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Renewing the Church
By Diane Knippers

Renewal in the historic Protestant churches in North America is at an important juncture. The current generation of renewal organizations largely began in the late sixties and subsequent decades. We were born out of conditions in our churches and in society of the late twentieth century, although the theological problems in our churches date from modernist trends that are much older. Many in the founding generation of our renewal movements are retiring.

Some of those founders may have thought that a strong dose of publicity and perhaps a bit of organizing would solve the problems of our churches. Those hopes have surely been disappointed.

Our churches are declining and increasingly irrelevant, even on issues that are their top priority. So, if vibrant, healthy, growing denominations are the goal of our reform movement, we have not achieved success. How’s that for the understatement of the day? We have not yet accomplished our purpose, not achieved our aim. So, do we press on?

The Confessing Theologians Commission has offered us a powerful statement of encouragement; admonishing us to “be steadfast” and to move forward. I am convinced that this challenge is exactly right.

One major reason comes from history. When has the Church not needed renewal and reform? Let me quickly acknowledge that there are certainly times of relative health and revival and times of apostasy and dissolution in Church history. In our denominations, these are not good days. But they aren’t the worst in church history either.

Just read about the struggles of the early church or the time of the ecumenical councils. Read the appalling stories of the papacy and church hierarchy during the Medici period, with its shocking materialistic and sexual excesses. I don’t think any of our denominations matches that era of church history in its breathtaking debauchery. But next, in contrast, study the life and ministry of the current Pope, John Paul II. We must quickly conclude that, yes, reformations are possible, even within a Church.

Too many contemporary Christians make the wrong assumptions about Church renewal and reform. They confuse the goal or the ideal with the normal. They think that the normal or typical state of Christ’s Church is what it ought to be—unified, holy, courageous, peaceful, charitable, teaching truth at all levels. In case you haven’t noticed, the Church isn’t typically like that.

In fact, the biblical and historical evidence is that it never has been that way. Church reform is the normal responsibility of those who love God. It is integral to God’s redemptive project. We don’t reform the church so that we can get on with the other tasks—mission, evangelism, discipleship, seeking justice and righteousness. No, Church reform is part of the task of the church.

Let me identify six emerging characteristics of contemporary reformation:

1. It is mature and diverse
First, our renewing and confessing movement is mature and multifaceted. To be sure, some of our organizations are young. But they are joining a movement that has decades of experience.

Just look at the listing of break-out sessions of this conference and review the organizations with which we affiliate. We are engaged in missions and in publishing. We are strengthening theological education. We have evangelists and are leading in new evangelism strategies from church planting to Alpha. We are engaged in micro-enterprise development and human rights advocacy. We are building marriages, defending the unborn, and healing the sexually broken. We are changing the tenor and results at the assemblies, conventions, and conferences of our denominations.

Occasionally, someone will say, “Why can’t you all get together? Why are there so many different groups?” Now, I’ll quickly concede that we must cooperate, within and between denominations. The task is too urgent to allow us to tolerate petty bickering and competition. But, having said that, our many and diverse organizations are our strength. They appeal to different gifts and callings. More groups can accommodate more people and more strategies and more outreach.

Suppose you had three groups doing evangelism in your congregation—using different strategies and effectively reaching different audiences. Suppose one was bringing high school students to Christ and another was working with immigrants and a third was a successful Alpha program. Would you demand that they merge? Or would you eagerly support and encourage all three?

We don’t need fewer reform groups, fewer renewal strategies, fewer committed leaders, or fewer confessing movements. We need more.

2. It is ecumenical
We embrace ecumenism. We know that Christian unity can only be found in truth—the truth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We watch with anticipation to see God’s work in unifying his church—recognizing that unity is God’s gift, not a construct of committees and commissions. The third Christian millennium is bringing the promise of a New Ecumenism. We are experiencing it and practicing it here.

The reformation we seek won’t come to just one denomination. When I prayerfully consider the renewal we seek, I can’t even imagine that the Presbyterians would experience some kind of dramatic change that would pass the Methodists by. How could there be a reformation that would touch the Lutherans and bypass the Episcopalians?

Let’s be very clear about what we really desire, hope, contend, and pray for. Let’s be really clear about what we need. Reformation is more than minor changes in church canons or passing biblically-based resolutions or even electing orthodox leaders. Our plight is too serious for that. We need revival. We yearn for another Great Awakening. The Holy Spirit doesn’t bring Great Awakenings to denominations. He brings them to cities, to regions, and, please God, to our nations.

Our renewing and confessing movement is becoming and must be as ecumenical as the revival we so desperately need.

3. It is profoundly theological
The renewing and confessing movement is theologically serious. One of our groups publishes a journal entitled simply, Theology Matters. It’s perhaps no coincidence that this orthodox Presbyterian publication was launched by a woman after the first Re-Imagining Conference.

Let me tell you one blessing of our battles with revisionist theologies. We are rediscovering and re-embracing our heritage. We are studying and reasserting the atonement, the incarnation, and the bodily resurrection. We don’t take these for granted. We study patristics. We no longer mumble our way through the creeds, we proclaim them. We savor their truth and beauty. And our movement is fully Trinitarian. We worship God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, knowing that to neglect any person of the Trinity is to distort the gospel and leave ourselves bereft of God’s full power and blessing.

Theologically, we are at an interesting historical moment as we move from modernity to post-modernity. For years, we have struggled with the modernists—those sons and daughters of the Enlightenment, marked by rationalism and materialism, dismissive of miracles and alienated from the Transcendent. Admittedly, these often aging voices still get a lot of media attention and adulation in some circles. We Episcopalians are rightly embarrassed that the most well-known Episcopal bishop in the country is one named John Shelby Spong.

But let’s not waste too much time and energy combating worn-out and unappealing modernist heresies. We face new, insidious challenges. In a post-modern era, the problem may not be unbelief, but too much belief—belief in anything and everything. Donna Hailson, one of our confessing theologians, calls it cafeteria religion—in which people create their own religion piecemeal out of the beliefs and practices of a global cornucopia of options. Here the radical feminist theologians lead the way—mixing wiccan croning ceremonies, Eastern healing rituals, erotic litanies, drums and chants invoking ancestors, and even some old camp-meeting hymns—all in an intoxicating, poisonous brew. Theology matters, indeed, now more than ever.

4. It addresses moral issues
Our renewing and confessing movement confronts a deepening apologetic task—not just about theology, but also about ethics. We must address contemporary moral and social issues. This is a direct product of the dramatic changes in our society. When I first went to work at Good News magazine, nearly 30 years ago, it was usually enough to report that some church leader was endorsing homosexual practice. Readers would immediately grasp the problem. In just a few decades, the moral climate of the West has dramatically shifted. The simple proposition that sexual intercourse ought to be reserved for life-long marriage between one man and one woman is contested, in word and deed, on every side. The new ethic is individualistic and utilitarian. It’s not enough to report what is wrong in our churches, we have to teach why it is wrong.

As I said earlier, in every age there is a need for Church reform. Reform movements rise up in reaction to wrong, to false teaching and evil practice. But the end result can be a great blessing to the Church universal. The reform battles of the early Church gave us the blessing of creedal affirmations of Christ’s humanity and divinity. The monastic reforms have left a legacy of spiritual disciplines that grace our lives. Men of courage and conviction were martyred so that we might read the Holy Scripture in our own language. The great proclamation of justification by faith—which we now hear echoing throughout the whole Church—sprang from the lips of reformers challenging a Church in which it seemed that everything could be bought.

Let’s face it, some of the deepest wrongs we face today have to do with human sexuality—the abuse and misuse of one of God’s greatest gifts. In the midst of our current struggles, we may miss a larger redemptive possibility. I am convinced that God will use this struggle to rejuvenate and redeem marriage. My own marriage has been immeasurably strengthened as I’ve struggled with the issues we face and studied to find answers in natural law, in tradition, and in Scripture.

Marriage and sexuality aren’t the only issues demanding a new apologetic today. Another great moral struggle today is over life itself. When does life begin? When does it end? Who decides? The renewing and confessing movements have strong organizations fighting the scourge of abortion and seeking to protect both children and women from this great social evil. We are not equipped and ready to face the end of life questions. Partly this is because our churches are not taking uniform and predictable positions on euthanasia, assisted suicide, stem cell research, cloning, etc. There’s not a lot of truly bad teaching coming from our churches on these issues, demanding our reaction. But there’s not a lot of teaching on these issues from the churches, period. At the same time our society desperately needs thoughtful, courageous Christian voices. This is an area in which the renewing and confessing movement can and should lead. We need researchers and writers, we need task forces and models of ministry. We need to do this now.

This is more than a theoretical issue—more than an ethical or political debate. As we baby boomers age and as life expectancies increase, care of the elderly will become a critical national issue. There will be increased pressure on the aged and infirm to end their own lives, pressure often consistent with their own desire to die rather than lose independence. The question over the worth of the human person will be asked, not just at the beginning of life, but increasingly to the end. And the struggle will play out in our homes and communities. We need families and congregations willing to testify to the infinite worth of each person created in God’s image by their sacrificial service to those nearing the end of life.

And then there are the character issues in our corporate and economic life. Greed, deception, and corruption—all personal moral failings whatever else they are—have severely damaged our economic institutions. Even worse, they have betrayed the promise of free economies to those escaping communism and to the poorest of the poor around the globe.

Another moral issue has to do with our popular culture and media saturated with debased sexual images. So much of our entertainment is squalid and de-humanizing. Yes, its victims are certainly women and children, but men as well. The internet makes all of this even more insidious.

Imagine if our church leaders spent as much time clamoring for change in Hollywood as they do in Washington. It wouldn’t even require a huge ideological or theological shift for our churches to lead this kind of effort. It really only requires the will and the effort. This is something our renewal groups could lead.

Again, we see the connection between a moral failure in the West and its negative impact throughout the world. The popular culture that we export gives a bad name to democracy and human freedom—and to the degree that our nations are identified as Christian—to our faith. So, both the blessing of liberty and the glorious hope of the Christian gospel are tarnished by the media images we broadcast around the world. The most serious price is often paid by the weakest and most vulnerable, for example, Christian minorities in Islamic-dominated lands.

We have a huge apologetic task in the face of the rise of Islam—including challenging the shocking myopia and naivete of many of our church leaders before this threat.

We see on the part of many of our church leaders a reprise of the kind of response they made to totalitarian Communism two decades ago. The Soviets, like many Muslim nations today, were abusive of basic human rights, including religious freedom. There was the constant threat of armed conflict—including terrifying unconventional weapons. Too often church leaders felt that their peace advocacy required denying the human rights abuses. Today, Islam is portrayed as an innocuous, peaceful religion. The existence of a radical Islam is minimized or denied. We are well on our way to betraying Christians, Jews, and even moderate Muslims who are minorities in Islamic regimes—just as we so scandalously betrayed fellow Christians in the Soviet empire.

5. It is global
This connection is for all of us. The center of Christendom has moved south. Most of our churches are connected to world movements, such as the World Methodist Council, the Baptist World Alliance, etc. Our reform movements must build relationships of mutual service and support with like-minded believers through such global movements.

There is an irony of our time. We are more aware than ever of the fact that around the globe our brothers and sisters in Christ are suffering and dying for the faith. They suffer for the same faith that many of our church leaders are undermining and too many of us are too timid to defend.

I believe God revealed something to me that has filled me with pain and awe. There is unity in suffering. What if he is using the suffering of the persecuted church to embolden us? Would he allow their suffering to teach me something about him and defending his truth? Nothing has humbled me more than to make that connection.

Some American church leaders are re-imagining, distorting, demeaning and denying the very faith for which some Christians in our world are dying. Our brothers and sisters are suffering slavery, hunger, oppression and imprisonment—and some are shoveling excrement—to defend the gospel. My dear friends, we may feel the sting of prejudice and marginalization in our churches, but we have not yet begun to suffer for the faith.

6. It is generational
God is raising up a new generation of reformers. God is renewing his Church, but it is a multi-generational project. Let me tell you what I am convinced God is doing. Let me tell you about the characteristics of these young reformers and why I think of Athanasius.

• They are respectful, but they are not willing to leave the important task of reform to their elders or to those who outrank them in the church. If the bishops can’t or won’t be apologists for the gospel, they will.

• They are articulate and eloquent defenders of the faith. They are thoughtful and they do their homework. They are not silent.

• They know that they may well spend their lives in ecclesiastical exile. Their goal isn’t a comfortable career. Their evangelical elders were often shocked to discover the heresies and injustices of our denominations. But this generation knows what it is getting into. They are not looking for material success, nor for ecclesiastical security and comfort. If they wanted the latter, they could find more amenable denominations or start an independent congregation. But, they are accepting God’s call to join the movement for reformation. And they are prepared for exile.

The future
What is the future of the Church? What is the future of our movement? I don’t have the gift of prophecy. All I can do is study our history, observe the work of the Holy Spirit in our midst, and claim the promises of God for our future.

I don’t think the shape of the future Church will be the isolated, bureaucratic, politicized, modernist denominations of the twentieth century. In fact, I believe it will be mature and diverse, ecumenical, theologically grounded, addressing major ethical issues, and global. And it will be shaped and lived by the next generation. The Church will change. God does not. So, I do know one thing about the future—it will be a future in which God keeps his promises.

Diane Knippers is president of the Institute for Religion and Democracy in Washington, DC. This address was given at the October 2002 Confessing the Faith Conference in Indianapolis and is included in the book Confessing the Faith: Reclaiming the historic faith and teaching for the 21st Century published by Reformation Press.



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