Wednesday, December 07, 2005

"Why, When, and For What Should We Draw New Boundaries?"

An essay that I believe deserves greater attention these days is Wayne Grudem's "Why, When, and For What Should We Draw New Boundaries?" (published in Beyond the Bounds, ed. Piper, Helseth, and Taylor).

In this essay, Dr. Grudem boundaries four questions with regard to Christian organizations and the construction of new boundaries:

A. Why should Christian organizations draw boundaries at all?
B. Why should Christian organizations draw new boundaries?
C. When should Christian organizations draw new boundaries?
D. For what doctrinal and ethical matters should Christian organizations draw new boundaries?


I've outlined his essay below, and encourage you to check it out if you're interested in seeing the biblical support for each of these points.


A. Why should Christian organizations draw boundaries at all?
  1. False Teaching Harms the Church
  2. If False Teaching Is Not Stopped, It Spreads and Does More and More Damage
  3. If False Teaching Is Not Stopped, We Will Waste Time and Energy in Endless Controversies Rather Than Doing Valuable Kingdom Work
  4. Jesus and the New Testament Authors Hold Church Leaders Responsible for Silencing False Teaching within the Church

B. Why should Christian organizations draw new boundaries?

  1. False Teaching Changes, So Old Boundaries Do Not Protect Against New Problems
  2. Why Does God in His Sovereignty Allow These Various False Teachings to Come into the Church in Different Ages?
a. The Purification of the Church
b. Testing the Faithfulness of God’s People
c. Testing Our Attitude Toward False Teachers


C. When should Christian organizations draw new boundaries?

  1. After a False Teaching Has Become a Significant Problem
  2. Before the False Teaching Does Great Harm, and Before It Has a Large Following Entrenched in the Organization
  3. But Who Has the Authority to Make These Changes?

D. For what doctrinal and ethical matters should Christian organizations draw new boundaries?

  1. Certainty: How Sure Are We That the Teaching Is Wrong?
  2. Effect on Other Doctrines: Will this teaching likely lead to significant erosion in other doctrines?
  3. Effect on Personal and Church Life: Will this false teaching bring significant harm to people’s Christian lives, or to the work of the church?
  4. Historical Precedent: Is this teaching contrary to what the vast majority of the Bible-believing church has held throughout history?
  5. Perception of Importance among God’s People: Is there increasing consensus among the leaders and members that this matter is important enough that the false teaching should be explicitly denied in a doctrinal statement?
  6. Purposes of the Organization: Is the teaching a significant threat to the nature and purposes of the organization?
  7. Motivations of Advocates: Does it seem that the advocates of this teaching hold it because of a fundamental refusal to be subject to the authority of God’s Word, rather than because of sincerely-held differences of interpretation based on accepted hermeneutical standards?
  8. Methods of Advocates: Do the advocates of this teaching frequently manifest arrogance, deception, unrighteous anger, slander, and falsehood rather than humility, openness to correction and reason, kindness, and absolute truthfulness?
  9. Some Wrong Questions to Ask
  • “Are the advocates my friends?”
  • “Are they nice people?”
  • “Will we lose money or members if we exclude them?”
  • “Will the academic community criticize us as being too narrow-minded?”
  • “Will someone take us to court over this?”

E. Conclusion

We look back with admiration and thanksgiving on the heroes of the faith from previous generations. They defended the substitutionary atonement, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the inerrancy of Scripture, justification by faith alone, and other important doctrines. During and after the Reformation, some paid with their lives.

But we look back with disappointment and shame on those who failed to take a clear stand, for example, against racism and slavery in our country.

Now God has entrusted us with a stewardship in this generation. Many of us have positions of leadership and influence in our churches and in the evangelical world. Now the choice of whether to do something or nothing about false doctrine is up to us.

Isaiah 56:10 talks about a tragic situation. Israel is about to be destroyed and her watchdogs cannot bark: "His watchmen are blind; they are all without knowledge; they are all silent dogs; they cannot bark, dreaming, lying down, loving to slumber" (Isa. 56:10).

Will we be like this? We will be blind, silent watchdogs?

Or will we earnestly “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3)? Will we do so with gentleness, with wisdom, and with sorrow if we need to part with friends? Will we also do so with courage to do what is right and what is necessary in order to remain faithful to God and to his Word?
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