I wanted to respond to a Tweeter named, Nate Pickowicz. He is a Baptist pastor, I think; but he offers an important insight into what clericalism looks like in all its painful self-adulation. Here is the Tweet in question:

First: he has no way of verifying who is or isn’t involved in serving at their local church. Second: he has no way of knowing if a person is or isn’t even attending a local church. When engaged in online interaction, or even beyond, when simply reading theology books or commentaries, unless you have some way of accessing personal and intimate details about someone’s life you cannot verify someone’s activity in the local church or not; not to mention a host of other things. So, right off the bat Nate’s expectation is totally unrealistic. Third: his expectation smacks of absolute arrogance; and more to the point, legalism. There are a variety of reasons why some Christian folks, who love Jesus Christ with all that they are, are unable to attend church regularly; let alone be “serving” in that body. For example, take me: I love Jesus Christ with all that I am, but because of my job (which is on call 24/7 or has schedules that almost always work on Sundays, and other unseemly times) I am unable to regularly attend church. This fact has caused me all sorts of consternation, and I continuously pray that the Lord will make a way for me to, at the very least, be able to attend church regularly once again. But in the mean time I remain in an unwillful exile from regular church attendance. And yet I love the Lord; I read through the whole Bible at least three times a year (not to mention the multiples of that concurrently of the NT); I read theology books and biblical commentaries every second of every waking day; I attempt to evangelize co-workers and anyone else any chance I get; so on and so forth. And I am not alone. There are so many Christians out there just like me; nurses, police officers, military, doctors, retail workers, traveling business people etc. etc. So, just because their lives aren’t in the idyllic scenario that Nate’s apparently is as a pastor, means that their voices are invaluable for the broader body of Christ to hear? Just because they are unable to attend church, their witness is less than those who do get to attend church regularly?

Seems to me that people who are fervently seeking Christ, no matter their attendance record at church, remain gifts to the broader body of Christ. Praise the Lord for blogging (in my case), it allows folks like me to still have some sort of outlet and fellowship among the church catholic. Is attendance at the local church important for health and growth as a believer? Absolutely! Is it mandatory for being able to have a witness bearing capacity within the body of Christ; at the level that outwith regular attendance at the local church the person has now become disqualified to speak anything meaningful for Christ?  Nein. I do agree that the best situation for the Christian is to be able to attend church regularly, but that is not always a possibility.

Further, even if someone does attend church regularly on Sundays and other days of the week, this does not guarantee that this person is qualified to speak to and for the church. They could simply be going through the formal motions, giving an appearance of godliness but denying the power thereof. Indeed, aren’t these the sorts of people Jesus chided most? Didn’t he go after the outwardly religious (the Pharisees) for being whitewashed tombs, but full of dead man’s bones? By the “power” of the church in North America, I think it is more than likely that we have this sort of formal Christianity at play more than we do a lively evangelical one. And Nate’s expectation, in my view, actually fits better with the attitude Jesus chided rather than cohering with it. Doesn’t God look at the heart rather than at appearances?

Personally, I have grown up in the church. I am the son of a Baptist pastor; I have had bible college and seminary training; have been involved in all sorts of formal church ministry over the years; have taught at the bible college and seminary levels; and been engaged in formal and informal evangelistic and discipleship ministry for as long as I can remember. But my current season does not allow for much of this; although thankfully I am able to do some of this, which I consider my ministry to and for the church catholic. Indeed, that’s my church relationship mostly at this point. I am related to the church catholic more than the local church in a de facto sort of way, at the moment. But this does not mean I see the local church as unimportant, as already noted.

Beyond this, Nate emphasizes “membership” in a local body as a sine qua non for giving someone a voice to speak Christianly. But where in the NT is it mandated that Christians be ‘members’ other than in the church catholic through their confession of faith in Christ (by the faith of Christ)? You can seek the NT high and low and you will not find this mandate for church membership; in fact you won’t even find any explicit teaching on the significance of the local church. You might find that teaching in Watchman Nee or a hierarchical ecclesiology like we find in Roman Catholicism; but in NT teaching itself, you will not find explicit teaching in regard to the local church, or being a member in it. Does this mean that fellowshipping with other Christians in a local body, and being a member of that body is anathema? Nein. But it does mean that elevating this sort of secondary expression to a preamble of the faith, as Pickowicz does, reeks of legalism. It is ironic too, because I am pretty sure that Nate would rail against Roman Catholicism; yet his ecclesiology of ‘local church’ operates from a residual presented to the Western church from the roots of its Catholic heritage. Baptists are ‘Free church,’ we are not high church ecclesiasts; yet Nate’s emphasis on membership and servitude in the local church sounds less ‘free’ and more structured than his own Baptist tradition even prescribes; one noted by its emphasis on the autonomy of the local church. Maybe it’s that emphasis itself that is informing Picowicz though. Maybe he has taken that autonomy as a sort of Vatican City unto itself; with its own self-sufficiency and self-importance, to the point that his bishopric motivates him to Tweet things as he has.