Episode 243: Church Roundtable — An Outpost of the Kingdom — Jared Michelson, Chris Ganski (Part 2)
“One, [Reformed catholicity is] in contrast to biblicism…an approach to the Bible that’s…just the Bible. [Reformed catholicity is] an understanding of an approach to Scripture that’s set within the tradition broadly…creeds and confessions. Two, it’s an opposition to a sectarian spirit…Third…it’s in contrast to fragmentation…We live in a world that is fragmented and broken and disjointed…[Bavinck’s understanding] is one that seeks for holism and integralism–that the gospel makes whole…Finally…[it’s] in contrast to parochialism and localism.” —Chris Ganski
Summary of This Episode
This week on the Messy Reformation, we’re picking back up the roundtable conversation with Jason, Dan, Rev. Chris Ganski, and Rev. Jared Michelson around the nature of the church. Jared shares a little bit of the Reformed tradition’s distinctions in terms of membership, being a porous community, and missionally being kingdom outposts in our culture.
That leads Jason to ask our guests to try and answer, “What makes a Reformed ecclesiology or the “Reformed church” different. While a definition is admittedly difficult, Jared shares, “The heartbeat of reformational ecclesiology is rightly distinguishing and relating God’s action and our’s.” He describes that we don’t just collapse God’s action into whatever the church is doing, but we also don’t just make ecclesiology all about our actions or participation. We see God’s freedom to act. He also points out the distinction between the visible and invisible church and invites Chris to speak into that.
Chris highlights how, for Calvin, the doctrine of election was important to the doctrine of the church. Often today, election is restricted or only thought of in ordo salutis terms–how a person is saved. When we cannot election to our doctrine of the church, though, we’re freed to trust God’s sovereignty and care–his election and preservation of his church. While contemporary pragmatism wonders how do we keep our churches from dying or closing, Reformed ecclesiology should give comfort that God’s got this.
Jared follows up on that with a quote from John Webster, “Election is the event of sheer creative gratuity, unassimilable and resistance to conversion into a social pattern. Election is the church's permanent condition.” He sees God-centeredness as being a core piece of Reformed ecclesiology–not that we don’t act or participate in any functions, but we are to be “dependent upon and derived from Christ.” There should be a sense for us that at least part of what we do when we gather for worship is we come to receive the gospel and enjoy God.
Jason prompts the conversation forward with one of the distinctions we looked at during our conference this year–the distinction between the Spirit moving through the Word (Lutheran) and the Spirit working with the Word (Reformed). Mechanical versus freedom terminology is used. Jared probes, “What if we thought of preaching as…sacrament-like? It is a sign through which God communicates a reality himself. What if we thought of the role of preaching less as just communicating information and less as doing a public Bible study, and more…as the audible vehicle through which people encounter the grace of Jesus Christ through the medium of biblical teaching?” Chris picks up on that related to the virtual church conversation at Synod. For him, there’s something about embodiment. Church and “a church” is not just a podcast-able or video message. We’re in person, we’re receiving something, and that corporately.
The last big topic is looking for some clarity on the concept of “Reformed catholicity.” Jared speaks briefly, “...All of us, if you are Reformed, you are a small “c” catholic. Otherwise, you're not Reformed…You fundamentally misunderstand the Reformation if you think this wasn't an attempt to renew and restore the one church of God…The reformers were trying to renew the old church by the Bible; the Anabaptists were trying to start a new church with the Bible.”
Chris points to Rev. Eric Dirksen, lead pastor of Christ Church of Davis–a CRC in Davis, CA, who’s been bringing up this topic recently. He helps describe it in terms of what it is in contrast to. “One, [Reformed catholicity is] in contrast to biblicism…an approach to the Bible that’s…just the Bible. [Reformed catholicity is] an understanding of an approach to Scripture that’s set within the tradition broadly…creeds and confessions. Two, it’s an opposition to a sectarian spirit.” Here he reminds us of the moral call to strive towards unity in Christ from Ephesians 4. “Third…it’s in contrast to fragmentation…We live in a world that is fragmented and broken and disjointed…[Bavinck’s understanding] is one that seeks for holism and integralism–that the gospel makes whole.” “Finally…[it’s] in contrast to parochialism and localism.” Our setting in the CRC, in Grand Rapids, in how we do things, is not the center of the Reformed universe. We need to hold onto the diverse breadth and broader historic Christian context.
That brings us to the final words. Jared shares an anecdote from Frances Young experiencing hurt and welcome from different church leaders. He wraps it up, “The church can break your heart. It can hurt. It's not perfect. And yet it is the place in which people are still meeting Jesus in our world today.” Chris speaks to pastors and recognizes the difficulty of pastoral ministry, but he welcomes those of us who are pastors to be assured that God does use us, he works through us, and it’s a great privilege. He invites non-pastors to pray for their pastors.