Okay, Cindy brought this topic up so I thought I’d open the door on it so she—or anyone else—could comment. But I’m no expert and am not sure I have a dogmatic opinion on it. The issue is church succession: how should churches be started...and how have they been started throughout history?
Some claim that churches should reproduce new churches. In fact, they say, God’s true type of church has been propagated this way since the days of the apostles. I suppose this is called unbroken succession.
Others say God’s true type of church has always existed at any given point in history, but that the genealogy has not followed an unbroken chain of succession. That is, just before a good church faded from existence in the Alps, another one might have sprung up in Wales to keep the flame alive. I guess this is called church perpetuity.
Still others say that the New Testament church got off track and basically went out of existence for several centuries when the Romans melded it with the pagan state religion; but thankfully the Reformers tinkered with the Catholic model a little bit and--voila!—God’s church was resurrected from the dead. This is the Protestant view.
So does it matter? Does it matter how churches are started or who leads them? Some people start home churches from scratch. This can occur out of pride, or desperation, or even necessity (I’m thinking of underground home churches in China). Others think a church needs to be “planted” by a mother church. And the present reality is most churches are actually started by seminaries or mission boards that may be only nominally affiliated with any church.
As to the historical angle, here is Charles Spurgeon’s opinion:
"We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the Reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel underground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents.”
Some claim that churches should reproduce new churches. In fact, they say, God’s true type of church has been propagated this way since the days of the apostles. I suppose this is called unbroken succession.
Others say God’s true type of church has always existed at any given point in history, but that the genealogy has not followed an unbroken chain of succession. That is, just before a good church faded from existence in the Alps, another one might have sprung up in Wales to keep the flame alive. I guess this is called church perpetuity.
Still others say that the New Testament church got off track and basically went out of existence for several centuries when the Romans melded it with the pagan state religion; but thankfully the Reformers tinkered with the Catholic model a little bit and--voila!—God’s church was resurrected from the dead. This is the Protestant view.
So does it matter? Does it matter how churches are started or who leads them? Some people start home churches from scratch. This can occur out of pride, or desperation, or even necessity (I’m thinking of underground home churches in China). Others think a church needs to be “planted” by a mother church. And the present reality is most churches are actually started by seminaries or mission boards that may be only nominally affiliated with any church.
As to the historical angle, here is Charles Spurgeon’s opinion:
"We believe that the Baptists are the original Christians. We did not commence our existence at the Reformation, we were reformers before Luther or Calvin were born; we never came from the Church of Rome, for we were never in it, but we have an unbroken line up to the apostles themselves. We have always existed from the very days of Christ, and our principles, sometimes veiled and forgotten, like a river which may travel underground for a little season, have always had honest and holy adherents.”
No comments:
Post a Comment