The anti-constition hoopla that I missed first time around reminds me of “no creed but Christ.” Sounds nice, but so does giving a million dollars to every man, woman, and child in the country. It’s ultimately impractical.

One may have a written constitution, or an unwritten one, but as a practical matter there must be some agreed-upon method of handling disputes. We have many examples in the N.T. upon which to draw, which helps.

It’s really simple, and people seem to be looking for ways to make it confusing for no good reason. Maybe they should go on a cruise and relax.

A constitution is a contract. Someone as opposed as you are to transactionalism should be able to see the problem with churches having a constitution.

The problem with specifying all these formalities becomes instantly clear when you run into a situation where someone in the congregation falls into sin; things quickly devolve to “what does the Book of Order [say|mean] about …” rather than “Is this behavior good, and if not how does the Spirit direct us to act toward this person?”

One simple musing in regards to the discourse on your essay is the challenge by SteveS … what I find most intriguing is how many can challenge what someone from the Emerging view or any other thought process as not being biblical or at the very least being extra biblical by reading in or leaving out … which is necessary and important … although when challenged you yourself about some extra biblical comments, in a very healthy non attacking way, you’ve been more apt to dodge it as each our own point of view … “if it doesn’t seem right to you to have agreed upon processes that honor the relationship of congregation and leadership then fine. Join a church where the pastor and elders tell everyone how they are going to do everything.”

I might be off here, but I don’t think SteveS is saying that … just looking for a bit of clarity in your actual teaching on the need for constitution as a BIBLICAL MANDATE.

Please don’t take any offense, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your insights, and that of those commenting … keep up the healthy stretching for those of us endeavoring to follow Christ as part of the BODY!

1. I’d distinguish “creed” from “confession” in a slightly different way, namely that a “creed” is simply that part of a church’s confession which is used in public worship. From a Lutheran point of view, we regard all our confessions as declaring the apostolic faith of the church: it is not simply a case of saying “the creeds say the bare minimum, then there’s our own particular emphases on top of that”. Though of course we recognise the empirical fact that we share the creeds with other churches in a way that we don’t share our other confessions.

2. I really don’t like the idea of adding a “covenant” to the mix. If people are willing to sign up to the church’s confession of faith, that should be enough. As for the behavioural side of it, well as Luther put it, the ten commandments give us plenty to keep us occupied without adding our own behavioural codes. Of course, that doesn’t exclude the need for discipline in certain (usually pretty extreme) cases, but a church covenant isn’t necessary for that. People have the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount and the NT epistles - they can scarcely plead ignorance.

The PROMOTER has his own internet radio show.

“Pyromaniac? The cruise promoter? Why, of all the—”…

Pastors and elders are interchangable terms in the NT. Your accusation about my “assumptions” are unfounded.

You are right that no church is obliged to have a constitution. They are obligated to do what is right, and if it doesn’t seem right to you to have agreed upon processes that honor the relationship of congregation and leadership then fine. Join a church where the pastor and elders tell everyone how they are going to do everything.

“The NT explicitly tells us to do what is legally expected of us.” Two thoughts here: 1) Churches are not under any legal obligation to incorporate in the US, unless they want to a) own property as a corporation, or b) give tax deductions. (There may be more reasons, but those are the two biggies) It is not something that is legally “expected”. 2) If doing what is “legally expected” is the blanket principle, would you be aligned with Paul Crouch, Luis Palau, and others who claim that the Chinese house churches need to respect their government and register “for protection” by the Communistic government?? (http://theologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2005/11/religious-freedom-in-china-hardly.html)

“The NT shows congregational elections in Acts. Without a constitution, what is a majority?” I assume you are referring to Acts 1:23-26 or 6:5-6 — are there other “congregational elections” that I’m missing off the top of my head? So, to answer your question, I would say again, two things: 1)Did they hold their elections based on “a majority”? And, if they did, 2) Did they have a constitution to define said majority? I don’t see the relevance of your question to your point there. You imply that it can’t be done well (or perhaps at all, and you suggest later that it may not be “legal, open, truthful and fair”) without a constitutionally-defined majority. So how did they do it?

“It is NT to stipulate who will handle money.” — No real argument with this one, although it assumes that this must be a legal designation. Perhaps you reason from the standpoint that if it is not a legal designation, it is open to corruption. Again, I think this is a reach, because if there is corruption in the church, legal designations will mean very little from a spiritual standpoint. There are larger issues at play that, according to Scripture, shouldn’t even be played out in front of a secular court.

“It is NT to stipulate treating pastors with honor, and I assume that means fairly and not allowing them to be mistreated or to become dictators.” First of all, you have assumed that “elders” in the NT means “pastor” in our system of doing church. That’s actually a big assumption, considering that the word “pastor” is used in Ephesians 4, but is not the word used in the “honor” passage to which you refer. But, aside from that change in terminology, I agree completely about treating elders with honor and not mistreating or allowing them to become dictators. However, this was not one of the points that you had made that I countered. You said that it was “new testament” to have constitutional guidelines to “call/dismiss” a pastor. That’s a completely different point, and one which I still fail to see NT support for.

“What if the church decided to buy property? Is that anti-New testament?” First of all, let’s not paint with such a broad opposing brush. I have not said anything you mentioned was “anti-New testament”. There is a big difference between saying that something does not appear to be taught or regulated by the New Testament, and saying that it is “anti”. BIG difference. Reality: There is no record in the NT of churches buying property. So what does that mean? Well, in this case, it does mean, as I stated earlier, that a church would need to enter into the legal entity condition, then. But to say it’s “new testament” to enter into that legal corporation entity is stretching it. I just want you to make the case without stretching it to sound “biblical”. That’s all. You made a claim, I am asking for support for your position in an effort to understand.

“Due Process is a godly way of being open and honest. Churches in America have a horrible reputation in this area, and their lack of agreed upon processes and responsibilties is why.” Correction: Due Process is a legal way of trying to protect against not being open and honest. But if we need the law to “enforce”, or even to safeguard against dishonesty, we have far greater problems. If you want to go the corporate entity route, then go ahead. I see no biblical injunction against it. But don’t claim that you are doing the “new testament” thing or the “godly” thing. Just call it what it is.

You imply that churches who do not go the route of incorporating and becoming a legal entity may be “anti-new testament” or even “ungodly”. To be fair, you did not state that outright, but that seems to be the foundation of your response here. But what I have seen, Michael, is that corporation, constitution, etc. has done nothing to prevent the problems that exist in American churches today. Maybe if we actually put Christ at the head of the church and not Roberts Rules of Order or some constitution we might write, we might be able to get somewhere. The church in Acts seemed to work out its issues to great success without having a legal constitution! Why is that, and how is it possible?

Sorry for the very lengthy post, but I think that these points deserved some fair response.

steve