Reactionary polity

Ed Dingess

I have already pointed out Hays’s unfortunate characterization of why men call upon this text in discussions about biblical submission. The subtle inference is that we must watch out for men who call upon this text in such discussions because their motivation is more than likely to abuse or lord it over the poor layman.

Well, if the shoe fits...

Gossip? One of the reasons discipline becomes public is so that we can know these things. 

As I've pointed out before, this illustrates the hypocrisy of Ed Dingess and Frank Turk on this issue. They say this is about accountability to the elders of a local church, but their real complaint is that AHA members aren't directly answerable to Ed Dingess and Frank Turk. If, however, this is really about church discipline, then church discipline is not a public affair. Only members of the local church would be privy to that information.

Given, moreover, the stress that Frank and Ed lay on elders, the only folks who should be in the loop would be the elders and whatever laymen they discipline.

You seem to have an answer for everything and will stop at nothing to defend Hunter. 

I haven't defended Hunter (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that).

I would presume you would demand to know this since Hunter's behavior would be a reflection on you because he is one of your associates.

Hunter is not one of my associates (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that). 

You claim to know very little about AHA but your defense of it either puts you in the position of being dishonest and knowing more than you are willing to admit or of adamantly defending something from ignorance. From my point of view, neither behavior is recommended.

I haven't defended AHA. Rather, I've criticized the reactionary, opportunistic ecclesiology of Frank Turk and Ed Dingess. I don't need to know anything about AHA to do that. 

Elders derive their authority from Scripture. Abandon basics of the faith, and elders decommission themselves as qualified leaders. See Matthew's gospel 18 on binding and loosing.

A telling example of Ed's spooftexting:

i) To begin with, Mt 18 says nothing about elders or church officers, in distinction to the laity. Ed is importing that into the text out of thin air.

ii) Mt 18 deals with actual sin, not mere accusation. Ed keeps divorcing authority from truth. Where does Mt 18 say the church has the authority to bind and loose even if the accused is actually innocent? Where does Mt 18 suggest that even if a layman is falsely accused, he must submit to church sanctions? 

Steve makes the point that we must make allowance for the implied situation if we are to properly interpret Scripture. The standard way of saying this is that we must take into consideration the historical context within which the text was written. However, an overemphasis on this principle could lead to situational ethics even within the Christian system of ethics and this could have disastrous results.

i) Notice that in the same breath, Ed both classifies me as a situation ethicist, yet also warns about the "disastrous results" of my position. But, of course, judging a course of action by the results is, itself, a criterion of situation ethics. So I guess that makes Ed a situation ethicist.

ii) The word "situation" in "situation ethics" is simply a brand name. When I discuss the relevance of analogous situations, that no more makes me a situation ethicist than belonging to the McDonald clan makes me an employee of a fast-food chain. The fact that Joseph Fletcher co-opted the word "situation" to label his value system hardly makes every reference to the situation equivalent to, or even similar, to his value system. Ed's equation is inept. 

What I said was:  

To be faithful to Biblical commands and prohibitions means we must make allowance for the implied situation, and apply those biblical injunctions to analogous situations. Far from honoring the authority of Scripture, to disregard the implied situation can make a mockery of original intent.

How is that equivalent to Fletcher's system? 

While it is true that there were no denominations at the time of the writing of Hebrews, it is not true that there were no rival theological traditions. The NT is replete with doctrinal and theological threats to the truth claims and values of the Christian group. Perhaps these did not rise to the level that Steve has in mind, but the fact of the matter is that there were heretical competitors lurking everywhere. 

But in that event, were there not heretical elders running amok? So how is Ed's appeal to eldership any safeguard?

I agree with Steve that the number of churches and denominations, especially in American culture can be confusing and challenging for any young Christian. But isn’t this approach to interpreting Hebrews 13:17 anachronistic. 

Ed has it backwards. I didn't cite the modern situation to interpret Heb 13:17. Rather, I contrasted the modern situation with Heb 13:17.

Shouldn’t we first seek to understand exactly what that writer was getting at before attempting to apply it in our context? 

That's exactly what I did.

Does a layman decide for himself, or is there more to it than that? Are we free to pick and choose which church we attend based on our own personal preferences?

i) Notice how often Ed sounds like a sockpuppet for Bryan Cross. The same Catholic-style objections, viz. ecclesial consumerism, ultimate interpretive authority.

ii) As a matter of fact, a layman must decide for himself. Who else will decide for him? Who will decide whether he joins a Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Pentecostal church (to name a few)? Who made that decision for Ed? 

Who determines when the leaders are NOT accountable to God?

Clearly not the leaders. That would be viciously circle. 

By what standard? How can we protect ourselves from both error and insubordination? Where is the balance? Safety is found in the perspicuity of Scripture.

Appeal to the perspicuity of Scripture won't broker disagreements between Lutherans and Baptists (to take one example), for both sides grant the perspicuity of Scripture.

Hays seems to imply that ancient ecclesiology was what it was for merely pragmatic reasons. 

i) Not merely. But where church governance is concerned, there's nothing wrong with taking pragmatic considerations into account. Governance is a process. A means to an end. Not an end in itself. A process is not a point of principle, but, at best, a way of facilitating the principle. 

ii) It's obvious from Acts 6:1-7 that the early church didn't have a blueprint of church polity. They are adapting to the demands of the situation. Improvising the details. 

iii) However, Ed's objection is highly ironic given the pragmatic tactics of Ed Dingess and Frank Turk. They are clearly incensed by AHA's Church Repent project. In reaction, Frank and Ed resort to the same arguments as Bryan Cross. They make up their ecclesiology on the fly, to oppose AHA. 

iv) Keep in mind, too, that Ed judges a position by its allegedly "disastrous results." But judging a position by the anticipated results is nothing if not pragmatic. 

On the one hand, Ed levels this  objection to my position, which he caricatures:

We are, presumably, past that now. We have progressed. We don’t need the structure they needed because we are, after all, more sophisticated. We can read it for ourselves! We can read commentaries! 

On the other hand, Ed elsewhere says:

Of course new Churches with new elders under the new covenant are going to struggle with doctrinal issues. They don't even have a NT document yet to provide the standards and guardrails upon which to operate.

So which is it, Ed? Does the fact that we can read it for ourselves, unlike 1C Christians (who didn't have a copy of the NT), make a difference or not?

Hays seems to say that we don’t need to do it that way any longer because our situation has changed. This raises concerns around Hays’s version of situational ethics based upon his situational hermeneutic. This method introduces a degree of subjectivity that should make any theologian or pastor squirm with discomfort.

Applying Biblical norms to analogous situations is no more "subjective" than any argument from analogy. Is Ed contending that an argument from analogy is inherently subjective? 

I agree with Steve when he says that entire sessions have been given to serious error and even heresy. But this is not easy to pull off. One does not flip a switch and end up with an apostate church. It generally takes several years for this to happen. Believers must be discerning about their Church. Their loyalty must be to God, to His Truth first. True believers have the Holy Spirit and are enabled to recognize, in time, when the deceiver has the floor…A plurality of elders in Spirit-filled Church helps to mitigate such behavior.

So is the difference between Lutheran sacramentology and Baptist or Zwinglian sacramentology owing to the fact that Baptist elders are Spirit-filled whereas Lutheran elders are flat tires? Ed keeps appealing to this folk charismatic criterion. If you disagree with Ed, that just goes to show that you're not one of the Illuminati. 

We think we have rights to pick our own church based on whatever criteria WE decide. 

Once again, notice that Ed is channeling Bryan Cross. Yet Ed himself picks which church to join based on his own theological criteria.  

I see no positive statement about biblical submission in Hays’s ecclesiology. It simply does not exist.

To the contrary, I've said repeatedly that we're obligated to submit to revealed truth.