Christianity or Churchianity?

Rev. J.W. Deenick. Trowel & Sword. Jan/Feb 1955

Preamble: This is the last of four articles John Westendorp looked at in his walk back through history. In it Rev J.W. Deenick responds to the suggestion by an unnamed but apparently well-known Christian worker that the world needs Christianity but not the plethora of denominations which existed even then and has literally exploded in number in more recent times.

Christianity or Churchianity?

An Inconsistent Statement

A few months ago an outstanding Christian worker visited New Zealand, and interviewed by the Press he stated that he had come to spread his conviction that what men and women want today is Christianity not churchianity. That might seem to be a real good statement.

In these days of confusion we need Christianity in the original beauty and purity of its faith and life. As for the church, men and women of the twentieth century cannot expect any real answer to their modern-day problems from that quarter. You hardly know where to find the church of Christ in these days. There are plenty of denominations but where is the church? Although thousands and thousands of so-called clergymen and other full-time workers are giving the best of their ability for the glory and welfare of the denominations, although millions and millions of English pounds and American dollars are being spent daily for numberless local churches, nevertheless the influence of the church is hardly perceptible in western life. How many people go to their pastor for help in their family problems? How many adolescents expect support from their ministers in the difficulties and temptations of their young life? Let us be frank. The cinemas are playing a more prominent and a more influential part in present-day life than the churches.

The churches have lost their influence.
We need Christianity, not churchianity!
Do not you think, that is a wise and consistent statement?
It is neither wise nor consistent.

I can quite understand how people came to lose their expectations with respect to the Christian church. You do not need a very deep insight into the present situation to discover how disappointing church life very often is, but even that does not justify the pronouncement, that we need Christianity instead of churchianity. What sort of “Christianity” is meant? In the bible “Christianity,” Christian faith always includes loyalty to the church of Christ. In the bible the Lord Jesus Christ is the Lord and Head of His Body, the Church, who has given us [in the n.t.] very clear and distinct commands concerning the organisation of His Body, His people on earth. When preaching “Christianity” I can easily avoid such particular parts of God’s word, which deal with the life and the organisation of the church of Christ. I can easily invent a self styled gospel including e.g. justification and sanctification and a little bit of the Christian home. But nobody can claim that “Christianity”,  curtailed and mutilated that way, is identical with the Christianity of the bible.

Christianity without “churchianity” is no Christianity at all.

He who loves the Lord Jesus Christ, will also love the Church of our Lord, not only with a platonic sort of love, which dreams of a church in the skies, but with an active and fruitful love, that is serving the church of Jesus in that visible and local church which an uncurtailed gospel is preached and a Christian discipline faithfully maintained.

Where shall I find the Church?

However, where shall I find the church, where I can trust the gospel preaching and where the Body of Christ is kept holy? Imagine that I happened to be born from a Roman Catholic father and a Methodist (or Uniting) mother, and that I am “christened” in the Methodist (Uniting) church. By attending an Anglican Sunday School I became related to the Church of England in which I am confirmed as a communicant member. I married a Presbyterian girl, which made the situation still more complicated. After some deliberation however, I decided to join the Presbyterians also, for the sake of unity in the family. Without any difficulty I was accepted in the Presbyterian communion and we were quite happy in the Presbyterian Church until some very deplorable troubles with the pastor occurred. After these incidents we could not very well stay and we did not know what to do, until some very intimate friends invited us to their Baptist congregation, where we have found a really enjoyable spiritual home so far by means of an open membership.

As for our family, my brothers and sisters are scattered about the various churches in this country. Leaving out of consideration two of them, who are not very church-minded at all, one of my brothers is a missionary for the “open-brethren” in China, one of my sisters regularly attends the meetings of the Salvation Army, the army hall being very near to where she lives. Only one of us, a sister, a very remarkable woman, stayed in the Methodist Church all her life. She is an out and out Methodist. She is even overdoing it a little bit, for in her opinion nothing in the world is as good as the Methodist Church. If that is our situation, where shall we find the one church, that remained true to the gospel and to the commands of the Lord Jesus?

Two present-day remedies

In order to save Christianity (“by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed”) from total destruction, I hear two remedies recommended, one by the evangelical movement, another by the ecumenical movement.

The evangelical movement

I very often hear the advice: Do not worry about the church! Preach the gospel! That is what really counts: gospel-preaching and soul-winning. Christ is the Head of the Church, certainly, but that church is invisible and consists of all God’s born-again children, gathered from all the denominations. The invisible church is the only church we believe in. She is one in Christ. As a rule the visible denominations are more a hindrance than a help to the actual coming of the Kingdom of Christ.The Lord has always achieved His most striking results outside the churches. Spiritual revival only very seldom originated from the denominations.

What we need today is evangelists, men and women zealous for gospel-preaching and soul-winning. The days of the denominations are gone. Interdenominational evangelism is the only answer to the problems of the Christian church. Many of my readers might tend to accept this way of reasoning as very true. Is it not right that the only church we consistently can believe in, is the invisible church of God’s own people and that the present situation requires an extensive evangelisation movement in disregard of the denominations?However, I am afraid, some very serious questions still remain unanswered.

What gospel are we going to preach and what bible are we going to use? I cannot preach the whole of the Word of God when I have to avoid speaking about the church permanently. I have to leave my new testament closed in relation to the epistle of Paul to Titus and to the Book of Revelations, chapters 3 and 4. I cannot preach about Titus I: 5, 3:10, Rev. 2: 15, Cor. 5: 1,2, Cor. 16: I and so many other texts, without expounding what the N.T. church was and still has to be. The church of  the n.t. was a visible church and an organised church, a church with elders and deacons, with discipline and even with excommunication. I cannot be an obedient child of the Lord Jesus, when I disregard His clear and categorical commands for the life of His church. And what about the apostle Paul? You would like to call him the great evangelist of the early Christian church?

You are right. But was not he the great organiser of the early visible church as well?Therefore when someone states that what we need today is: Christianity not churchianity, I open my English bible and look up how many times in my N.T. the word church is used, and how many times it is used to indicate the visible organised church.

The ecumenical movement

Another remedy is recommended however: the panacea of church-union. What we need is an intensive church-union movement, and the reconciliation of the controversies among the denominations. The world wants: One Christian church. We cannot go on quarrelling about minor points. When we all agree in the main articles of the Christian faith, when we all profess the Lord Jesus Christ to be our God and Saviour, why should we not unite as Christians within one national church and ultimately within one ecumenical church?

It is all very well to be a Methodist, or a Presbyterian or a Baptist, but Methodism and Presbyterianism and the Baptist conviction are no more than varieties of the one Christian faith. If we could only achieve combining within one national church the Methodist emphasis on justification and holiness of life, the Presbyterian heritage of free grace and church-discipline, and the Baptist message of personal regeneration and testimony, our united forces would appear to be strengthened unproportionately (sic) in the fight against secularisation and unbelief. They would, indeed. But what if the Presbyterians have lost their heritage, the Methodists forgotten their emphasis and if we still cannot accept the Baptist rejection of the covenant of grace in which the children of God’s people are included?

The problem with every church-union is, that when there is no real spiritual unity the spiritual power of the united church will rather be weakened than strengthened. When there is no unanimity in the conception of the Christian faith, a perfect Babel of theological and religious tongues will enter the church. One part of the church will continue to pull down what the other part has built up. Therefore we are all for church-union when it establishes a real unity of scriptural faith and reformed practice, when the command of Paul is obeyed, that no pastor, who is a “heretic”, will be tolerated within the united churches and that wicked person who puts the church to shame will be rejected from among God’s people.

Christ’s command

The only answer to our problems, I read in the bible, is that we should take up the reformation and sanctification of the church. That is the command of Christ. We should repudiate the shameful destruction of the church of Christ by those who oppose the gospel and reject the authority of the Word of God. This faithful fight for reformation will very often result in being cast out from the “tolerant” church, and other secessions will happen, “making it still harder for modern man amidst splintered church life to recognise the will and purposes of the One True God.” But let us not be afraid of these consequences, if they lead to new strength and a better missionary impact.” (Rev. J. Vander Bom).

What men and women need today is Christianity instead of churchianity, it may be said. I would rather say: what men and women need today is the Church of Christ, as visible as she appears to be in the n.t. and as true to the commands of Jesus. The world needs a church we can trust, that does not contradict itself continually and is not divided against itself internally. A church that preaches the whole of the gospel. To such a church parents will come with their problems and adolescents with their difficulties and doubts.

Rev. J.W. Deenick

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