More than any other criticism of AHA I find this one to be the most serious. Namely, I find AHA's existence and governance outside the authority of the Church to be more than a little disturbing. The attitude in the author’s argument demonstrates a seriously defective ecclesiology. Christ authorizes ministry through His Church and only through His Church. Moreover, godly leaders recognize the significance of formal structure and the importance of humble submission to their spiritual leaders. They do not adopt the typical American cowboy Christian idea that they are just going to go take care of business themselves.
Here I must agree with Ed. If a Christian layman sees a
toddler wander into a busy intersection, that hardly gives him an excuse to
take it upon himself to go rescue the child. That’s cowboy Christianity.
What makes you think you have the right to do the right
thing just because it’s staring you in the face? You need special permission to
do the right thing. We have standards, you know! Before you’re authorized to
rescue the child, you must fill out a 4404-QZ Intervention form, signed by your
pastor, and witnessed by an elder.
After the paperwork is complete, you can go back to the
intersection and peel the flattened toddler off the pavement.
I see that Ed's blog is about defending biblical Christianity. Is that not meant to be a ministry of the Church?
ReplyDeleteI noticed Ed's Blogger profile says his favorite films are: "Luther, Tombstone, Rudy, Rocky."
ReplyDeleteWhile we're on the topic of Luther and cowboy movies, good thing Luther never adopted the typical American cowboy Christian idea that he was just going to take care of business himself.
Luther was a leader, recognized by God and Church rightly appointed and duly recognized. But a tip of the hat for bringing it up. That is the kind of critical thinking I was looking for. It is right to think about the Hebrews mandate in terms of how it related to the reformation as well as to any heretical moves within the Church. Still, this issue is far removed from a massive reformation in the Church over the sin of abortion out there in the culture. The comparison is really quite different. As for my blog, every post is submitted for review by my elders at my insistence and they are in complete agreement. We would be classified as a TMS church. Our pastor graduated from TMS and our views are very closely aligned with MacArthur on many, many issues.
ReplyDeleteMy only response to Steve is that his point is neither intelligible nor charitable. It does not demonstrate a willingness to engage within the framework of Christian charity, it ignores sound reason, is nothing remotely close to exegetical. In other words, it is unintelligible nonsense. What a waste of time!