by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed…
[Unless otherwise noted, all quotes are from Bullinger’s Decades and have been lightly adapted.]
For Cyprian, the bishop and martyr, has said, ‘The church is one, and it’s spread further and further abroad by fertile increase. Even as there are many beams of the son and but one light, and many boughs of a tree yet but one oak grounded upon a steadfast root, and many brooks issuing out of one spring, though the number seems to be increased by the abundance of store, yet it is but one at the head. Pluck a beam of the sun from the globe; that one once separated is void of light. Break a bough from the tree, it can bring forth no fruit. Cut a brook from the spring, and being cut off it dries up. Even so the church, lightened with God’s light, spreads abroad the beams of her light through all the world; yet it is but one light, which is spread everywhere, nor is the unity of the body separated. She extends her branches with plentiful increase throughout the earth, she sends out her plentiful rivers all abroad, yet there is but one head, and one spring, and one mother plentiful with fertile succession.’
I’m currently lobbying my wife for another son, so we can name him Cyprian Alexander. Thus far she’s unwilling, to use the name Cyprian at least; as for another son, well, the jury is still out. But it was Cyprian’s well-known quote about the church which convinced me he might be a worthy source for pastoral study. And Bullinger seems to agree.
Rightly therefore the blessed martyr and bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, has left in writing, ‘Whoever is separated from the church is joined to an adulterous church. The same man is separated from the promises of the church. Neither does he who has left the church of Christ have any relation to the benefits of Christ. He is a stranger, he is unclean, he is an enemy. He cannot have God as his father who does not have the church as his mother. If he might escape outside the ark of Noah, he may also escape outside the church. He must therefore be a most wicked man, whoever he may be, that leaves his own country and the fellowship of very good men, and falls away to their enemies.’
In other words, the church of Christ is critically important for believers today. Just as true sons love their mother, so true believers love the church. ‘I love Jesus I just don’t like the church’ is the rallying cry of the schismatic and the heretic. True Christians love the church.
I cannot marvel enough at the corrupt and schismatic ways of certain men, those who separate themselves over the most trivial causes from the most wholesome and pleasant company or society of the church. For you shall find in these days many petty and unrealistic men, which for many years have had fellowship with no church, nor as yet do they have fellowship with any church, for in every man they come across do they find some kind of fault; in themselves alone do they find nothing deserving condemnation.
Is this true of us? Ourselves? Our circles? Our own thoughts? Not long ago I heard a pastor boasting in a sermon that his church had been protested recently, and that his church was likely the only church in his state to have been protested. He saw this as a sure sign of his faithfulness. Yet the reason his church had been protested was his own asinine and frankly godless pronouncements on political matters shortly before. While the protesters were wicked, this pastor ought to have considered 1 Peter 2; we get no credit for beatings we receive because we were fools. His pride in his church and his own circle stems from his belief that he alone was faithful. Those with him were the ones who were holding the torch of Christianity alone, standing solitary as a single light on a hill. I’ve described the corner of Christianity in which my wife and I grew up in as having Tigger-syndrome, ‘The wonderful thing about Tiggers is, I’m the only one!’, yet this mindset exists far and wide across the Christian world, and in corners that will have nothing to do with each other. How easily we fall into this self-indulgent delusion that wisdom, orthodoxy, faithfulness, and purity die with us. Such ideas are the seeds of schism.
Bullinger gives several reasons that are ungodly and illegitimate excuses for schism.
1. Legitimate diversity of doctrine (including style of preaching and doctrinal emphasis).
2. Sin in the lives of pastors. Not persistent and unrepentant sin, but imperfection. Even the sort that is (gasp!) actually noticeable.
3. Diversity of ceremonies, or the how of church services. Today we might look at mode of baptism, or style of music, or method of taking the Lord’s Supper, or even certain polity differences.
4. Sin in the lives of the congregants. Again, not persistent and unrepentant sin being ignored, but something rather less than a completely pure and perfect church.
5. Unworthy participants at the Lord’s Supper. How easy it is to judge a church, either its leaders or its congregants, by how we think discipline in the church ought to be administered.
Schism and heresy are serious sins, yet how often are churches instructed on these sins? How often are pastors called to repent of these sins in our own hearts? Would it shock us to consider that we are capable of them?
St Augustine thinks that the difference between a heretic and a schismatic is that a heretic corrupts the sincerity of faith and doctrine of the apostles with his wicked doctrine; a schismatic, though he may not sin at all against pure doctrine and sincere faith, yet he rashly separates himself from the church, breaking the bond of unity…. Again, those who follow antagonistic opinions in matters of the doctrine of the gospel, who are mad and infamous and worthy of punishment, they are accounted as heretics. And he is a schismatic, whoever he is, who separates himself from the unity of the true church of God, and either gathers together new assemblies himself or joins himself to congregations gathered by others, even though in doctrine he himself errs in little or nothing.
Heresy is between us and God. Schism is between us and fellow believers. Heresy is a sin against Christ. Schism is a sin against Christ’s bride. Both divide the church. Both harm the body. Both require repentance.
This point is especially important for those of us who feel the pressure of the church’s need for reform. Let’s look – for example – at all the recent discussions on the subject of Christian Nationalism.
On the one hand, there are men, pastors, putting forward an ideology that is more or less just a white version of Black Lives Matter, and, par for the course for Christians who take their cues from society rather than scripture, ten years after it was cool. Oh, it sounds Christiany, and they can quote all manner of church authorities to bolster their views and give a veneer of credibility to their complaints. They may even seem to be bold for the gospel and the purity of the church (as was Arius). But their teaching is straight poison, it feeds on the politics of grievance so popular in our day (this time, capitalising on the grievances of young white men) rather than the priorities of sacred scripture. Granted, many of these grievances stem from genuine problems in our societies (as did the grievances put forward under Black Lives Matter). But a hermeneutic of resentment and anger surely cannot be the way of Christ. When the dividing walls between ethnicities and cultures are being built even higher, and by professed ministers of the gospel, then we must be aware that heresy and schism are close at hand.
But there are others who are fed up with the last generation of the Christian establishment’s lukewarm (at best!) teaching and influence on anything even remotely political. Some time ago I saw historian Tom Holland lamenting that so many Christian responses to political matters seem to be little more than warmed over and lightly baptized versions of the latest Lib-Dem (a posh leftish British political party) talking points. So many Christians are absolutely desperate for teaching on how a Christian is to be a faithful witness in a culture that has, even recently, been rather hostile to any public pronouncement of Christ’s authority. They want to know why it matters that Jesus is Lord and claims all authority under heaven and earth. They want to reclaim the church’s saltiness and boldness of witness, the very characteristics that defined the church in the New Testament. They want doctrine not division. And their complaints, that shepherds have forgotten how to teach the sheep or lead the sheep through troubled times, are just.
How are we to respond? Do we know how to determine which of these a particular individual is part of, which of these voices has influenced those in our congregations, or which of these perspectives is animating a fellow minister? During Black Lives Matter did we know how to discern between legitimate racialized hurt and radical ideology? Could we distinguish between personal anguish and secular talking points? Could we see people rather than just politics? Can we now?
Do we know the difference between ingrained heresy and mere question over doctrine? Do we assume everyone who asks a question is schismatic, or are we patient and willing to instruct slowly and gently? Do we understand that pastoral ministry and the work of the local church is accomplished over decades rather than texts?
Do those of us who are pastors know how to disagree, whether with other pastors or even with our own sheep? Do we find pushback irritating or destabilizing, or are we willing to engage in difficult conversations for the sake of the flock? Do we know how to learn from those with whom we may disagree? Do we surround ourselves with those who think like us or look at the world the way we do, or do we value those with differing gifts, perspectives, and even doctrine? Are we aware, as any good shepherd must be, of threats and dangers on the horizon? Are we discerning, able to deal with threats without spooking the flock? Are we proactively teaching the congregation, building strength in them ahead of the day of trouble, or are we reactive, bouncing from one crisis to the next because of our own laziness and failure to watch, and all while the sheep ache to lie down in green pastures for a while? Do we find all calls to action and reformation just an unnecessary exercise in bravado, or are we willing to consider that perhaps we have been compromised in our belief and practice?
For those of us who want to see the church reformed in our own time, do we know the temptation to schism in our own souls? Are we aware of the long game in our work, carefully choosing which issues to make priorities of, lest we weary the sheep with our constant assaults upon the evils of society? Are we reluctantly willing to fight or intoxicated by the scent of battle? Are we aware of the necessary cost of reformation or recklessly charging forward without a care as to who follows or is lost in the process? Have we learned from those who have gone before us how reformation can be pursued for the good of the sheep rather than for the greatness of our own names? Are we tenderly leading sheep or hastily driving cattle? Are we pursuing doctrinal purity at the expense of the church or patiently leading the flock God has given us through the slow path to conformity to Christ?
Perhaps what Bullinger is really asking us to consider is, do we love the church? Do we love her enough to labor for her purity and reformation, or are we content with our own comfort and advancement? Do we long to see the church look more like her spouse, our Lord Christ, or are we pursuing reformation out of arrogance and impatience? Do we believe
that the Son of God came down from heaven, and washed all mankind in his blood; and having purged her, has joined to himself a glorious church, having neither spot nor wrinkle, nor any such thing?
Does laboring for the reform of the church constantly point us back to the glories of our Savior?
Therefore when Christ took upon him our flesh, both he became ours in all things, and we also are members of the same body, of his flesh, and of his bones. In us there is infirmity, sin, and death. The same things has our husband also taken unto himself, that he might make them harmless for us. In Christ our husband is justification, sanctification, and life. The same things he communicates unto us as his spouse, that in him we might be just and holy, and might live through him.
One day the tumult of our war will cease, and the great church victorious shall be the church at rest. But not today. Today we labor and fight. May God keep us, shepherd and sheep alike, safe from heresy and schism, both in our flocks and in ourselves. And may we love the church, not only as she will one day be, but also as she is today. May we love our mother.
Next, on ministry and ministers of the Word
