.PDF
Does Your Church Practice Satanic Church Discipline?
Ordinarily, I would think that the following fact is bizarre: the vast majority of church discipline practiced today is unbiblical. But the fact of the matter is, as a former elder, I was on an elder body that practiced errant discipline. What we were doing had a semblance of biblical correctness and the church had always done it that way – it’s an easy trap to fall into. In the Christian life, most assumptions (concerning truth not verified) are dangerous; you eventually learn that. However, my past error will serve to make my initial points.
Like everyone else, we used Matthew 18:15-20 as a schematic for church discipline. That was our first mistake. The passage has nothing to do with church discipline, it is clearly a procedure initiated by Christ to resolve conflict among Christians. But worse yet, we didn’t even use the wrong text the right way once we decided to use it that way. Like many elder bodies, instead of calling on the whole congregation to confront the individual before the fourth and final step of excommunication, we instead announced that it was a done deal, and the person was to be treated “like” an “unbeliever.” Supposedly, calling on the whole church to confront the individual was “impractical” because of the size of some churches. Therefore, that certainly isn’t what Christ meant, right? Wrong. That’s exactly what Paul called on the church at Philippi to do in the case of Euodia and Syntyche. We have no idea how large that church was and apparently it’s not relevant. Besides, if the church is really a body, and there is a problem with a member or organ, it is certainly the business of the body to aid in the cure.
As if that would not be enough, using a text for the wrong premise, and then not even following the premise correctly, we then instructed the congregation to treat the individual “like” an “unbeliever” and to present the gospel to them if they (any member of the congregation) crossed paths with the individual. In the first place, were we leading the congregation into sin by telling them to present the gospel to the person instead of discussing the unresolved matter? Yes, because their correct role was initially short-circuited by skipping the supposed third step. But in the second place, how do we get from “treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector” to “treat him as an unbeliever”? If Christ wanted them treated like an unbeliever, why wouldn’t He simply say so? The word “pagan” is the Greek word “ethneekos.” It means “ethnic,” and referred to Gentiles. Not all Gentiles were unbelievers and the Temple had a separate court for them known as the court of the Gentiles. Also, Matthew, one of the twelve, was a tax collector. To say that Christ was making Gentiles and tax collectors synonymous with the unregenerate is an assumption at best. Most likely, Christ was saying not to treat them with the same intimacy that you would a fellow believer that had no unresolved conflict with the body; in other words, as if nothing were going on, or business as usual. In the final analysis on this point, it is far less assumptive. And by the way, this is consistent with how Paul said to treat an idle brother. Rather than the usual fellowship you would enjoy, you entreat him as a brother, but you don’t feed him and give money while acting like there are no issues going on (2Thess. 3:6-15).
When it gets right down to it, the New Testament addresses several different circumstance that are to be handled in their own unique ways ( Sins against brothers: Matt.18:15-20. False teaching that causes division:1Tim. 6:3-5, 2John:10,11 Titus 3:10, Rom.16:16,17. Sinning Elders:1 Timothy 5:19. Broken fellowship between parishioners: Phil. 4:2,3. Idleness: 2Thess. 3:6-15. Gross Immorality: 1Cor. 5:1- 13). Though concepts from Matthew 18 could certainly be borrowed, to apply a Matthew 18 grid to all other circumstances requiring confrontation is sloppy hermeneutics, and that’s being kind.
Another important point to look at here is in regard to actual excommunication, or expulsion from the body. The only account that we have, or cause for an expulsion from the assembly, is in 1 Corinthians 5:1-13. This is the only passage were expulsion is not in doubt, and the reason is gross immorality of the sexual kind. Paul says in no uncertain terms: “Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this?” And, “Expel the wicked man from among you.” Again, this is the only place where expulsion is explicitly instructed. Also note: in all of the other sins confronted in the letter to the Corinthians, this is the only place that any kind of disciplinary action is commanded! I think this is a point well worth mentioning. Paul motivates them throughout the letter to obey because of God’s promise of reward, loss of reward, judgment, the coming resurrection, etc.; but chapter 5 is the only place where God’s people are commanded to take specific action to remove a parishioner from the fellowship. I believe this speaks volumes toward an argument that church discipline is reserved for sins of the baser sort, those “of a kind that does not occur even among pagans.” Likewise, Jonathan Edwards agreed, stating in his Yale commentary that expulsion is only for the “visibly wicked” sin of the “gross” sort, and “gross public sin” accompanied by a stiff-necked, unrepentant arrogance (volume 22, pages 69 and 78).
But now we come to the other side of the coin that contains my above arguments, but states the value. Even in this one explicit case where we have a man expelled from the congregation, Paul does not declare him to be an unbeliever, but rather assumes the opposite: “When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.” Bottom line: nowhere does the Bible say that a professing believer should ever be “declared” an unbeliever for any reason; to the contrary, Paul states the opposite by assuming that the expelled Corinthian was saved. It is also worth mentioning that Jesus assumes that the lost sheep that stray from the flock are in fact part of the flock and should be diligently sought after (Matt. 18:10-14). Perhaps the idea that we can do this (declare individuals to be unbelievers) is spawned by the belief that it is the church that actually does the disciplining when the term its self (“church discipline”) is a misnomer. In rare circumstance we expel, but it is the Lord that does the disciplining outside of the church: “What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.” There is discipline by the Lord inside and outside of the church ( Hebrews 12:5-11, 1Cor. 11:30), and self discipline (1Cor. 11:31-32), but there is no “church discipline” practiced by elders or the church. It begs the question thus far: how many different ways can the church get this wrong?
But now we come to a biblical reality that swallows hard when mixed with the information above. There is a fellow that is in the business of accusing the brethren of being unbelieving. It is the mode of operation practiced by Satan. Though we cannot find any reference to a duty of the church to “declare” someone an unbeliever, the Scriptures are replete with examples of Satan doing so. In fact, God calls him the “accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12:10). And trust me, he (Satan) has plenty of reasons to bring the accusations as Paul did in regard to the Corinthian man, but in contrast, Paul assumed the opposite was true. We get a good picture of what I am saying in Zechariah 3:1-4;
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.”
I might also add that in Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus said the following:
Jesus told them another parable: “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. “The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy did this,’ he replied. “The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’ ” ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’ “
It is clear that the “servants” in this parable are unable to ascertain the true spiritual standing of anyone in the church. Christ makes it clear that they could be mistaken. It would follow then that we are in no better position to “declare” anyone an unbeliever. The whole notion is patently absurd, unless you’re Satan.
Here is also something I know at ground level from being a reformed leader / elder for several years: the types of “church” discipline being practiced today rarely produce a happy ending. Some Reformed churches that I know of have excommunicated hundreds of people, and have no outcomes worth celebrating. Out of all my years in the Reformed realm (about 15), I know of one story that turned out well. Funny, in the New Testament, we have but one example, and it turned out well. We know this from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. This is something that really haunted me for years; if our discipline was being done according to Scripture, where were the results?
The practice of something that’s not in the Bible with the wrong text, and the wrong premise, and then the wrong application of the wrong premise; maybe that’s why.
paul
Poodles Gone Wild: Reformed Leaders are Teaching Southern Baptists How to Drive
I entered into God’s kingdom labeled as a Southern Baptist in 1983, and I’m not blind to the many problems, well, serious problems within the denomination. In fact, I left the denomination for 15 years because I actually thought there was something better. As I pined away in Dallas, Texas, longing for the means to move to Sun Valley and join John MacArthur’s church, how disillusioned I would have been to arrive there and find Larry Crabb in charge of the “biblical counseling” at Grace Community Church. After reading Larry Crabb’s abominable Inside Out, I could have only stood shell shocked, and 3000 miles from home to boot. Also, the discovery that Mac wrote an endorsement for John Piper’s Desiring God, a theological novel that made Timothy Leary weep with envy, could have only added to the insult.
That was the 80’s; moving into the 90’s, after jumping ship from the SBC, I was nevertheless delighted to see Southern Baptist leaders recruiting the influence of John MacArthur and his Reformed Light theology. But my, how times have changed. For the most part, the Reformed movement, which has been picking up steam over the past 30 years, has been fairly balanced (as far as Reformed goes, relatively speaking) while adding many spiritual benefits to the evangelical community and even the SBC. But its (the Reformed movement) recent transformation in-process via “New Calvinism” is quickly becoming a fast forward study in lunacy. As a matter of fact, it would be hilarious if not for the fact that theology has life consequences. Always. This reality has brought me back home to the Southern Baptist Church, and also thankful for what I have learned. But upon my return, I see the lunacy I fled invading the motherland. The SBC is now moving from the barking Poodle in the Bud Light commercial ( Reformed Light), to the Poodle driving the car (too heavy / New Calvinism), with accompanied occupants in the backseat being terrified while the crazy Poodle runs other cars off the road and mows down fire hydrants:
So, what is the “New Calvinism” that the Reformed movement is morphing into at breakneck speed? Well, it primarily focuses around the Gospel-Driven Life and New Covenant Theology, but the crux of what is driving it is what I want to focus on here. Namely, hermeneutics. Namely, Grammatical-Historical hermeneutics verses Redemptive-Historical hermeneutics. I am going to keep this post simple and two-fold because really, method of interpretation is at the very core of what is driving all of the other issues here. I think my very simple definitions that follow will also serve the purpose of this post as well.
First, GHH holds to a (for lack of a better term) literal approach to interpretation. As the title would suggest, conclusions are drawn from the biblical text in regard to its grammatical formations of verbs, nouns, subjects, prepositional phrases etc. In the RHH, the Scriptures are approached with the idea that all words in the text are formulated for the sole purpose of projecting the finished work of Christ in both justification and sanctification. In other words, it is at least fair to say that the RHH is a much more subjective method than GHH. Many, many, many, examples could be given of how proponents of RHH often ignore tense, the location of the subject in the sentence, the plain sense of prepositional phrases, and which subject is receiving the action of the verb in order to come to a redemptive conclusion.
Though many examples could be given in regard to how these differences of interpretation effect practical theology and life, there is no more glaring, vivid example than church discipline. The difference in application determined by method of interpretation has been, and will continue to be dramatic. To begin with, A literal interpretation of Scripture will usually result in a very limited use of church discipline. Church discipline in the GHH realm will usually, and primarily, be applied to Parishioners Gone Wild. But in the RHH realm where the interpretation of every verse of Scripture is redemptive, church discipline will be seen to have a redemptive purpose. And as we know, the goal of redemption is to redeem us from sin, right? So, instead of church discipline being seen as a practical, judicial type process to keep order in the church, RHH leaders will see it more as a process to save us from any and every sin, since we were saved by the gospel, and are still being saved by the gospel everyday. In antithesis, GHH leaders will not see church discipline as a means of tweaking the saints in the same way Bible study and one on one discipleship does; but to the contrary, RHH leaders will see church discipline as a tool for fine tuning the saints. The result? Leaders Gone Wild.
I don’t even know where to begin to document the madness. There are a lot of Poodles driving out there. Instead of specific guidelines for specific categories of situations within the church; now, the failure to obey any, and every biblical imperative is game for church discipline. And remember, the goal is redemptive, so a mere verbal repentance that a literal interpretation would suggest will not suffice. More than likely, the discipline will be a protracted counseling situation (they use Galatians 6:1 for this) in which you will be in the discipline process (and not free to vacate membership) until you are released from counseling. As a matter of fact, in many reformed churches (including some reformed Southern Baptist Churches), when you enter into counseling with a pastor or leader, you are automatically considered to be in the redemptive church disciple process. I know of a case where an individual was meeting an elder for breakfast / discipleship every week. At some point, the parishioner took a job out of state, but was told by the elder that he was not free to leave the church because of struggles that were discovered in his life while those meetings were taking place. To leave the church at that time would have been the equivalent of leaving the church while under church discipline, according to the elder. This is by no means an isolated incident. Many, many parishioners have been under church discipline in the past without knowing it because their counseling turned out well, while others find out that “heavy counseling” and church discipline are the same thing.
Furthermore, as more and more Southern Baptist leaders continue to tag along from Reformed Light to New Calvinism, we have Southern Baptist churches bringing parishioners up on church discipline for non-attendance, not tithing, questioning doctrine, and just about anything else that falls short of holy perfection. It is unclear as to whether some implement a “process” view of the actual discipline or a “repentance” view.
What we do have, is a scary coalition of Southern Baptist leaders joining with barking Poodles and driving Poodles to supposedly stand for the gospel (T4G: Together for the Gospel [but what gospel?] ). Their new pastor-buddy club consists of those who hold to the GHH (MacArthur [I think, anyway] ), and several Poodles driving. As their doctrine (the driving Poodles) reeks havoc among God’s people in many other categories besides unbiblical church discipline, Al Mohler, MacArthur, and others continue to hang out with them in conferences to oppose the likes of Joel Osteen, who is supposedly a bigger threat to the well-being of God’s people than the Christian mystics that they give creditability to. However, as one example, I would be willing to bet anything that the divorce rate in Osteen’s church could not touch that of churches that hold to New Calvinism, which are experiencing exploding divorce numbers due to there view of divorce from a “redemptive” perspective.
I conclude with two observations:
1. The SBC is already on life support, we don’t need Dr. Kevorkian presiding.
2. Any SB or Reformed saints looking for a new church home need to be privy in regard to the Poodles running any given church; do they just bark, or do they drive?
paul
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
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