Mere Fidelity
Mere Fidelity
A Generous Ecclesiology with Myles Werntz
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Hosts Derek Rishmawy and Brad East are joined by Myles Werntz to discuss his Christianity Today Award of Merit-winning book, Contesting the Body of Christ: Ecclesiology's Revolutionary Century. Rather than systematic argument, Werntz uses narrative case studies examining how diverse Christian communities—from African Pentecostals to Korean Presbyterians—have embodied and contested the classical marks of the church.
His starting premise: assume the Holy Spirit is at work in churches confessing Christ, then investigate what's happening. The conversation tackles tough questions about theological boundaries, ecumenical charity, and faithful disagreement when salvation is at stake.
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Key Topics
- Why the 20th century was revolutionary for the church (Vatican II, Pentecostalism, decolonization, ecumenical movement)
- Contestation as intrinsic to ecclesial life, not a bug but a feature
- Theological guardrails: the Nicene Creed, Scripture, faith-hope-love
- Limit cases: when does disagreement become denial of God's work?
- How to argue faithfully in a non-Roman Catholic ecclesiology
Guest
Myles Werntz, Professor of Theology at Abilene Christian University
A podcast from Mere Orthodoxy
This episode is brought to you by Lexin Press, who publishes books that love the Word, love the faith, and love the church. Our January book of the month is Reading the Psalms as Scripture by James M. Hamilton and Matthew Damico. This little book is a guide to reading the Psalms in biblical and literary context. We're to read the Psalms individually, in light of the Psalter, in light of the New Testament, and in light of Christ. Lexin Press was recently acquired by Baker Publishing Group, and there will be more news on that to follow. But for now, you can receive an exclusive 40% off discount by visiting bakerbookhouse.com and using the coupon code MERFEDELITIER Hello and welcome to another episode of Mere Fidelity, a podcast by Mere Orthodoxy, where we think about the Word of God and the world we live in. My name is Derek Rush Maui, and I'll be your host for today. And I'm joined by regular casting crew member Brad East.
SPEAKER_02Brad, yeah, Abilene, Texas.
SPEAKER_04Abilene. And then uh we are actually joined by another Abilenian uh for our guest today, Miles Werntz, the recent author of uh a Christianity today notable book, I think, uh Merit Notice of Merit.
SPEAKER_01What was it? Merit, uh Award of Merit. Award of Merit. You you merited something. Uh category this year.
SPEAKER_04My my my little grace uh notes are tingling, but but you we'll we'll give you that merit. Uh but contesting the body of Christ, Ecclesiology's revolutionary century. Uh so we wanted to have you on today talk about a little ecclesiology, a little bit of the church, and and um just have the conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_04This is an interesting book in that it wasn't quite, I didn't know what I was getting to when I when I read it. I was like, this is is this a theology book? Is this a history book? Because it's about the it's it's about ecclesiology, but there's just a whole bunch of sections where you're doing a lot of narration. So tell me a little bit of what do you, what do you, what's the move you're making? What are you trying to accomplish in making your case in this book? Because if somebody comes in, like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see a study of the marks of the church, uh, one holy apostolic, etc. And then they're like, I'm expecting a bunch of verses, a bunch of arguments. And verses and arguments make their way in, but there's like weird case studies of, you know, Pentecostalism in Africa and, you know, Korean Presbyterians here, and yeah, all the. So tell us a little bit about how and why you went about what you're doing and how that's essential to what you're trying to argue.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So I'll I'll give you kind of the quick uh the quick origin story for the book. So I was teaching at a university in South Florida. Um, was my first full-time position after leaving Waco and was tasked with teaching a course in uh global Christianity. I knew almost nothing about global Christianity. And so was given uh it was kind of like a moment of crisis for me because there were uh it made me realize the limits of what I actually knew about the purported uh specialty that I had, namely um theology and particularly in ecclesiology. And so it just sent me on a journey, kind of learning about the stuff that I had never studied in doctoral work, hadn't really been exposed to it even at my master's at master's level. Um and it really made me have to learn the stories and the history of how church has been church apart from North America and Europe. And so uh the the that's kind of a long-winded way of saying that the reason why this study of 20th century ecclesiology takes the form of story more than argument is because there is there is an inductive uh logic to the book that I'm trying to begin with, I'm trying to begin from a charitable premise, which is to say that there is something there in these different uh ecclesial forms rather than nothing. And that that something is animated by the Holy Spirit who enables us to make confession of Jesus Christ as Lord. So if there's some if there's something there, then I have to be, I have to like pay attention and begin to try to get inside the the the self-understandings of these different places as best as best I can, just to try to unearth what uh what's there.
SPEAKER_04So you're starting already from a theological premise that uh from that that somebody else might not share. So, like, hey, I'm gonna go and look at all these other this is just really interesting to start out at the beginning of. Uh I'm gonna, I'm gonna make the assumption at the outset that God is at work and these are legitimate churches. And if that is the case, then how are the how are the marks of the church manifest in their life from the get-go, instead of saying, you know what, I'm gonna lay out the marks of the church and then we're gonna go see if we can if we find enough of them there in in all these particular churches. And do they quite which is it's it's a it's a different if it's so this is a different approach of just saying, hey, uh, I'm assuming the Holy Spirit's working there. What's he doing? Um, I guess the question is, um, you know, somebody might push back, like, how how were how were you sure that that was the right way to go about it? You know, like like how you know starting that.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. Uh I don't know that I wasn't absolutely sure that that was the right way to start it. This was uh this was a book that was a long time in the making, and it began as a it began as a as a as a study for myself and eventually evolved into like the the the argument of the form of the argument that made it into the final book. So my uh some of this is just like person is just purely autobiographical. I grew up um I grew up Methodist, but grew up method kind of Methodist by day, Pentecostal by night. My parents were really Yeah. Have I never have we never talked about this, Brad? No, no, I I'm well aware.
SPEAKER_02I just love the I love the the day the day by night dichotomy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. So it's uh it's you know, Apostles' Creed, Vestments, Bishops, the whole bit by morning, and then in the evening time, uh we attended a a very charismatic uh church in town, dancing in the aisles. You're a Pentecostal vampire. Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Um, and that had a lot to do with kind of the influences upon my own parents uh that they had when they were kind of coming into their own uh in college and so forth. And so that that shaped my uh I think my attentiveness and my appreciation for the like the variegations of Christian faith from a very early age. Um so that's kind of always been one of my priors, is that there's I there are many things about that I may it I might have my arguments with, and I'm gonna have uh questions that I wanna firmly, firmly voiced questions that I want to ask things about. But I'm gonna go ahead and presume that this that the spirit is at work in some way that I might not uh that might not be fully recognizable to me. But I just need to get curious about it.
SPEAKER_04Aaron Powell So that brings me to sorry, I'm I'm talking a lot more than I thought it was gonna be Brad. Uh contesting, right? You've you you frame your whole you frame your whole work as uh kind of a bunch of case studies uh of these different churches contesting what it means for the church to be the church and its and its various and its various marks. Now, um explain contesting a little bit, right? Because contesting the body of Christ starts to sound, well, you know, there's a contest here, there's the body of Christ, and then we're gonna argue with it. But you're talking about a process happening within the church and the various churches, uh, and you argue that that's actually a mark of I mean, maybe not that it is a mark of the church, but it's kind of a mark within marks uh that marks out the 20th century church, as it were. So X explain contesting, and then maybe Brad and I will contest that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, good. So I think there's a couple of ways to view um, there's a couple of ways to make to try to make sense of the plurality of ecclesiology in the 20th century. One is to adopt the posture that there is one among among the many possibilities, there is one uh true church. There's there's one claimant that that uh has the legitimate claim, and that all others are illegitimate. So that's I mean, that's certainly one possibility. The other possibility is to s is to do the thing where we just want to have a thousand blooms flowering in every possible direction, right? Where you go your way, I'm gonna do mine. We're just not gonna we're we're not gonna try to make sense of uh the plurality and just uh exist alongside one another. But again, to kind of go back to the premise, if a church is a church because of the work of the spirit mediating the work of Christ to us, then there, as Paul writes, there is only one spirit, there is only one body, there is only one baptism. Um and so the appearance of these various churches already, there's already kind of an interconnection here, which is a theological one. It is one which is which does not originate with the sociological body, but it originates with the work of God. Um, and so what appears in time then is this working out of our salvation in fear and trembling at a at a like a meta-eclesial level. So you can view arguments between churches as a sign of the failure of church or as something which is a mark against Christian unity. But I think it's better for us to just acknowledge, and I kind of do this in the conclusion of the book, to say that contestation is simply part of what it is to be a creature in the world. It is just it we we in conversation with one another, like we're doing now, like we make claims and then we receive pushback to those claims. We make arguments and counter arguments, and hopefully, if we're if we're operating with charity, we're like we're in pursuit of truthfulness, right? We're trying to, we're trying to reach resolution about some things. Um and so contestation, I don't think, is something that we need to be afraid of, but something that I think we can just we can just become more comfortable with. That churches are going to emerge in different times and different spaces and have different priors, um, and that as they bump up against one another, there are going to be some convergences that we notice, and there's going to be some hard arguments that are some hard differences that we begin to identify. And that's that is just part of the deal. Um, so part of including contesting in the title is just to help us maybe uh to to not just appreciate, but to to value the like the notion that we can deliberate, we can argue, and if we're arguing in good faith, that you know, we're that the churches are all gonna be better for that.
SPEAKER_02So Miles, you had Ephraim Radner um write the foreword to this book, and I see I see a real Radnarian spirit here, um, with the kind of um with the kind of um pneumatological contestation over time. I'm gonna give you two options, and you can take either or both. You know, two other figures came to mind reading the book, especially regarding this idea of contesting. One is Catherine Tanner, um, my doctor muter, who uh argues in theories of culture effectively that what it means to be Christian is to be engaged over time in the argument over what it means to be a Christian. And that is an entirely or close to entirely formal claim, right? Like uh that there's no, there's no it's not a substantive claim, nor is it an assertion about what it means to be Christian on the front end, right? It's discovered over time on the back end. But now let me give you a a different contemporary theologian. This is John Webster, and he says the following He says, we need to learn that conflict about the teaching of the prophets and apostles is not abnormal or necessarily destructive in the Christian community, but may prove a way in which God keeps the church and the truth. And I found myself at times in the book drawn to Tanner as uh uh re-interpreting you in a Tanarian light, um and at other times interpreting you through Webster. In other words, uh a more formal versus a more material um understanding of Christian identity, even if, as Webster is is asserting, the substance of Christian faith and identity uh is argued about in a kind of perpetual conflict within God's people as they interpret scripture. So, where would you locate yourself on that map?
SPEAKER_01That's a great question. I think I probably of so not being I'm gonna go ahead and reveal that I know little to nothing about John Webster. I know, I know, I feel like a bad evangelical for just Derek's heart off the podcast. I know, I know. That's it. Go ahead and shut it up straight to jail. Um so one of the things that I appreciate about Tanner's work is her attention to material culture and the way in which material cultures uh help shape the uh shape like how confession, how Christian confession happens, how theology happens. Um so I I don't know that I had her self-consciously in mind as I was writing any of this book, but I think that that that approach resonates with me. There's so the in each of the chapters, what I tried to do is not just talk about the way in which the concept of, say, unity or apostolicity or Catholicity is uh described or argued about at a formal level, but also to talk about the ways in which these concepts are enacted and to talk about the ways in which there are processes or deformations happening inside churches that are affecting how unity or Catholicity or apostolicity, et cetera, play themselves out. So um I I do deeply value the way in which like that theology is both a matter of argument and analysis, but is also a matter of uh that there is a very real like material element that affects the way that we confess, that affects the way that we uh that like churches exist as creatures within time.
SPEAKER_02So uh just just for listeners there, because I can imagine someone being confused, you're using material culture there in as a as a phrase that scholars use, i.e. on the ground, concrete, local, cultural, particular, linguistic, social, et cetera. And what I was saying was formal versus material, i.e. um meaning sort of uh a substantive definition. Then let me say then let me ask the question um following up on that. So all four all four of the main chapters are dealing with um specific, uh, as as Derek was alluding to, specific cultural expressions or denominational expressions, movements, sub-movements, renewal movements, revival movements, breakoffs, even sectarian offshoots, and so on. The subtitle of the book is Ecclesiology's revolutionary century. So so it is it you you you are telling stories primarily from the 20th century. What made the 20th century revolutionary for the church?
SPEAKER_01So there's nothing, I mean, there's nothing magical about beginning the book in 1901 and and ending it in 1999. There are just a number of like catalytic events within the 20th century that began to reshape, that began to redraw the lines, that began to kind of shape the way in which Christians interacted with one another. Um, we could talk about that in uh geopolitical terms with a couple of world wars. We could talk about it, or we could talk in geopolitical terms, we could talk about it with uh the the demise of colonialism, which brings a lot of new players to the table that now have indigenous churches that are that are become partners in their own right rather than subsidiary of existing churches. Um but there's also a lot of just large-scale church events that happened. You have the you have the rise of the modern ecumenical movement, you have uh the International Missionary Conference, which begins in in Scotland in 1905, that begins to draw together uh Protestants and ultimately those outside of outside of the Protestant camp into this common concern for missions. You have uh Vatican II, you have uh Pentecostalism, you just have so many major things all happening at once that just reshape what we had taken, what we could have taken for granted um 150 years prior. It's not that you didn't always have um renewal movements or uh like spiritualist movements or these kinds of things. But I think that in the 20th century you just see it at such a large scale that it just it throws a lot of these things into question as to what when we say church, what am I talking about? There's so many different varieties on the table now that wouldn't have existed 75 years ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, Miles, I would say that I I mean I think you might even be underselling it. I mean, I think the subtitle is accurate. If I if I think about the church's 20 centuries of existence, I would say the fourth and the sixteenth centuries uh were the most transformative or revolutionary, and the 20th was the third most. I mean, I I and you could you could plausibly well, I I I don't I would be interested for someone to try to uh argue that the 20th is more transformative than the fourth or 16th. But and so part of what you're saying is that the the glob the church has always been global in one sense. That's right. Um, it was never ever limited uh to a single people group or or location or language uh from just about day one. It's it's already spreading, but we have this massive both both explosion and an explosion as well as a dispersion, as well as a recent after from a long time uh in which the the center of global Christianity was in the northern hemisphere and somewhere in Western or Eastern Europe, and now it it starts moving south and uh and moving away from what we think of as the industrialized uh world. And that is tracking, as you say, yeah, political developments, but it's also distinct from them. It's not necessarily mapping onto them. And so that that that's why I take it that's why the focus it you see something about the 20th century tell it showing forth something about the nature of the church that's particularly uh clear. Um whereas if you looked at a different century, you might not see all of those contours. Right. No, I think that's right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. The the explosion and growth of the church of the 20th century, um, just sheer numbers of evangelism is huge. I I'm wondering, it's interesting. You this is a this is a church about the body of Christ. This is a book about the body of Christ, but it you it's also simultaneously a book about the work of the spirit. And it makes sense given that the 20th century, you know, people have always said, you know, hey, that the 20 the 20th century was the was the century of a lot of things in theology, whatever. But one of the claims that people make was that the theology of the Holy Spirit came into focus like the third article generally. Right. The third article, it's a it's the third article century. And so you're doing a lot about the work of the church and the work of the spirit. Uh actually, at the time of recording tonight, I'm I'm teaching, I'm preaching on the third article in the Apostles' Creed, and it's just the person of the Spirit and his works, and it's just the church and stuff. And so that there's that through line there.
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SPEAKER_04I I had a I had another through line I wanted to pull on. Uh and just cut off Brad entirely. Um but but uh he was talking about I talked with Brad about this stuff ad nauseum.
SPEAKER_01So I'm I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Debbie. Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_04Um but uh he was thinking about Tanner and and Webster. Um I was thinking about Hart and Newman, um, just because I you know recently worked through Tradition and Apocalypse and that sort of thing. So the question, part of the question of the can contesting the marks and and like renegotiating the marks and seeing what they will be, seeing how they're played out, seeing seeing how these things are negotiated in real time, there's a pneumatological move there where there's a sense of like, what is the spirit doing in the churches? What's he gonna do now in this century, in this place that maybe he wasn't doing before in that place? Part of I'm part of my my Presbyterian question on all this is where's the seatbelt on kind of the the apocalyptic unveiling of what the church will one day be and what its marks will one day be. So in the past, it's been, you know, unity has been interpreted in this way. And in the past, um apostolicity has been interpreted this way. But now it's being renegotiated where everybody's gonna be apostolic. Like who gets to be apostolic? And it's all that sort of thing. So the the the the worry I have is the is the Newman art, I don't know, Hegel trajectory of seeing the unfolding of the spirit's work in the church ending up somewhere who know who knows not where. And I think you try and have a seatbelt in the you know the the justice of apostolicity. You you you at the the last chapter you pair each mark of the church with um one of the one of the uh classical virtues. And so you talk about the justice of apostolicity and doing justice to who we have been and who we are currently and where we're where we're gonna be. I so I just I I've seen that move several times of like, hey, the spirit's moving us on, and and you know, he's he's done this, but now um we have to ordain uh gay folks and that sort of thing. But uh, you know, I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but but that's the kind of eschatological move. I've even seen people, even you know, liberal Roman Catholics appeal towards like, well, you know, the the the consensus of what the people have accepted. I can't, well, what's his name? Who's who's the Yeah, the Census Fidelis, yeah. The census fidelis, right? I've seen the Jesuit guy appeal to that. Um what's his name? Father James Martin? Yes. Yeah. That sort of thing. So all that to say, I'm not you're you're not James Martin, I'm not accusing you of such things, but what I am saying is what where's the seatbelt on on your your kind of your notion of contestation within the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_01That is a great question. So the bit so in the in the conclusion of the book, uh, so the book kind of it tracks through the first four like the four marks of the church. How are these how have these been discussed and lived out? Tells a lot of stories in the backhand and in the conclusion, then try to just put a relative bow on it, not to make judgments about which of these contestants were right and which ones were wrong, but just to but to indicate that I think that this is kind of, as you rightly point out, this is not a condition that I think will be resolvable apart from the eschaton. I think this is part of the condition of being a creature in the world is to be uh wrapped up in the frailties and the ongoing flux of time. Like that's just part of the deal. Yeah. Um so and I didn't I didn't specifically get into a lot of so there's a couple of ways you can think about the marks. You can think about it with like the four marks as I do, or you can think about them with respect to like Luther's uh seven, like seven marks, which primarily have to do with more and I don't say they they have to do with ordin like ordinances within the church, things that you can identify to say this is if it lacks this, then we're talking about something that might be that is deficient or maybe needs some amending. Um I didn't go that road with the book, and it uh it does open me up, I think, to being a little to having less of a seatbelt, as you put it. Um I didn't go the first the road of the seven marks and trying to like identify where these things are and how these things are playing themselves out. Precisely because in ecclesiological discussions, in ecumenical discussions, a that has been the dominant mode for 40 years. And it hasn't really I think everybody's just kind of exhausted by it. It has kind of run its course. Um it's resulted in a series of kind of ecumenical agreements, ecumenical recognition, but it hasn't really done much to um dampen or diminish plurality on the ground. So in writing the book, I wanted to try to take a different approach to say, all right, I'm not that not to say that those things are wrong, not to say that it's not worth talking about, but let's start in a very different kind of way. Let's presume that what is happening here is in fact the work of the spirit. Um it it denies me of a set of seat belts, but it it it does give me a different kind of guardrail. So one of the things that I think you that that I take on board with this project is to say no church emerges out of thin air, but they all have to be responsive to what has come before them. So the very notion of using the four marks, it comes from the Nicene Constantopolitan Creed. Uh these are these are marks which have received ecumenical recognition long before the 20th century, and so any church that comes into view within the 20th century, like it has that as its legacy, like it or not. It has that as kind of part of what it is. Um so if there's a if there's a guardrail here, it's to s or a seatbelt, it's to, it's, it's the one it's it's that to say every church that comes into being uh comes into being with this as part of its inherited legacy that it can't rightly get rid of or disavow. It has to be cognizant yeah, it has to kind of it has to be cognizant that it came from somewhere.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I yeah, I mean, I guess whatever. I've got a little bit of heart in my back in the back of my brain, which is a terrible thing to think. But um but that like the you can always acknowledge where you came from. There's all sorts of stories, there's all sorts of origin stories that you can tell. Like, well, we were here and then we moved here, and now we're here. And that can be like, first we were in this terrible place, and then we moved to a slightly better place, and now we're in the best place. Or like, oh hey, we were in this wonderful golden place, and then we went to the Middle Ages, and then Luther, and now post post-tenabris looks, and and then and then darkness came again because you know, whatever, the 20th century. Uh I I guess I I still I still the the eschat on the eschaton, what kind of eschaton are we looking at? What's framing it? And my part of my thing is it it I needed I need a more of a sense of how the transhistorical, um, non-growing, non-changing uh baseline of scripture informs all of these marks and roots them and is like, okay, you know, the future is the future, but God has told us very clearly here are some things that won't be included in the future, and here are some things that will be. Like these things will not inherit the kingdom of God, and these things will. Uh, this church will um be burned up in hay and stubble. And this church, as you know, the the contestation, uh the church that contested this way, you know, gold, silver, etc., build with these things. That's I guess what I'm what I'm uh wrestling with in how to how to relate scripture to your account of the marks as the scripture, as, as the churches wrestle. If the churches, if the church is a is a creature of the word, um then it's it's always got to be going back to the word with these marks and saying, okay, well, you know, let me renegotiate what the mark has meant because I think the Bible is giving me us a better understanding of it with time. Sure. I'm a I'm a Protestant, I I've got enough space for that kind of thing. But yeah, that's that's what I'm wrestling with. Brad, Miles, push back on me.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, I mean, I I in the book, I I kind of just take it, I don't I don't articulate it, but I take it for granted that the when folks are uh when these changes occur, when you have kind of charismatic emphases, for example, that emerge and they create uh ruptures within existing denominations or they reconfigure the way in which denominational life happens, uh, that they're not doing it that that they're doing it for precisely the reasons that you're articulating. They're doing it because they're trying to be faithful to the scriptures, they're trying to be faithful to the scriptures in their like in their uh in the place that God has put them. Um they're they're not doing it out of a sense of Hegelian world historical developments, that the past was garbage and we're and we're moving toward we're like we're moving toward this perfected moment when we'll have uh when we'll have it all together. I uh you know, that they're doing it in good faith. They're doing it for what they take to be soundly scriptural and uh good theological reasons. Um so I think that's a good question uh with respect to like will some of what we see uh end, will it no longer carry itself forward? Yeah, absolutely. Um but I think it's hard for us to say it's hard for us to say in some ways what that will be. I mean, there's a couple of times in the book that I do put limit cases. I say, okay, so there's there are there are bounds to this discussion. Not everything, not you know, not everyone who claims Lord, Lord, uh will be recognized as as a disciple. Um But the given the way that I structure the book, the one of the things that I point to as being a limit case would be a strong and hard disavowal of a prior uh a prior work of God. So this is the way that I this is the way that I say, okay, the Nazis are the Nazi church is out. Yeah. Let's go ahead and let's just go ahead and say that the Nazis are our uh one of our boundaries. That the Nazis are one of our boundaries. But I say that the Nazis are theologically one of our boundaries precisely because they negate the Jews. Because they uh they call that which was which is the work of God, they call it not the work of God, and attempt to to cut that off. So I don't know that that I don't know that that really gets I don't know that that answers any of your uh I don't know that that helps you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It it doesn't it does and also I think you know you you were engaged in a project that is not quite what the project that I would engage in. I just think about these things and and and the way the marks have marked out and how it's how it's um maybe I'm stuck in the last 40 years of of what ecumenical discussion looks like and maybe Presbyterian ecumenism is an oxymoron. But I I suppose I'm I'm thinking about uh maybe not the seven marks or the four marks, but the seven churches. And you know, when does Jesus remove a lampstand? And what does it look like for, you know, like there's times where churches contest and contest, and it turns out they're contesting with the Spirit of God who says, I am no longer contend with you. And and we're just gonna walk up. Struggling against God. Yep. Yeah. And so that's that's what uh that that's where that metaphor is going with in my brain. And I think about I think about this as somebody who comes from a tradition that like has maybe too many splits, right? There, there are like there are maybe too many Orthodox Presbyterian denominations in the US. I love them all. And I just think probably we we probably could fuse a couple, even though some of the splits that we had, I think were totally valid. And I have questions about whether what's left on one side of it um is getting its lampstand removed.
SPEAKER_02Um, everyone would have imagined Derek saying he wants fewer Presbyterians in the world. They're just too many Americans.
SPEAKER_04No, no, no. I I just want us all clustered.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, of course you are. I attended we attended uh we attended an eco-Presbyan church when when we lived in Florida.
SPEAKER_04I I I used I used to work at one, right? Uh now I'm in the now I'm uh I'm safely in the PCA. No, I think it was lovely.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so Miles, I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of maximum especially for listeners who haven't who haven't read the book, I'm gonna I'm gonna sort of frame the book in maximally charitable terms and then try to do some of the limit cases that Derek was alluding to. So I I take it that what you're doing with you know, you you you early on define your principle as the innocent until proven guilty, uh uh sort of like pneumatological principle. If a church, if a if if a church confesses that that the son of God came in the flesh, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the flesh, as first John says, then um you you assume that this is a church with real Christians confessing the faith, however imperfectly, until they show you otherwise, like until until they give you evidence to suppose otherwise.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02And then your second move is to say, okay, I'm a kind of, I'm not a sociologist, I'm a kind of theological journalist, and I want to I want to visit this church for a time. I'm a kind of ethnographer, and I want to see if you can only make that confession by the power of the Holy Spirit, like God Himself is the necessary condition uh for you to confess, then I want to learn what gifts might be present here given by the Spirit to these people, that um the Church Catholic, that the wider body of Christ around the world might might um acknowledge first, and then second, um benefit from that there might be an exchange of gifts. You think that's a fair, a fair frame? Yeah. I think that's a I think that's a fair frame. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I mean you're I mean, I think you're well gonna tell me if it's I yeah, no, I think that's fair. With one maybe with one like asterisk. Yeah, give us the asterisk. Okay, so the asterisk would be not every uh not every iteration will immediately yield something that is of benefit to other churches. Okay, yeah. So there's a couple I mean, uh so there's a there's several points in the book when, okay, so let's take uh let's let's take an example from like uh the holiness chapter. So one of the things that I get into in the holiness chapter is how do you make sense of a lot of the charismatic and Pentecostal movements in the 20th century, particularly given that it does create uh it does create ruptures within existing denominational frameworks. Like, how do you make sense of that? Um, and the way that I make sense of that is one of two things. Either to say that it's like the this new uh charismatic emphasis, like it infuses the existing structure and existing churches with something that wasn't there before. So that would be kind of your example. Like it's something new has emerged that now becomes a benefit to the existing church. But sometimes it happens in a way that it creates a parallel structure. It do it splits off and divides before coming back together again at some later juncture. So there may be, and so this is again, this is kind of a book written in the middle. We're kind of we're still in, we're we're living out the legacy of the 20th century. Some of the things, some of the dynamics that I get into are still in play and haven't resolved themselves yet. Um, so I think it's hard to say then in that sense, like which of these things will ultimate will one day yet be a gift, and which of these things have just been destructive, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So okay.
SPEAKER_02No, that's helpful. That even that example is helpful. So, you know, uh I I was struck when you were I was struck in chapters when you would allude to traditions that effectively did elect to cut themselves off from not just a denomination, but Christian history and Christian tradition themselves. Um radically sectarian movements that say everyone was wrong before us. We are the only ones who will be saved. And then sometimes, I mean, you know, right, you refer to the Nicene Creed as this common inheritance that you cannot, that you cannot disavow. But of course, there are churches and traditions that do disavow the Nicene Creed from which we get the four marks, but also, right, like uh the Stone Campbell movement in the 19th century not only says no creeds, but even stone Barton Stone himself is a Benitarian, right? So he doesn't just he doesn't just reject the creed uh as as a statutory authority. Um he also rejects what the creed confesses, which you know, Baptists and other non-creedalists generally don't want to do. And I'm not so much asking you, ought to be a good idea.
SPEAKER_01He just goes, he just goes all the way with it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, he goes all the way. So I'm not asking you, I think this would be a this would be uh an inane question. I'm not asking you, ought a Christian to be Trinitarian or should Christians confess the creed. But what I want to ask is, how do we, you know, if your principle of maximal ecumenical sort of pneumatological generosity can extend to Barton Stone, can extend to to sectarian movements that say all of y'all are not just wrong, but you're dead in your works and going to hell. You know, what does it mean? Not just to extend charity, fraternal charity, but how how how to say this is part of God's sort of one, well, this is part of the one body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit is making possible their confession when like the Holy Spirit has been dis the divinity of that spirit has been has been rejected by uh some some groups. I so I'm just wondering how to screen that yet.
SPEAKER_01That's good. Yeah. So I actually I don't know if you caught it, but I have like one I have like half a page about Churches of Christ. Yeah. I feel as a as uh as as kind of the the the guest in a church of Christ house, in the last couple of books, uh I did it in the Bonhoeffer book, and I did it more explicitly in this one to kind of just include something about Churches of Christ in there. I was like, I not not as just a token, but just to say, yeah, there's a lot of you, and uh I'm happy to be.
SPEAKER_02Well, and and you can make it if this is if this is too close to professional home, uh think of oneness Pentecostals, you know, right? Sure. What what what what should what should ecclesiology say about someone who doesn't confess the Trinity differently but denies the Trinity?
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_02Right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Okay. So let's take uh since you brought it up, let's go ahead and take the bar. Straight to I love that episode. That's a great episode. Thank you for bringing that up. There is so let's take the Barton Stone just for our listeners. I think you're making reference to the uh the Parks and Rec episode where uh you're making reference to the Parks and Rec episode, yes, Derek? Yes. Yes, I could love to jail. Um so with all right, so let's take Barton. So the Churches of Christ begin as, and again, confessing the limits of my knowledge of Church Christ Church of Christ historiography here. Churches of Christ began as a unity movement comprised of former Presbyterians, Baptists, etc. And Barton Stone, one of the founders of this unity movement, is explicitly Benitarian. So what does that mean for the whole of the Churches of Christ? Well, two things that I think I would say to that. One, and this as a meta-comment, this is particularly why the book doesn't focus on our the articulations of key theologians within the 20th century. But I try to spend most of the book pretty close to the ground with respect to the denominate, like the the denominational statements, ecclesial movements, these kinds of things. Um, that a progenitor of a movement and the piety of those churches might be related but distinct. And so Barton himself, like Stone himself, might be a Benitarian, but that doesn't necessarily like that doesn't entail that all members of churches of Christ everywhere are Benitarian.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01So that's one possible way to respond to that. Uh the other way that's a bit like theologically stronger would be to say that the Spirit does work on us and in our congregations despite our best efforts to preclude that. Like I I really truly do believe that um if these four marks come to us as it as part of uh what is entailed with this with the spirit incorporating us into the body of Christ, that the spirit will work these things out in and through and among the churches um in ways which might make the church strange to itself over time. So it might very well start in a benitarian, like an explicitly benitarian mode. But if the spirit is in fact present in and among the churches, then you will over time see the churches like bearing out these four marks, even if it tries its darndest to refuse that gift of the spirit. So that's maybe the that's maybe the stronger, uh, the stronger response.
SPEAKER_02Okay, let me say one last thing, and and then Derek, I can hand it off to you, or or I can ask a uh uh take us in a a bit of a different route for our final set of questions. But I want to, my last follow-up along the contestation and division line is the following. Uh, you don't you don't paper over this in in any part of the book and certainly not in the final chapter. But the but the danger at a broad level for us as scholars and theologians, I think, is that when we talk about conflict and contestation, right? It's it's the McIntyre line about continuity and discontinuity, a tradition is an argument with itself. All these things I think are true at the analytical level. But when Christians actually argue, it is always, I would say, without exception, uh vicious. Um, I don't and and by by that I don't mean in the in the ortelian sense. I just mean sure it is vehement. It is it is a fight, it is a battle. And uh whenever people today say we should, we should, you know, be, we, we should be civil with each other, I mean, just read any church father, right? Read any polemic, Catholic Protestant polemic in the 16th and 17th centuries. Um, it's always battling with high stakes over what most what matters most, uh both the salvation of souls and and the will of God. And so I suppose the practical question is like, if we recognize that contestation is a kind of metamark, that it's intrinsic to the life of the church in time. Are there are you know, Derek asked about guardrails or a seat belt? And my question is sort of parameters. Like, what does it mean to do it well? What does it mean to do it faithfully if it's inevitable and necessary? But that does suggest that there's got to be better and worse ways of doing it. Um of my students, I do tell them that they ought to be Trinitarian and they should not worship with people or at a church that does not confess the divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I won't tell them stay there to see what the Spirit is doing. Um, right? I'm I'm suggesting that they're that their lives, their faith, their souls are at stake. So I wonder how we do this recognizing that there are high stakes while also practicing some of the ecumenical charity you're modeling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, that's a great question. Um I mean, I guess I'd want to distinguish between those two things. I mean, because in the book, I just presume that maybe with the exception of well, maybe maybe including the Churches of Christ. I think that every example that I draw from in the book, none of them, to my knowledge, would deny uh would would deny father, would deny like Trinitarian theology. Um I presume that, and maybe that's not maybe that's not a valid presumption, but I do in fact presume that uh and don't try to like argue that premise. Um to the practical question of like how best to argue, I mean my off-the-cuff answer is simply the argument that is shaped by faith, hope, and love, I think is the best is like the best possible version of those arguments. I think you're absolutely correct. Like, Christians have really colorful and a really venerable tradition of uh bloody knuckle arguments within um anyone who thinks that that uh that early Christians argued in a way that was purely charitable or venerable um just hasn't read enough. There's there's plenty of great stuff. So to say that a Christian, that like Christian arguments should consist, like should be characterized by faith hope, I think, is to begin with the spirit of charity, to begin to operate in a spirit of hope for our mutual conversion, and to uh to operate in uh good faith that what has been that what has animated uh what has animated the churches is nothing less than the Spirit of God. And so we're gonna have that doesn't preclude us having arguments and it doesn't preclude us having disagreements, but it does, I think, provide us a better basis to begin those arguments, kind of with those guardrails of um like that we can't break, we can't break outside of charity, insofar as it is God's love that has called the that has called these churches to be in the first place. Um And so how could we operate within our intrafraternal disagreements in any in any other kind of way? It doesn't mean that the it doesn't mean that there aren't serious things at stake, but it means that the way in which we go about the arguments about serious things has to, it cannot disavow the the very kind of people that we're called to be. Um people who operate, who presume good faith, who hope for our mutual, uh our mutual transformation into the image of Christ, and uh in the charity of this, in the charit in the love of God, which unites us to begin with.
SPEAKER_04I think that is a good word to sort of wrap things on. I'll just as a as a meta comment, um, Miles, thank you. Well one thing I I I've been critical, and we've been uh critically engaging you. W one fundamental premise I share that I I appreciate is you know, not being a Roman Catholic, I I don't I don't have a one true churchism kind of ideology of of how these marks work. And so seeing you wrestle and wrestle with and try and work out what uh what an ecclesiology that doesn't have that presumption and yet tries to discern the work of the spirit and all these, it is helpful. It is as a as an exercise, especially with all the case studies. And really it does require faith, hope, and love. I was thinking before you got there, I was thinking maybe I should end with faith, hope, and love. All right. Because you you you worked you worked with the cardinal virtues uh to close out your book. And it's like you you really deeply need the theological virtues as well.
SPEAKER_01Um the theological virtues are there too.
SPEAKER_04They are there. They're there. You just didn't end the chapter with them. Um so but with that said, um, thank you, Miles, for this, for for your time and for the book and for uh this conversation. Um for those of you who have stuck around or are still listening, once again, that book is Contesting the Body of Christ, Ecclesiology's Revolutionary Century, Miles Warnts. It's been great to have you on Mere Fidelity.
SPEAKER_01Hey, thanks for having me on.
SPEAKER_04Uh, and for those of you who are listening, please feel free to rate and review us on iTunes, go to the Patreon, subscribe. Uh, that helps keep the show on the air. Uh, but for now, uh, we're just glad that you listen. So thanks for listening. This has been another episode of Mirror Fidelity.