RSSRE: The Spirituality of the Church and 1 Cor. 6:1-11
I did not want this comment to be lost in the shuffle.
This is interesting. Darryl, what you say makes sense in the context we live. Our churches are like regional centers. People travel from miles around to gather to worship in our conservative Reformed and Presbyterian Churches. But this is a unique, and maybe unfortunante, aspect of our present setting.
What if our congregations served our neighborhoods, villages, ect. What if our neighbors where also members of our congregation. What if we all moved into the same neighborhood or village. How would this change the dynamic.
By your agreement, the Session would be answer many questions that were not “spiritual†in nature. The courts of the church would be a parallel court of originial jurisdiction not under the authority of the magistrate. Such courts would have a significant limiting impact on the civil courts, no? Set in an earlier context this explains the rise of canon law over against the civil law. At the very least this represents a Christian limitation on the soverignty of the state but it also implys that the church will have to deal with many “secular†issues.
I wonder if this change of context has caused the office confusion of the last three decades. What is the role lay elders if the church us purely spiritual and not also an incarnate community?
Interesting, right?
D Hart
May 19th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Bill, I don’t read 1 Cor. 6 as the norm for the church, as if session should act as a court of law for civil disputes between Christians. The point seems to be that Christians should love each other and not even go to court. But if they still can’t disagree, it’s disgraceful to go to civil court. And so in a pinch maybe the elders can resolve the matter.
Your point about Christian neighborhoods and villages is congenial to me at least. It comports with my anti-federalist and localist instincts.
Andrew Matthews
May 26th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
I’d like to suggest, contrary to Darryl, that 1 Cor. 6 is normative for the Church. Of course the ideal is that fellow believers should be able to get along, due to gratitude for what Christ has done for them. But it is not always possible to “live peacably with all men.” The Church is better able than the state to deal with the intricacies of interpersonal conflict because of the priority of grace over law: mercy triumphs over judgment. The state is also supposed to be merciful in its administration of law, but it is restricted in this by law’s very nature as formal procedural principle. The Church is better equipped to handle things in a less formal way, giving priority to the human element.
D Hart
May 27th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I agree mainly with Mr. Matthews, except the point about church dealings being informal. Has he ever read the OPC’s BCO? Has he ever witnessed an appeal to presbytery or GA against a session that didn’t have its procedural house in order?
Even so, the point of 1 Cor. 6 doesn’t seem to give the church jurisdiction over civil affairs. If one Christian objects to another Christian’s decision to put a driveway within twenty feet of the property boundary, session may help the brothers come to a common understanding. But the township still decides if the driveway complies with zoning restrictions. In fact, the township decides zoning, not the church. I don’t see Paul here saying otherwise.
Andrew Matthews
May 29th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Certainly there has to be canon law (formal procedural principle), but there should (in my view) be ways to circumvent red tape in order to speed the process in order to provide relief for whoever might be suffering. The process is not an end-in-itself, but should be in place in case of hierarchical abuse. Also, the absence of civil penalties by itself makes the church a more informal setting for conflict resolution.
Since I agree that ecclesiastical and civil jursdictions should not be collapsed into one another, I agree that zoning laws should be left to city gov’t. However, in cases of personal conflict, the church should ideally be the first court of arbitration after informal negotiations break down.