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| Home > Theology > The Present Controversy: Part 6 - Anecdotal Arguments |
| The Present Controversy: Part 6 - Anecdotal Arguments | | Date Created: Nov 09, 2005, 12:54 PM |
Permit me to summarize one element of the anecdotal buzz that one often hears from the critics of FV. It goes something like this. AAT/FV theology causes division in churches. Dear, simple Christians are forced to leave their churches because pastors are beginning to deviate from classic Reformed theology in their preaching and teaching. This is especially true when a new pastor with FV sympathies begins his service in a traditionally minded congregation. His new-fangled way of explaining the Bible forces otherwise faithful members to look for another church where they might be better served.
Now, the first thing to note is I have no references or links to documented cases of this. In other words, the story keeps getting repeated, but the churches and pastors supposedly in view remain mysterious. Of course, I know that it is difficult to "name names" in such circumstances. Nevertheless, stories like this have a way of being embellished beyond all recognition as they move from person to person. I do know of one specific church and pastor where this kind of thing has allegedly happened. Speaking directly with the pastor of that church, however, yielded a somewhat different story. I have a feeling that it is this one story that gets passed around and repeated over and over again.
Let me say a few words about this particular example and in the process help you think through these kinds of situations in ways that go beyond superficial judgments.
This kind of scenario is played out almost every time one pastor is replaced by another. These things happen all the time and they have little if anything to do with FV. The fact that folks these days may focus on the FV issue is peripheral. Since it is the premier controversy these days, disgruntled members will find a great deal of political leverage playing the FV card against their unwanted pastor.
After all, the PCA has a variety of cultures that are bound together in an uneasy, tenuous union. All one has to do is visit any PCA church other than your own to experience this. Pastors, too, are all different and each has his own personality, experience, interests, doctrinal quirks, and vision. Even if a church thinks they know what kind of a pastor they are calling, they are almost always surprised when he gets there and starts his ministry. And this always leads to disgruntled people. Always. Often these disgruntled people always call the old pastor and complain. But they will always call their friends and anyone else they might think will "help" them and fill their ears with how bad things have become at church. There's nothing new under the sun.
This has happened to me twice, once when I left an associate pastor position and again when I left my senior pastor position to come to St. Louis. In both instances, once the new replacement pastor was called I had people calling me about the new man's problems. He doesn't preach like you do! He's teaching strange things. He contradicts what you taught us! And on and on. And what inevitably happens in these cases is that people trump up their "charges" against the new man in order to justify their leaving the church. If they can find something nasty to charge him with, they will. Ten years ago, the nastiest thing you could say about a pastor was that he was a theonomist. Today, of course, if one can detect signs of FV theology, it will be generously applied to the man.
This happened big time when I left Houston. I left a church that I had nurtured into practicing communion with some frequency (but not weekly yet), moved toward admitting younger children to the Table (but not paedocommunion!), and in which tried to maintain an up-beat, joyous mood during worship. This is just to name a few things. The man who came after me was more of a Banner-of-Truth-type guy. Now, don't hear me wrong. I don't have any problem with these men who have Puritan sympathies. I think the PCA is big enough for all of us. And everything I was doing in that church before he came and everything he led the church to do after I was gone - it was all well within the acceptable bounds of standard PCA practice. But he did change a few things very shortly after he arrived. According to the whiners, he changed the mood of the service to a more penitential, somber one. He got the session to go to more infrequent communion. He wouldn't let younger children be interviewed for the Lord's Table. These are just a few of the changes that were reported to me.
Well, guess what? More than half a dozen people called me and complained about what he was doing. And they were looking for justification from me for their leaving the church. I wouldn't give it to them. I told them to stick with the man. Give him more time. I tried to convince them that he was orthodox and just had different emphases. Did this new pastor cause them a great deal of pain and anxiety? Well, they thought he did. Did they FEEL that their church had been hijacked? Yes. Was it the man's Puritan leanings that caused this? In some sense that answer was probably: yes, but only because of who came before him at that church (me).
I eventually called the new pastor myself and talked to him about the anxious people. Even though we were on different ends of the spectrum in the PCA with regards to some issues, I told him I would help him maintain the unity of the church. I tried my best to talk to the people who were poised to leave about their commitment to the people of the church, not just the pastor. But many of them just wouldn't listen. They convinced themselves that there were deeper theological and practical problems that demanded their separation from the church. Some quietly left and didn't cause a stir. I commend them for that way of leaving. But others exaggerated their "charges" against the man so their consciences would be clear when they left the church. This is what some people do. I've seen it happen over and over again.
You see, the point is that someone might easily uses example like this in order to show how any number of divergent theological positions are causing incredible pain to people in the churches. When a new pastor with "contemporary worship" convictions arrives at a church that has had a very traditional worship service, unless he is Superpastor, he will offend and alienate some members. These members will begin to call all their friends and complain. They may leave the church. And when they leave the church they have to justify their actions to themselves and others. So in order to avoid the possibility that THEY may be guilty, they have to tell everyone how awful the new man is. His faults, however real, are blown all out of proportion. And sure enough, people begin to talk about how this new contemporary worship movement is dividing the church and causing such incredible pain.
Please don't take me the wrong way. People in these situations are in a real pickle. It's an agonizing dilemma for many. But it's part of life in the PCA. As long as we have divergent theological and practical "cultures" in our churches, as long as there are pastors that have visions for these diverse cultures, and as long as pastors move from church to church so frequently, we will continue to have these kinds of problems.
I think the answer is charity and Christian love.
But someone will say, "Why can't we just stick with traditional Presbyterian worship and traditional doctrinal formulations? That would solve the problem!"
Well, there's "traditional" and then there's "traditional". That is a way of closing the debate by definition. If you've visited a good number of PCA churches across the United States, the one thing that becomes clear is that there isn't any plain-Jane, vanilla Presbyterianism. Is every Presbyterian body that wants weekly communion, a service organized around communion with the sermon in a less central place, creeds, kneelers, etc. going to be under suspicion because they are not plain-vanilla? Further, it benefits the PCA to have different styles of churches with different emphases because it allows churches to contextualize their ministries to various people.
In conclusion, I believe it is always important to keep the person in the pew in mind in this debate. I am always saddens me when there's this kind of strife and disunity in our churches. But case studies are very hard to employ in a way that gives representation to all the points of view that may be out there. Usually it is people who are nervous, angry, or disenchanted who speak up, and so we get a unrepresentative, slanted sample. I don't see any real benefit in these kinds of anecdotal arguments. For every disgruntled person, there's another who's quite happy with and helped by the new pastor. |
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