Orthodoxy and Ecumenism

At the risk of being excessively negative, I shall try to show why orthodoxy finds it difficult to cooperate with the National and World Councils of Churches. The ethos of orthodoxy is seldom sympathetically understood. Critics tend to judge it by its worst, rather than by its best, elements.

Were I to name the criterion that inspires the best elements in orthodoxy, it would be the following: The visible unity of Christendom is an ideal which simultaneously inspires and judges the real. Just as we strive for sinless perfection, though we shall never reach it, so we strive for the equally valid, though equally elusive, ideal of visible unity. If a person imagines that the ideal can be realized in history, he betrays his own want of education. Either the terms of the ideal are underestimated or the possibilities of the real are overestimated. Since original sin tinctures the entire human enterprise, man’s quest for unity is never a purely virtuous undertaking. Organizational security is partly a status symbol of pride and an outlet for will to power.

I am not saying that orthodoxy succeeds in applying its own principles. I only say that, in its finest moments, it evaluates the possibilities of Christian unity by what theologians call the “polar method.” The ideal and the real must be kept in delicate balance.

I

While orthodoxy may err in its conviction—and I want to stress this possibility—it nevertheless believes that the ecumenical movement is plying a course which overlooks the effect of original sin or collective human efforts. And this oversight traces back to a rather loose handling of the Word of God. Let me establish this by reviewing the kind of argument that appeals to the orthodox mind.

Christian unity is deceptively simple. Even a junior in seminary can define it. It is a fellowship of those who are spiritually joined with Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:13 RSV). But if the definition of Christian unity is simple, its application is not. We unite when we sing the Te Deum, “We praise thee, O God,” but we divide when we spell out the theology of this hymn. Our theology is never systematic, and unsystematic theology spawns disunity. This can be abundantly illustrated from the pages of church history, but I shall confine myself to two striking examples.

Luther and Zwingli tried to unite the Protestant cause, but “a different spirit” hindered them. Since they could not agree on the theology of the Eucharist, division was unavoidable. And after centuries of theological debate, the Lutheran and Reformed efforts are no nearer union than on the eve of the Marburg Conference.

A similar difficulty frustrated the Reformed cause. Baptists contend that public profession of faith precedes the rite of baptism, while Presbyterians contend that covenant infants form an exception to this rule. Classical Baptist divines (John Gill, Abraham Booth, etc.) and classical Presbyterian divines (William Cunningham, B. B. Warfield, etc.) exhibit equal powers of critical acumen and personal piety. But apparently something more than this is required to exegete the fine points in the Bible. This is why the threat of division, like the poor, is with us always.

There is only one way to defeat this, and that is by making unity a higher virtue than truth. Romanism aptly illustrates the technique. Roman apologists cite our fragmented efforts as palpable proof that the Reformation principle defeats itself. But it should be observed that Roman apologists never tell us how the Vatican eliminates the threat of disunity. And there is good reason for this concealment, for if Roman strategy were really understood, the Catholic cause would fall into considerable disrepute.

The Vatican eliminates the threat of disunity by eliminating religious liberty. Unless a Roman Catholic surrenders his judgment to the Pope, he is excommunicated. But this species of unity holds no attraction to one who believes that man is made in the image of God and that freedom of inquiry is an indefeasible prerogative. Furthermore, Roman security is specious. A man must exercise religious liberty to evaluate a system which nullifies religious liberty. Before one can surrender his judgment to the Pope, and thus be safe, he must use his own fallible judgment to assure himself that the Pope is infallible. The complex criteria of verification must then be faced. Thus, if we trace Catholic confidence back far enough, it rests on the same peril of private judgment that led the Reformers to conclude that the Pope is not infallible. Where, then, is the Roman advantage? Orthodoxy fails to see any.

The Reformers had one goal in view, and that was to coax Roman theology into conformity with biblical truth. But Rome promptly answered by banishing the Reformers. This means that the genesis of our divisions traces back to the medieval Church itself. Instead of meeting the Reformers on exegetical grounds, as Christ and the apostles met the Jews, Rome hurled barbed epithets of heresy and schism. The Reformers were given the curt option of either submitting to the tradition of the Church or of being excommunicated. To men of powerful Christian convictions, of course, this was not a live option at all. And Luther promptly showed his contempt by burning the papal bull.

II

Orthodoxy believes that the National and World Councils of Churches defend a position which is strikingly similar to that of Romanism. This is an audacious assertion, to be sure, but it rests on the solidest kind of evidence.

The Protestant principle received its first clarification in the Leipzig Disputation of 1519. When Luther said that the Council of Constance erred in condemning John Huss, it was plain to Eck, and Luther soon saw it, that two incompatible criteria were vying for primacy. Luther claimed the right of religious liberty, while Eck replied that this was one right Luther did not have. Since God has deposited the whole counsel of his will in the church diffusive, ecclesiastical tradition cannot be challenged by the opinion of an individual.

But Luther stood his ground. He knew that if a man surrenders his right to interpret Scripture according to the dictates of his conscience, whatever else remains is of very small account. No wonder Carlyle called Luther’s stand at Worms the greatest moment in the modern history of man. Luther thundered: “Unless I am persuaded by testimonies from Scripture or clear arguments,—for by themselves, I believe neither pope nor council—I stand convinced by the Holy Scriptures adduced by myself and my conscience is bound up in God’s Word. Retract I do not and will not, for to do anything against conscience is unsafe and dangerous. Here I stand. I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen” (Translation by David S. Schaff).

If the Reformation has done nothing else, it has clarified what is perhaps the most important theological question in this or any other age. Do we find the truth by submitting to the church, or do we find the church by submitting to the truth? Rome defends the first possibility, while the Reformers defend the second. But a choice must be made; the option is forced. Rome contends that the truth is where the church is, while the Reformers contend that the church is where the truth is.

If Rome is right, we have only one course before us, and that is to recant our Reformation heritage and return with haste to the papal fold. We cannot plead indefectible ignorance. Moreover, Romanism boasts a consummate order of visible unity. To create a Protestant counterpart would be a very foolish expedient.

But if Rome is wrong, then it seems to orthodoxy that Protestants ought to have the moral courage and the intellectual honesty to live by their own principles. The moment we defend man’s right to bind his conscience by a free and open study of Scripture, we are on Reformation soil and divisions in the church are both natural and necessary.

To say this, however, does not mean that divisions are either desirable or good. Such an outcome would offend the biblical ideal. To speak of spiritual unity without visible unity, what is this but to utter a contradiction? If a family will not live together, it is not a family at all. I now mean to say, even as I shall continue to mean to say, that divisions in the church are evil. As long as a single believer is outside the fellowship, love is incomplete.

To develop the problem more fully, let us return to Martin Luther and the problem of tragic moral choices. A choice is tragic, and thus invites admiration, when circumstances force one to decide between levels of good. Tragic moral choices are always difficult to make, for they entail a compromise between the ideal and the real. Protestants should remember that the great schism in Western Christianity was the direct fruit of a tragic moral choice. Otherwise they will overestimate the possibilities of human virtue.

Martin Luther did not want to disturb the visible unity of Christendom. But he did not see how such a disturbance could be avoided, for the gospel of Rome and the gospel of Scripture were different gospels. A tragic moral choice had to be made. Luther had to decide between a united church that taught error and a divided church that at least allowed for the possibility of truth. And being bound by the Word of God, he threw himself on the higher alternative. When a decision must be made between unity and truth, unity must yield to truth; for it is better to be divided by truth than to be united by error. We test the church by truth, not truth by the church. The apostles judged the Christian community by the norm of divine revelation.

Each generation must make this same tragic moral choice—and not only once, but again and again. If we want the comfort of the Christian gospel, we must accept the distress of a divided church. When men are free to unite in Christ, they are also free to divide in Christ. Religious liberty brings dissension, and dissension brings disunity. “For there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized” (1 Cor. 11:19, RSV). If we remove the threat of factions, we corrupt the very matrix of evangelical confrontation.

Sincere and unavoidable divisions should excite a sense of honor, not shame, in us. Milton wisely observes, “It is written that the Coat of our Saviour was without seame: whence some would infer that there should be no division in the Church of Christ. It should be so indeed; Yet seams in the same cloath, neither hurt the garment, nor misbecome it; and not only seams, but Schisms will be while men are fallible” (Of True Religion, Heresie, Schism and Toleration, in Works of John Milton, Columbia University Press, Vol. 6, pp. 176–177). An unfettered gospel is the important thing.

Whenever orthodoxy ponders the goals of the ecumenical movement, it feels that the issue of the Reformation must be raised all over again. Rome says that truth is decided by the church. And judging by the rising tide of Protestant ecclesiasticism, the Roman position is attracting a legion of new converts. The ecumenical movement sees the evil in disunity, and for this it must be praised. But it does not see the evil in untruth, and for this it must be criticized. Whether in Rome, Amsterdam, or Moscow, it makes no difference; truth still ranks above unity.

There is only one live heresy in the eyes of the National and World Councils of Churches, and that is the heresy of not cooperating with the National and World Councils of Churches. If a person cooperates, his defection from the Word of God is relegated to a place of tertiary importance. But this is precisely the theological climate which forced the Reformation. Luther was a heretic because he dared to say that the church is where the truth is, and not the other way around. Orthodoxy is proud to take its stand with Luther.

III

To make its position as attractive as possible, the ecumenical movement has reduced Christian commitment to what it believes is a decisive creedal minimum. The 1948 Amsterdam assertion says, “The Ecumenical Council is a union of Churches which accept our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior.” This is a praiseworthy confession, but it is not praiseworthy enough to suit orthodoxy, for the only heresy it catches is unitarianism. The holes in the mesh are so wide that a sea of theological error can swim safely through. This proves that the ecumenical movement is more concerned with unity than it is with truth.

Furthermore, the Amsterdam assertion is in direct conflict with Scripture. “Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21, RSV). This verse asserts that unless a confession of Christ’s lordship is united with an evangelical affection to do the will of God, it profits nothing. And where is the will of God, if not in the system of holy Scripture?

The ecumenical movement ought to come to terms with the disturbing fact that at least one church exists which accepts our Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior, but which promptly anathematizes those who defend religious liberty as part of God’s image in man. This is what makes ecumenical strategy so anomalous. How can the Amsterdam assertion compose the differences in Western Christianity, when it was not a cause of these differences in the first place? What the Reformers knew, but what the ecumenical movement does not seem to know, is that the schism in Western Christianity cannot be mended until Rome acknowledges man’s right to bind his conscience by a free and open study of the Word of God. But this is a concession Rome will never make, for the very genius of her position rests on a negation of religious liberty.

The practices of the ecumenical movement baffle orthodoxy. For example, what can possibly be gained by extending olive branches of reconciliation to the papacy? These overtures are as embarrassing to Protestants as they are offensive to Catholics. Since Rome claims an absolute monopoly on grace and truth, it considers ecumenical overtures, however sincere, as nothing but loathsome evidences that the Protestant mutiny has not yet been crushed. Rome will not rest until it enjoys absolute ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It seems to me that the ecumenical movement ought to have the good sense to see this.

When Protestants want unity so badly that they are embarrassed by the Reformation, they may want it so badly that they will end up surrendering their judgment to the Pope. They will have their coveted unity, to be sure, but at the price of the Word of God.

Orthodoxy would like to entertain a more charitable attitude toward the ecumenical movement—and this irenic note should be taken in the best possible sense—but it is not sure how to go about the matter without violating Scripture. Since the meaning of Christianity was normatively defined by Christ and the apostles, the course before us is clear. We must conform our conscience to truth. If there is an extra-biblical way to know the mind of God, orthodoxy has never heard of it. The Bible, and only the Bible, tells us how an offended God will dispose of a sinful world.

When orthodoxy examines the Bible with an eye to truth, it confronts a series of doctrines which have equal authority to bind the conscience because they are delineated with equal power and lucidity—God as triune, God’s image in man, the federal headship of the first Adam, the fall of man, the federal headship of the last Adam, and Christ’s virgin birth, humanity and deity, sinless life, miraculous works, substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, ascension into heaven, and glorious return. There is nothing esoteric about these doctrines. They are all open and plain. They are all carried by the rights of language.

The Amsterdam assertion is included in the above doctrines. Orthodoxy rejoices over any testimony to the lordship of Christ. But because the ecumenical movement is content to select one doctrine out of a number that are delineated with equal power and lucidity, it betrays its indifference to the exegetical demands of the biblical system. And what is this but a return to the ethos of Romanism?

For example, Christ’s resurrection is of such importance that not only is Christian fellowship inconceivable apart from the empty tomb, but the very coherence of the Christian world view turns on the empirical validity of this one event. “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14, RSV). Deny that Christ defeated death, and where is the good news?

This is very clear. But apparently it is not clear enough, for the ecumenical movement extends a cordial welcome to open antagonists of the resurrection. Whether Christ conquered death is apparently not important. The important thing is that we all get together under one roof. And the ecumenical movement does not take this stand because of any textual difficulties in the Bible, for First Corinthians is universally recognized as Pauline.

IV

If the visible unity of Christendom is ever realized, it will be a sad day for the Gospel. Just as democratic freedom is preserved by a prudential balance of social interests, so the freedom of the gospel is preserved by a prudential balance of ecclesiastical interests. Orthodoxy is afraid that the ecumenical movement will upset the balance by taking too much power to itself.

And there is a good reason for this fear. The National Council of Churches not only pretends to speak for the whole of American Protestantism, but it thinks it is sufficiently virtuous to decide what religious activity is of God and what is not. O. Walter Wagner writes in the August 22, 1956, issue of The Christian Century, “Gone are the days when the airways were a wide-open range for the denominational demagogue who could afford to buy time, or for the fundamentalist fringe group that used them to sell its divisive wares. Today, prevailingly, public service time is granted to the radio and television commission of the local council of churches.” This is most instructive strategy. The ecumenical movement takes away the prejudices of the demagogue and the anarchist, and in their place puts the prejudices of the ecumenical movement. It then caps its arrogance by calling this progress. The truth is that the right of religious liberty is being curtailed. When a single power controls religious broadcasting, what is this but ecclesiastical tyranny? In an effort to restore a reasonable balance of power, orthodoxy has had to create such counteragents as the National Religious Broadcasters and the Radio Commission.

Because sinners use power as an outlet of pride, no part of Christendom can speak for all of Christendom. Whenever bands of union become too tight, religious liberty is threatened. Voltaire may have been wide of the mark at many points, but he knew enough about human depravity to hit the mark when judging the relation between pride, power, and ecclesiastical pretense. “If one religion only were allowed in England, the government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy in peace” (Letters on the English, Letter VI, “On the Presbyterians”).

Orthodoxy believes that every prudent means should be used to heal the divisions in the Christian church. But before one Protestant denomination joins with another, it must examine its own distinctives in the light of the Word of God. If the exegetical ground of these distinctives is no longer conclusive, overtures of union may be undertaken. But if Scripture affords no such release, separation must remain. Under no conditions should truth be subordinated to unity. We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not by works of the law—and especially not by the law that the church should be visibly united. Our divisions will continue to scandalize the natural man, but this should not unhinge us. The message of the cross is also a scandal.

At an earlier point I admitted that orthodoxy does not succeed in applying its own principles. I want to reaffirm this as I close. If the ecumenical movement tends to upset the biblical balance from one side, orthodoxy tends to upset it from the other. The ecumenical movement sees the perils in a divided, but not in a united, church; while orthodoxy sees the perils in a united, but not a divided, church. The one error leads to tyranny, the other to anarchy. And the anarchy is no less reprehensible than the tyranny. Orthodoxy overlooks the work of sin in the separatist himself. Since the separatist does not belong to the National and World Councils of Churches, he thinks he is virtuous. This is a pathetic illusion, however, for status by negation is a far cry from affirmative righteousness. Orthodox doctrine, unsavored by orthodox love, profits nothing. As the apostle Paul stated so succinctly, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2).

I am sorry about one thing. I am sorry that orthodoxy hesitates to take an active part in the modern dialogue about unity. I should think that the possession of truth would issue in a passionate desire to guide, rather than chide, the groping efforts of a tragically divided church. Failing in this nobler role, orthodoxy has merited its disrespect.

What shall we say, then, is the nature of the unity we seek? It is a fellowship in Jesus Christ which is vitally united with the system of biblical truth. Fellowship is the flesh, while truth is the bones. Flesh without bones is flabby, while bones without flesh are dead. Together they make for organic unity.

Preacher In The Red

HEART-WARMING

One of the dear old ladies in the congregation was in the habit of expressing her emotions during a sermon by shouting, “Praise the Lord, Hallelujah.”

The pastor, unaccustomed to such demonstrations, became nervous and during a call at the home of the lady, after telling her that he appreciated her presence at the services, said, “I notice that you frequently become very emotional, and you express this emotion by shouting your praises to the Lord. I know that when you feel happy, you cannot keep from shouting, but for some reason this makes me almost forget what I am about to say. Suppose I make this bargain with you: if you contain yourself, and not shout from now until Christmas, I’ll give you a pair of nice woolen blankets.”

The lady agreed to this proposition, and all went well until just before Christmas, when, during a heart-warming sermon, she just could not contain herself, and suddenly shouted to the top of her voice, “Hallelujah, Praise the Lord, blankets or no blankets.”—E. M. UMBACH, Elizabethton, Tenn.

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Edward John Carnell is President of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Author of numerous books, of which the most recent is Christian Commitment, he is currently at work on another. The essay above was written by invitation of Religion in Life, a Christian quarterly of opinion and discussion, as one of five viewpoints on “The Nature of the Unity We Seek.” It appeared in the Spring issue, 1957 (Copyright 1957 by Abingdon Press, and used by permission.)

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