Not really. I am not sure why those who make Hart’s point are so easily read to have no counting for middle ground. Where exactly that comes from I’ll leave to better minds. But I don’t see anything in so-called high church Calvinism that means a denial of fellowship in the visible church implies denying a safe eternal status; historical understanding of the in/visible church never seems to be much afraid of what Caleb is pointing out.

I think all it means is that the visible/militant church is important as the triumphant/invisible one this side of glory. A high view (set against either a low [evangelical] or infallible [Romanist] one) of the visible church is similar to what it means to belong to a human family: a birth certificate or marriage license are generally recognized and accepted as pretty vital markers to true familial membership. If what Hart is saying is as Caleb implies, we all make too much fuss over these things since to say them could imply my daughter isn’t really mine if it slipped the nurse’s mind to have me sign the certificate, which is silly. A logistical lapse, though, is one thing. It’s another to let it go because either because it really doesn’t mean much or because to do so might imply too much. Who really thinks like that, Caleb? I for one would go racing back to the hospital to make official what I know is already true, as would most guys I know. That only makes common sense.

Methinks you doth protest too much.

Plus, I don’t see why a middle position between Rome and evangelical invisible churchism is denominationalism, where Protestants recognize the pluriformity of the Protestant churches, and see that some are more or less right. But that does in evangelicalism at least conceptually. I actually think that most evangelicals are members of a particular congregation or communion. My gripe is that they take their identity less from being a member at Willow Creek (Yes, I’d even concede that a megachurch is a church), than some guy who belongs to First Baptist but is a fan of Hybels and so thinks he and Bill are one because they are evangelical. Maybe my point has less to do with the reality of church life than with the way most people conceive of Protestantism — a conception that ignores life on the ground in the church.

What do you think professing the true religion means? See, this is the rub. Anyone who professes fidelity to the proper “theology” or “ideas” about the faith (or “confession”) is IN. You can’t not have fellowship with them. This is what I mean by the constitutional church. People are in or out based on their profession. You can’t deny fellowship without denying that they are believers. They are either members of God’s family, or of the synagogue of Satan. This is why I said the only logical option here is to affirm that your communion is the only true church.

I don’t think the WC leaves you any middle ground. The logical outworking of the Reformation (esp. the anti-Catholic reformation) are the various post-church (or supra-congregational) phenomena, one of which we call Evangelicalism.

Evangelicalism doesn’t think of itself as a denomination, true. But in the terms set forth by WC25, it does, and evangelicals do, think of itself/themselves as members of the visible church. I.e., they “profess the true religion.” If you want to now limit the discussion to ecumenical relations between denominational affiliations, fine, but that was not the gist of the original post, was it? Where do you get “fellowship with communions of like faith and practice” from the WC? When evangelicals talk about fellowship, they are talking about fellowship with fellow believers; not with a phone book.

Don’t get me wrong, I share your concerns. However, I think your problem is more directly with WC25 and the whole “visible church” invention of the Reformation than it is with the poor Evangelicals who are merely putting the invention to its intended use.

So what I’m trying to say is that the church matters as in there is no ordinary possibility of salvation apart from it. Evangelicalism has been saying the reverse for a quarter of a millennium.

“So deep is this respect that many Reformed believers will speak of the fellowship they have with evangelicals. Fellowship? How exactly is such fellowship manifest? Is it like being listed in the Yellow Pages? … The way Christians are supposed to consider fellowship is through the prism of the church – not the warm and fuzzy invisible church that incorporates believers the way Verizon sends out direct mail.”

Honesty compells us to admit that this simply does not square with WC25:

“The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. … This catholic church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less visible. And particular churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them. … The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a church on earth, to worship God according to his will.”

This is a very clear statement of what I have been calling the “constitutional church.” So, the structural elements of the reformed faith, created out of a political necessity during a time of vast unrest and ecclesial uncertainty, have really boxed in those of us who are wary of the constitutional church.

Within these confines, to say that you cannot have fellowship with other evangelicals necessitates that you also say that they belong to the “synagogue of Satan.” Otherwise, they really are your “family” and your marriage analogy is ripe for plucking.

The alternative is to explore the deficits in our own tradition and how we may have brought this on ourselves; and to explore more deeply the “sociology of religion” and the underpinnings of human identity, salvation, etc. I prefer the later tack, at least in discussions like this one.

But I recognize how hard this is to do, especially when one has already pledged allegiance to the constitution.

Depending on how you answer this may affect my attempt to address the OPC as the Only Pure Church.

A few other bits as food for thought on this topic:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/JG29Aa02.html

http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=21-07-013-v

Caleb

Frankly, Kirk’s ghosts stories impacted my thinking about union with Christ far more than any tract by Dick Gaffin precisely because Kirk so aptly weaves in just the things you are talking about.