Most of the time Tim Challies and I see things pretty similarly; in fact, today is the first time I’ve read one of his posts and found myself scratching my head and wondering about what he was saying and how he came to such conclusions. (Not that my disagreement is important or noteworthy to Tim: he gets more hits in an hour than I get in a week.)

The puzzling post is The Obligation to Assume, which is a reaction to a post by Joe Carter at evangelical outpost entitled My Problem with Sullivanism. I find myself in the unusual position of having issues with both Tim and Joe, a rare occurrence. I’ll address both through Tim’s post since he is reacting to Joe’s post in his own.

Still with me?

By way of introduction, let me explain that the “Sullivan” in question is Andrew Sullivan, a professed Christian and proponent/practitioner of homosexual behavior. Joe writes in response to Sullivan’s article in Time magazine, My Problem with Christianism.

Early in his post, Tim writes,

I can’t imagine why Joe began this article with a comparison of the intolerance of Fred Phelps (the ‘God Hates Fags’ preacher from Topeka, Kansas) and Andrew Sullivan.”

This is merely a passing comment Tim makes and not at all the subject of his post, but I thought I would try to clear up any confusion about Joe’s reference. It seems to be nothing more than a study in contrasts: Sullivan and Phelps are polar opposites, Sullivan being an advocate of homosexuality and Phelps the self-appointed judge of all things homoerotic. The irony that Joe may be hinting at is that Sullivan and Phelps do have something in common, albeit to different degrees: intolerance of others.

The focus of Tim’s post, though, is the matter of whether Joe is correct in his acceptance of – or giving the benefit of the doubt to – Sullivan and his claim to being a Christian. I agree with Tim in his concerns about whitewashing Sullivan, but disagree with his reasoning and means of dealing with the whitewashed.


Whitewash

Tim takes issue – rightly so – with Joe’s reference to Sullivan as a brother in Christ. From his post, Joe seems to base his assumption of salvation on some vague assertions made by Sullivan in an interview. Sullivan’s statements possess “plausible deniability,” however, and do not explicitly refer to Jesus Christ as much more than a spiritual guru or guide; nowhere in the quoted portion of the interview does Sullivan talk about Christ as the Savior, the Atonement for our sins, God, or anything else. In short, Joe’s basis for an assumption of Sullivan’s salvation is flimsy if based only on his remarks in the interview.

Personally, I would rather be wrong about someone not being a believer than to assume that they are, only to find out later that I’ve been wrong. In the former situation, the person is temporarily offended; in the latter, eternally damned. Big difference.

Joe, however, approaches the dilemma quite differently:

Let me clarify what I mean by a ‘brother in Christ’ by defining what I don’t mean when I use that term: I don’t mean that I know their salvation is assured (only God knows the answer to that one); I don’t mean that I have evidence of his regeneration (he appears to have a long way to go on the road to sanctification); and I don’t mean that he is not on the road to apostasy. All it means is that I take him at his word: that he confesses to being a follower of Jesus Christ.”

To “take him at his word” seems remarkably naïve for Joe, who typically demonstrates much greater wisdom and discernment. Am I to assume he also takes the word of numerous celebrities and the uncelebrated hoi polloi who claim to be Christians although practicing unbiblical behaviors and promoting unbiblical beliefs? Joe seems to be channeling Brian McLaren in this regard.

The litmus test that Christians are allowed – or commanded – to utilize in determining the validity of someone’s salvation is the fruit they bring forth; the fruit is not a lifestyle, as many believe, but rather the teaching to which they adhere and espouse. Clearly Sullivan’s teaching, regardless of his lifestyle, is unbiblical; this puts him in the category of false prophets (Mt 7.15-20). The sin of homosexual behavior is not a difficult thing to establish: only creative – that is, demonic – hermeneutics can dismiss the practice of homosexuality as “not clearly condemned” by the Bible.

Joe’s position is a reflection of cultural tolerance, baptized under the waters of “it’s not my place.” This is nonsense: the Bible calls upon Christians to be discerning and to evaluate the behaviors and teachings of those who claim the Name of Jesus Christ. To fail to confront or identify false teaching is to fail Christ at that point. As Luther allegedly stated,

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” (Quoted in Schaeffer, The God Who Is There, p. 18

Joe’s equivocating, however, raises a question; Tim, for his part, answers the question. It is this: Are we going to hold Joe to the same standard as N.T. Wright and his comments about Marcus Borg? There was no small amount of castigation and verbal abuse of Wright for his comment that he regards Borg as a believer, despite the latter’s denial of the bodily resurrection of Christ. Will the same voices that so roundly denounced Wright do the same with Joe? If not, a lot of bloggers owe Tom Wright an apology.

I happen to believe that what many said about Wright was judgmental and wrong, but if that is the standard then it needs to be applied evenly and fairly to all. It might be maintained that Borg was denying an essential of the gospel of salvation whereas Sullivan (and Joe) are not guilty of sin of the same magnitude, but that’s untenable. False teaching is false teaching and the consequences should be the same.

Turpentine

As should be evident from the preceding, I agree with Tim in his rejection of Joe’s position. It is when Tim turns to proposing a solution to the problem of such whitewashing that I disagree. Tim says,

As I understand it, there are two main issues here. The first concerns a profession of faith made by someone who is outside the authority of a ‘true’ (a term I will define shortly) local church. The second concerns a profession of faith by someone who is involved in ongoing, unrepentant sin.”

He then goes on to quote from Dave Swavely’s book Who Are You To Judge? (not to be confused with Erwin Lutzer’s book of the same name):

[R]egarding who are the wheat and who are the tares, they [the apostles] left that judgment to God – except in the case of those who were under church discipline. The biblical writers did not attempt to determine or distinguish true believers from false believers within the church . . .

“I would suggest that when someone has professed personal faith in Christ, been baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and identified with the church, we are then under obligation from Scripture to make no negative judgment about the validity of his faith. “

(Swavely’s interpretation of this parable – the wheat and the tares – is curious. Obviously the disciples did determine and distinguish between true and false believers: they obviously saw the difference between the wheat and the tares. What Jesus is saying is that it is not their place to implement punishment and final judgment on unbelievers. While a full exposition of the parable is beyond the scope of this post, suffice it to say that the disciples made the very distinctions Swavely denies.)

Tim explains that a “true” church has three distinguishing and determinative marks: preaching the gospel, administration of baptism and communion, and discipline. He concludes,

If a person has professed faith, been baptized and been received into membership his claim to be a believer has a certain level of credibility. Conversely, if he has refused to be baptized and to be received into membership we would have a good reason to be concerned about his profession.”

To his credit, Tim does not swallow Swavely’s teaching without some modification. Swavely seems to miss instances in the New Testament when believers did make “negative judgments” about others. Those judgments were necessarily predicated on whether or not the person was a Christian: in many cases – but not all – the assumption was that they were. There is no reason to doubt the eternal salvation of Ananias and Sapphira – Peter didn’t question it before bringing their earthly lives to an abrupt end. Certainly he would not have judged unbelievers in this manner (cf. 1 Cor 5.9-13).

What of John’s comments?

Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.
They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.” – 1 Jn 2.18-19

The fact that these false apostles or antichrists left the true apostles indicates (a) that they were at one time in the community of believers, and (b) that John was making a determination about their spiritual status and the validity of their claims to be Christians – unless somehow one can be a Christian and an antichrist at the same time! (Before anyone accuses me of eisogesis because (a) and (b) are not in the text, let me say that these are logical conclusions to be derived from the text. That is not eisogesis but common sense.)

And what are we to make of Paul’s deliverance of the believer to Satan (1 Cor 5.1-5)? In disagreement with Swavely, I think it is evident that Christians are called upon to judge the sinful behaviors and false teachings of other Christians – to make “negative judgments – even to the extent of concluding that they were not believers.

I begin to part company with Tim when he makes the following statement with regard to Sullivan:

Like everyone else in North America where churches abound, he has had every opportunity to place himself under the authority of a biblical church. And this is exactly what we would expect of a person who has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We would assume that such a person would be naturally drawn towards other believers.”

Either Tim is being naïve about the sin nature and the ploys of the enemy, overly simplistic, or a doctrinal belief in perseverance and/or temporary believers is emerging here. Do people in unbiblical churches choose them because they believe they are unbiblical? Or do they choose or remain in a church because of what they have been taught or led to believe by others?

Is it true that every true Christian will be “naturally drawn” to a biblical church or to other believers, as Tim maintains? I must confess that I am not at all drawn to a great number of believers: this is due not to doctrinal differences but to attitudes of smugness, arrogance, and superiority that they display. I’ve no doubt that an equal number are repulsed by me for the same reasons. I love these snot-nosed, self-righteous brothers but I don’t like them and don’t choose to fellowship with them. That’s a reality. Tim’s statement is far too broad to be useful.

With regards to a “biblical church,” Tim seems to be defining “biblical” as a church whose doctrinal positions are acceptable to him, even though he may not completely embrace the positions himself. But by his own definition of what constitutes a “true church,” he cannot introduce additional requirements. Sadly, there are churches that do preach a gospel that facilitates the work of the Spirit in salvation, faithfully baptize and regularly observe communion, and hold to some form of church discipline – but at the same time promote practices and beliefs that are clearly unbiblical.

When Tim writes,

If he was not convicted of his sin and did not turn in repentance, it would be assumed that he was not saved and the church would bear the sad responsibility of excommunicating him in the hope that this drastic action would cause him to repent”

Again, it is clear that his Reformed doctrine is leading him to these conclusions. That is fine – I applaud him for have studied so diligently as to have a deep theological belief and understanding of soteriology and ecclesiology – but I wonder about (a) how this unsaved person slipped under the radar of a biblical church and became a member, thus creating (b) the necessity of excommunicating an non-Christian. Does the church excommunicate unbelievers? This is an area of Reformed theology I have not studied, but it seems peculiar to me, to say the least. I had always believed that excommunication was limited to believers, to the exclusion of unbelievers.

The most troubling comment from Tim comes at the end of his post. Concerning Sullivan, he writes:

I feel that we have no obligation to assume that he is a true believer. Of course this does not necessarily mean that he is unsaved. By God’s grace he may be. Neither you nor I can know for certain. But neither do we bear the obligation of assuming that he is a brother in Christ.”

This is fence-straddling. It is incumbent upon the local church – which consists of individual members – to come to a conclusion about people such as Sullivan or, for that matter, Borg. Otherwise, church discipline is impossible: if Sullivan is a believer, then church discipline is necessary – and if Sullivan is not commited to any local church, then some church (perhaps his last one) still needs to deliver him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh (again, 1 Cor 5). If Sullivan is not a Christian, then we need to pray for his salvation and careful explain the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Equivocation is not an option in such cases. If the former condition exists and church discipline fails, Paul commands,

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.” – 2 Th 3.6

Since this is obviously not to be our reaction to a non-Christian, we simply must come to some conclusion about whether a person is a believer or not. There is a reason and purpose for ascertaining, based on behavior and teaching, the spiritual condition of others. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing how to conduct ourselves or how to treat other people, whether in or out of the Kingdom of God.


2 Cor 1:13