Touchy Spot: Evangelicals and the Church

One of the more common observations among the high church sorts (Catholics, Anglicans, Orthodox, Lutherans) is that “evangelicals have no ecclesiology.” True or not, the observation can be heard in many theological conferences.So Mike Bird, in his Evangelical Theology, suggests there are three reasons for this lack of emphasis on ecclesiology among evangelicals:

1. A “radical Platonic dualism” [he overstates his language]: that is, a preference for the invisible over the visible, of the spiritual over the material. [That, my Bird friend, is not “radical” or “Platonic” but a weakened form perhaps of each.]
2. Anti-Catholicism showing up as anti-Tradition, anti-church fathers and anti-liturgy.
3. Hyper-individualism.

Evangelicalism is a theological ethos and hence it transcends ecclesial borders and hence it has not developed an ecclesiology; the denominations have done that. Enter non-denominational evangelicalism and #boom you have a weakened ecclesiology. The same is true at times in “autonomous” churches in a denomination.

So Bird proposes a redemptive physical presence, a return to the church traditions, and forming an ecclesial identity instead of just individualism. He skirts near the deep tradition idea that there is no salvation outside the church (704), found for instance among Reformers and the Reformed (Calvin, Westminster and Warfield), and since Westminster ties kingdom to church I’m surprised he doesn’t see a tighter connection between kingdom and church. A high christology leads to a high ecclesiology, and that means a high “kingdom-ology.” But his view of kingdom is the Laddian redemptive reign view, hence it is not a people (I have written about this in a forthcoming book called Kingdom Conspiracy, so I’ll put it on pause here).

And Bird sees a symbiotic relationship between gospel and church. (Nice.) It is the company of the gospel, the public face of the gospel, and the hermeneutic of the gospel.

In this section Bird sides with Reformed perspectives in each instance and he does cover the typical debates at work in ecclesiology discussions (like baptism and eucharist and church governance).  He thinks the church is the “representative” of Israel; he think the church is an eschatological, Trinitarian, diaconal, fellowshiping and holistic community. The marks are one-holy-catholic-apostolic as well as Word and Sacrament. The church is designed for evangelism, discipleship, sacraments, kingdom work [this means social justice mostly], and worship. (I’d focus more on instruction, something I first heard expounded by Howard Marshall years and years ago.) His views of the sacraments (he calls them emblems) is typical but quite congregational, that is, Christ is present by the work of the Spirit [this takes us back to his opening appeal for evangelicals to be more physical so I thought he’d be a little more physical here] and any informed believer can lead communion. But he believes in an open table, welcoming also children.

In this entire unit I wish Bird had interacted with perhaps the biggest rival to the Reformed ecclesiology at work among evangelicals today, namely, the Anabaptist view of John Howard Yoder.