Below is the first part of a two-part blog post engaging with Francis Chan's recent comments regarding the Eucharist, where he clearly supports a Roman Catholic understanding of the Lord's Supper. I do not intend to stir up arguments on social media. In fact, if you disagree and say so, I'll just now say thanks for your thoughts and for reading through my poor writing! But I will not argue back. Social media debate is too vacuous to fit into my (and I would assume most peoples) schedule. That said, I do have some thoughts for you to consider if you want to and have time to read them.
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Francis Chan is a beloved evangelical figure because of his bestselling book Crazy Love, his contagious concern for evangelism, and for his sojourning spirit that took him out of being a mega-church pastor into lay ministry. He is a not a mysterious figure by any stretch, and yet it seems that there is something very real and authentic about his faith in and walk with Jesus that is attractive to us who feel a tendency within to live life in the motions.
Over the past decade Chan has become known for his hot takes. He wrote a book on the church's disastrous neglect of the Holy Spirit, and contributed to another book responding to Rob Bell’s questioning of Hell. This is to say nothing of sound bytes from well-known sermons he’s preached. I for one am thankful for him, because he seems to have both a concern for truth and a love for the lost and desire that believers live Biblically.
Recently Chan has made comments suggesting that the evangelical church is focused too heavily on preaching and not enough on the Lord’s Supper, also known as Communion. He suggested that the Acts church prioritized the Lord’s Supper, even suggesting that they knew Communion as an experience of Christ’s real body and blood. And the church had this understanding until about 500 years ago, apparently coinciding with the Reformation, when confusion set in. As can be guessed, Roman Catholics applauded him, seeming to suggest that he is close to Catholicism. Non-Catholics who hold to Catholic-like views of the Lord’s Supper have done the same.
In making his argument he gives several supporting arguments, some clearly given, and some implied:
1. During the Protestant Reformation, attention was taken off of communion and put onto preaching. Pre-Reformation, church worship was all about communion, not preaching.
2. From the Reformation onward, preaching became divisive because the messages contradicted each other. Therefore, the church began and continues to reenact 1 Corinthians 1:12-13, where believers were dividing into sub-sects, following Paul, Peter, Apollos, etc.
3. According to Acts 2:42 the early believers devoted themselves to the breaking of bread the same as the Apostle’s teaching, so it is right to prioritize the Lord’s Supper over other elements of corporate worship.
4. Pre-Reformation, communion elements weren’t thought of as symbolic; that came during the Reformation.
5. Globally, Christians gather for communion, not for preaching. (Granted, Chan didn’t say this explicitly, but it seems to be implied by his mentioning his Indian pastor friend.)
Before I give responses to each, let me restate what I said earlier: Chan is a true Christian who loves Jesus, and I am very thankful for him. My response is a response over in-house debates. That being said, I do have some strong disagreements with him.
Is the Reformation the first time the church emphasized preaching?
1. It is very clear studying history that pre-Reformation, preaching was critical and essential for church life. I’m reading a book right now on ancient Biblical interpretation, and it is very clear that heavy emphasis was placed for centuries on right Biblical teaching. This is why John Chrysostom’s (c. 347-407) legacy as a great preacher has survived, as has Basil of Caesarea (329-379).* These are just a couple of cheap examples of the importance of preaching during that time, and much (much) more could be said. This doesn’t negate the importance of communion then. But the idea that it is wrong to place an emphasis on preaching is itself wrong, both Biblically and historically.
Regarding preachers using 20 hours of prep, it takes a long time to construct a speech of any kind that is going to be sure to help the hearers. Augustine felt the same way, saying in On Christian Doctrine that it is important for preachers who may not be as naturally gifted in rhetoric to give themselves to study and preparation, so as to be a blessing to their hearers.**
Did the Reformation create church division?
2. Yes, division is one of the most common accusations of the pitfalls of the post-Reformation church. We all should long for a greater ecclesiastical unity. That said, I want to raise two points. First, Paul, by stating that the church by definition submits to Christ (Eph 5:24), implies that the church is unified in its submission to Christ. That may not mean that every believer is of the same mind all the time or that the church has moments of infidelity. But the posture of the true church is a posture of submission and love for Jesus, and it finds its way back to truth. Second, we all know that Jesus calls his sheep to be unified (John 13:34-34, 17:21). But again, Paul’s statement in Ephesians implies that the church is unified. There in John 17, Jesus prays for unity. Is anyone going to suggest that Jesus, who had just said that as we follow him, he answers our prayers (15:7, 16), can’t himself get his own prayers to the Father answered? I’m suggesting that the church, with all of its warts and problems, is substantially unified. Perhaps we have chosen to blind ourselves to this reality for the sake of refusing to rest in Christ.
This is probably why my recent prayer time with a few other pastors, one an Evangelical Free pastor, another nondenominational, another Christian Reformed, and myself a Conservative Baptist, showed us all being in substantial agreement on the highest priorities. It isn’t that we agree on everything, but that we agree on the main things. We would all be in substantial agreement with the statement of faith (link) put forth by the National Association of Evangelicals.
For the claim that the church was unified before the Reformation, I’m not so sure. Consider the doctrinal disagreements that spurred on the councils that spelled out doctrinal fidelity. Let me ask an uncomfortable question: Are we so sure that the heretics were really trying to be heretics? Or is it possible that they, professing Christians, were just wrong, and dug their heels in when no one else would listen? Reading ancient Christian commentary, I’ve found myself (and all of Protestantism, as far as I can tell) in agreement with some things Pelagius and even Arius had to say. Not all things – certainly not the matters about which they believed what has and should still be called heresy – but some things. I’m not saying these men were real Christians. I don’t know, and their beliefs were so spurious that we do well to be skeptical. But I know that reading a lot of their stuff, they seem to have some good to offer, in a similar way that I disagree with NT Wright over some primary things, though I think he has much good to offer.***
My point is that the ancient church’s long lasting and church altering debates and disagreements do far from suggesting that there was absolute unity. John Piper has demonstrated well that when Athanasius stood up for the orthodox position of Jesus’ divinity, Athanasius, for all intents and purposes, stood alone. The church had gone almost entirely wholesale into Arian heresy, and Athanasius was a proponent of a view that was in the minority.^ Hence the ancient phrase that escapes a lot of believers today: Athanasius contra mundum – Athanasius against the world.^^ How could this all be, if there was such unity? In fact Athanasius contra mundum suggests a profound unity in error! Thankfully, his view was eventually accepted.
Finally, I remember reading during seminary of the Medieval disagreement over what exactly is the Lord’s Supper – is it really the body and blood of Christ, or is it symbolic? One church leader, Radbertus, held that it was really Jesus’ body and blood that underwent a real sacrifice during the Eucharist; and on the contrary, another leader (and friend of Radbertus), Ratramnus, held it to be a symbol.^* Eventually, Radbertus’ position won out and eventually became the official Catholic position; but it took disagreement and controversy to get there. A little more on Radbertus/Ratramnus later. Suffice it to say that the notion of absolute unity pre-Reformation is not historically supportable, and I'm a little surprised that so many maintain and argue for it.
Responses to points 3-5 will be posted tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
Best, Scott
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*Gerald Bray. Biblical Interpretation, Past & Present, (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 1996), 88-89.
**Augustine. On Christian Doctrine, trans. D.W. Robertson, (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1958), 121.
***The obvious question in response is this: Scott, are you implying that Wright is a heretic like Arius and Pelagius were? I do believe that his view on justification is disastrously incorrect. Since I consider justification by faith to be an essential teaching of Christianity, I have a hard time calling one a Christian who doesn’t hold to it. That said, I will call them a Christian if it seems, based on their other beliefs, that they love the Lord and are trying to be true to Scripture. Wright fits this definition, and I wonder if any of the ancient heretics did, too. But that doesn’t change the wrongness of wrong belief, and the disastrous effects of said wrong belief.
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