Losing faith in denominations

Why I can't join a church denomination right now

In my previous post I looked at the problems with seeing church in institutional terms. In this post I’d like to zero in on the question of church denominations. Denominations have been a reality of church life for a long time. Division was known in the church during the first few hundred years, but arguably the biggest split was the East-West schism of 1054. Sadly, division in the church has only increased over time, to the point where there are now hundreds if not thousands of different denominations.

This diagram shows the major branches, but bear in mind that there are many smaller branches which are not shown.

Protestant churches in particular are often accused of division. To take one example, Pentecostalism flowed from the Azusa Street revival in the early 20th century. There are now multiple denominations within pentecostalism, such as Assemblies of God and Elim. Another example - baptist churches: you have Baptist Union churches, grace baptist, strict baptist… to be honest I’ve lost count of the number of different baptist churches you can get. Please don’t misunderstand me - I’m not pointing the finger at baptists or pentecostals! This is simply something which has been repeated many times through the history of the church, especially over the course of the last hundred years.

The reason I’ve been thinking about denominations lately is that several people have asked me about it. Since leaving our Church of England church last year and setting up a house church, the question has come up a few times about whether we should join a denomination such as AMiE or the IPC. I have to admit, I am torn on this issue: I believe that the Bible teaches that unity is fundamental to the church - it is not an ‘optional extra’. I also believe that external oversight is important (i.e. there should be oversight which is beyond that of the local church, such as bishops). At the same time, my experience over the last few years has convinced me that there are serious problems with the church in this country which seems to cut across every denomination. I’m not convinced that I could, in good conscience, join any of them.

What I’d like to do in this post is examine whether denominations are necessary for the two things I mentioned - (1) external oversight; (2) unity with other churches.

Are denominations necessary for oversight?

Every denomination has some kind of oversight, even if it is implemented differently. Oversight is needed so that churches or ministers who go off the rails can be disciplined appropriately. It’s important for the health of the church to root out false teaching and promote sound doctrine, and any church which does not practice discipline will soon find itself in trouble. Just look at what’s happened to the Church of England…!

What does the Bible say about oversight? It seems clear from the New Testament that the apostles exercised oversight over the churches they planted and pastored. The apostle Paul spoke about authority which the Lord had given to him and the apostles (2 Corinthians 10:8; 13:10). He instructed Titus to “appoint elders in all the towns” (Titus 1:5), which suggests that he wielded a kind of ‘regional’ authority beyond that of the pastor of a local congregation.

A large part of the way Paul and some of the other apostles exercised their authority was by writing letters. These letters have been handed down through the church and now form part of the New Testament canon. You could say that the apostles are still exercising their authority today through the Scriptures. Bishops - or their equivalents in other denominations - are not acting on their own authority, they are acting on the basis of this Scriptural apostolic authority. I think it is undeniable that the church today is in a very different situation to the church before the canon of Scripture was closed and the whole New Testament available.

The million dollar question is, can you be under apostolic authority without being under some kind of earthly oversight? It seems to me that the answer is a clear ‘yes’ - one does not need to be under the oversight of any earthly denomination in order to be under the authority of the apostolic gospel message.

I believe this is demonstrable from Scripture. Think of the Old Testament prophets - all of them. Whose authority and oversight were they under? The answer surely must be, God’s. They were not sent by any human being. Look at the call of Jeremiah:

But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord.

Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Jeremiah 1:7-10

Jeremiah was under God’s direct authority. He was commanded to speak God’s words to God’s people, he didn’t need any human oversight to keep him in line. This same dynamic underpins every prophet in the Bible. If you think about it, it was necessary for the prophets to be under direct authority from God: he sent them to speak to a nation who were going astray, who had departed from his covenant. The prophets were sent to bring the people back to obedience to God. At that point, it was impossible for them to be under the authority of the priests or the teachers of the law. How could they be under the authority of those who had gone astray?

Sometimes God needs to send someone directly, outside of the institutional structure, when those structures are corrupted. We’ll come back to that in a moment. Let’s move on to look at relating to other churches.

Are denominations necessary for relating to other churches?

At a church I used to go to years ago, the vicar told a joke which has stuck in my mind. I can’t remember it verbatim, but it went something like this:

A Scottish woman couldn’t find a church which was pure enough for her. She left every church she went to, deciding that they weren’t biblical enough. One day a friend came and asked if she’d been able to find a church which was pure enough.

She said, “Well, it’s just me and my cat, MacTaggart.” She leaned in and whispered to him, “and, to be honest, I’m not sure about MacTaggart.”

It’s possible to be so obsessed with church purity that you end up isolated (even from your cat!). This is obviously unhealthy and something we need to guard against. Going back to my situation, I do appreciate that leaving a denomination and setting up a house church could look like this kind of isolationism. However, I do not believe the answer to the problem of isolationism is joining a denomination.

The reason is, firstly, the early church seemed to enjoy real unity without the need for denominations. This is because, secondly, unity is something which is created by the Spirit (Ephesians 4:3). Unity is not a man-made thing, it is a gift from God. The early church did not need a man-made institution to experience unity - it came from God.

In fact, the experience of many Christians throughout the last hundred years has been that denominations have been a barrier to true gospel unity. Martyn Lloyd-Jones famously argued back in the 1960s that evangelicals were hindering true gospel unity by remaining in mixed denominations and being united to false teachers. One of the things I’ve come to realise belatedly is that he was absolutely right. If churches are forced to have fellowship with other churches just by virtue of being in the same denomination, this undermines true gospel unity.

I re-read Iain Murray’s book “Evangelicalism Divided” recently. It was the first time I’d come back to the book having left the Church of England. One of the things that really hit me as I was reading the book was how prophetic Lloyd-Jones’ insights were. He warned that evangelicals who remained in a mixed denomination would have to make more and more compromises, and I think that is exactly what has happened.

Having said all this, I do believe that church unity is something which is beginning to happen more naturally as orthodox churches in mainline denominations are struggling. It has been heartwarming over the last few years to see lots of gospel partnerships spring up across the country - churches of different denominations working together. When the church is an increasingly beleaguered minority, there’s a much greater incentive to look for unity with other churches! And, personally, I have been touched that many of the people who have got in touch with me about Sacred Musings have been members of different denominations.

The point I am making here is that denominations do not solve the unity problem - in fact, they potentially create more problems. But if our unity is based on our fellowship with the Father and Son (1 John 1:3), then we have true unity - regardless of our denominational affiliation (or lack thereof).

Let me finish by going back to the question of whether there is something wrong in the church at the moment, and what that means for denominations.

Can we trust denominations right now?

I have written about the problems in the church before, for example about paying lip service to biblical authority. These seem to be problems which extend to almost all parts of the Western church.

Can you name me a single denomination which is standing foursquare against the evils going on in the world? Can you name me a single denomination which has spoken out against lockdowns, globalisation, and secular heresies such as safeguarding? Is there one?

And - if there isn’t - why would you want to submit yourself to them? It’s got to the point where to refuse to engage with and discuss these issues is tantamount to wilful blindness. Being ‘orthodox’ on certain issues e.g. the doctrine of the Trinity and marriage is of no use if you are going to ignore other issues.

Martin Luther once said:

“If I profess with loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except that little point which the world and the Devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”

Where is the Devil attacking at the moment? I would argue that the area of sexual morality is small fry compared to what is going on with the globalist agenda. (See the book of Revelation!) It’s good to stand up for biblical sexual morality, and we should be doing so. But I think a lot of evangelicals have been duped into fighting that particular battle when there are far bigger things going on which few in the church are paying attention to.

All this goes back to what I was saying about prophets. When the church as a whole has fallen into error - in this case secularism - God has to send people from outside the institution. That is his prerogative to do. Methodism only started because John and Charles Wesley were locked out of pulpits in the Church of England. So many of the great spiritual revivals of history have come from outside the established denominations and structures.

My hope and prayer is that the Lord will revive his church in this land and across the world, and I trust that he will do this regardless of denominational affiliation.