Members who disagree with doctrinal statement

Link,

So you would be opposed to any kind of Church Discipline?

 

I've heard Mark Dever talk recently. He mentioned that the 1689 confession is probably not a good one for a church to require people to hold to. Simply because new believers wouldn't be able to. I think he said his church uses the New Hampshire.

Additionally, our church doesn't say you have to agree with everything on the doctrinal statement, but rather that you can't have "settled convictions." That means if you're a new believer and don't know a particular doctrine you can still join, because while being a member, you'll come under the teaching of the doctrinal statement.

 

If you would look at my last message, you can see that I do suggest possibile reasons (doctrinal in this case) for refusing fellowship. So the implication is that I do believe in chuch discipline.

But I believe in church disciple for _Biblical reason_ not for refusing to hold to conform to some doctrinal point in a statement we came up with, or our predescesors came up with a few hundred years ago. Generally church discipline is for those in sin.

And in scripture, church discipline involves withholding fellowship and not eating with someone. It doesn't have anything to do with simply removing someone's name from a membership list.

 

So if a new church is formed the people who make up the new church who are in agreement doctrinally have no right to list their commonly held beliefs in the form of a confessional statement 0r Articles of Faith and expect new converts to abide by them?

Methinks you are stumbling over a word - "Member" and failing to see the illogical position you have placed yourself in.

 

Link - I agree with Hardsheller. You have agreed that there are reasons to withold fellowship. What are they? You say they are the ones God has given. Which ones? List them. Do you see the position you put yourself in?

 

My concern is that membership, historically, has limited aspects of the churches fellowship. Traditionally, often only the members of a church (or a related church in the denomination) could partake of communion. But in scripture, partaking of communion is not to be limited based on denominational affiliation.

It is appropriate to withold communion for certain sins after the church discipline process. A list is found in I Corinthians 5 including fornicators, swindlers, and idolators. For example, the believers were not to even eat with a man fornicating with his father's wife, after the church discipline process was followed.

Shutting the late-arriving poor out of communion was a serious in for the Corinthians. Peter withdrawing from the Gentiles and not eating with them was a serious issue as well.

Partaking of the Lord's Supper is an act of fellowship/oneness-- 'koinonia' as we see in I Corinthians 10.

Many churches are not so strict about Communion any more. But there are still plenty of churches that withhold aspects of fellowship from non-believers.

Who we fellowship with should be defined by the teachings scripture and not by a man-made system of church membership.

 

Link - agreed, but does this mean if you were starting a local church you wouldn't have 1) formal membership, 2) a doctrinal statement, or 3) require teachers to agree with the doctrinal statement, provided your had one?

 

A member is allowed to disagree with an item in the doctrinal statement. However, a member is obiged to adhere to the doctrinal statement if he is a member of the denomination. I'm SBC. I don't agree with every BF&M item of the SBC, but, I'm bound as an SBC member to adhere to them. I take my denimonational very seriously. </font>[/QUOTE]Please forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by this? You don't agree with it, but you adhere to it? Would you please simplify the complex nuances in the differences here for my red state mind?

Joseph Botwinick

 

A member is allowed to disagree with an item in the doctrinal statement. However, a member is obiged to adhere to the doctrinal statement if he is a member of the denomination. I'm SBC. I don't agree with every BF&M item of the SBC, but, I'm bound as an SBC member to adhere to them. I take my denimonational very seriously. </font>[/QUOTE]Please forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by this? You don't agree with it, but you adhere to it? Would you please simplify the complex nuances in the differences here for my red state mind?

Joseph Botwinick </font>[/QUOTE]Joseph, I agree. I was told here in Missouri that I didn't have to agree with everything in the BF&M 2000 statement to be able to affirm it!

Hunh??

 

Scooter,

When I was involved with a new church start up in the past, we had none of those things. If you have the new Testament, why do you need a doctrinal statement? Why do we have to come up with our own instead of what the Lord has give us?

 

Link - we are going around in circles. The fact of the matter is that believers have different doctrinal beliefs. I look forward to that day when we are in heaven together and there we will enjoy perfect harmony and agreement. Until then, men have different interpretations of the Bible. Lets say you start a church and have no doctrinal statement. Sooner or later you are going to have people who fellowship with you on a regular basis who do not agree with your interpretation of some doctrinal truth. Maybe it is baptism, maybe it is ecclesiology. Who knows? Eventually you will have to deal with it.

Perhaps your location has something to do with your view? I'm thinking from an American's perspective. When new people start attending a church, many already have some notion of doctrinal truth, albeit fuzzy or incorrect. There are dozens of other churches they can select if they don't like our doctrinal beliefs. I imagine that is quite different than a startup church in Indonesia, which I understand is largely Muslim. What prior exposure do they have to Christian doctrine? What other churches could they choose?

 

I belong to a baptist church that is categorized in the Baptist circles as "Old Time Missionary Baptist." The churches in this category adhere to 18 Articles of Faith and these articles are representative of the doctrines we hold fast in our worship and teaching. Many baptist churches have similar, if not identical, articles that are representative of the doctrines that characterize the doctrines of their respective churches.

We do not require that a person desiring to become a member of our church make a statement of conformity to these articles of faith as a prerequisite to membership. Neither do members necessarily have to totally believe everything that is taught in these articles. However, everyone that is a member must support these articles of faith. Private interpretations are fine, but intentional statements to publically deny or to discredit any part of these articles, or that promote any doctrine contrary to these articles would likely be labeled as heresy and an appropriate church action would immediately follow.

The commission requires that we (meaning the local, visible church) must first teach (make disciples or believers), then baptize them (bring them into the church). After that, we are required to teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, (this is where we are to teach them the doctrines and ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ). The onus is upon the church to teach its members after they become members, not before.

Salvation does make an individual part of the family of God but salvation does not automatically place an individual in the Lord's church. The church is a visible body of baptized believers and unless a person is baptized into the body of Christ, they are not part of the Lord's church. Of course, that in no way negates their salvation, or jeopardizes their place in Heaven. Church membership is very biblical . I agree that the formality that exists today did not exist in the early churches, but then again, it wasn't necessary to the extent it is today.

 

Just the thread I've been looking for! Just moved into town recently. Started looking for a Baptist Church. (Previously was a member of a Congregational church with a Baptist pastor in the pulpit. I don't remember signing a statement of faith and know I wasn't asked to adhere to any doctrinal statement.) Found a Baptist church that we felt the Lord had led us to and listened for a bit. Everything seemed ok even though one Sunday the pastor indicated his dispensational position. Concluded Even though I did not hold that view, (haven't found the exact lable to tack on to it - probably the PAN-millenist best describes it, I guess) I believed the teachings were correct on the fundamental Biblical positions and decided that that was more important than the differences.

Asked for membership info and was startled to see that I had to accept the dispensational position.

Isn't this exactly what Paul was admonishing the Corinthian church against? Wasn't it his message that we are Christians united it one Lord, one faith, one baptism and that our differences were not to become divisive?

I must say that it does not seem that members of the Corinthian church would not be allowed to be members of the Baptist churches on this board - even though Paul considered them to be Christians with all their "warts."

 

Personal opinion here! I think pastors are making it more and more difficult in this area. They are not accepting of anyone that doesn't tow their detailed doctrinal positions.

On the other hand, if they don't have a detailed doctrinal position/statement they will find their church plagued by militant people with off the wall doctrine trying to make converts to "THEIR" fundamentals.

 

exscentric.
You may have a very good point about this:

"On the other hand, if they don't have a detailed doctrinal position/statement they will find their church plagued by militant people with off the wall doctrine trying to make converts to "THEIR" fundamentals."

However, I seems to me that the theory of dispensationalism is a cut-and-pasted together extremism doctrine that I find very confusing. To me, it is a "new" theory introduced around the mid 1800's. It seems to me that it is THAT new doctrine is what has caused the divisiveness in the church today - not the conservative view. (I'm not sure I'm saying this right.)

 

I would have to disagree, I've not seen any dispensationalist causing division. Have seen a number of reformed coming into dispie churches and leading them astray

On the contrary, it seems to me that most reform cut and paste their misconceptions of dispieism. However that is not the point

I was thinking of many of the things like KJVO, charismatic, music, rationalizations about divorce/remarriage and other "gray areas" etc. that pastors tend to shove down congregations throats, and that congregants start infiltrating churches with.

 

I served as the senior pastor of an interdenominational church for six years. One pastors was of the Assemblies of God, another of the Christian Missionary Alliance, another of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, another of the Independent Assemblies of God, another who was a Baptist (I never asked him which denomination), and I am a Conservative Baptist. I invited a Traditional Jewish Rabbi (ultra conservative) to teach a class on Isaiah, but after thinking over the matter, he declined the offer.

We had two members who were Roman Catholics, several Lutheran members representing different Lutheran denominations, a member of the Salvation Army, and members from other denominations. They fellowshipped with us because we had a church service seven days a week (including a morning, afternoon, and evening service on Sundays), served a well-balanced nutritional meal every evening at 6:00, never closed our doors before midnight, and were there to meet their spiritual and social needs (and when necessary, their physical needs, including employment by the church and housing). We had a statement of faith, and everyone was asked to submit to it when preaching from the pulpit or teaching a Bible class, but submission to it was definitely not required for membership.

We also had many visitors, including many visitors from Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Germany, Israel, Mexico, and Canada.

We were a strongly evangelical church and many of our members were saved in our church. We had a class for new converts and a number of classes on street evangelism, spiritual warfare, the Book of Romans, the Book of Galatians, the Book of Hebrews, and the Gospel of John. Every member was encouraged to be an integral part of the church and we were very sensitive to the gifts and callings of our members.

We all got along very well and never once did the people get into doctrinal squabbles like they do in the Baptist churches that I have been a part of. And of course I greatly enjoyed the fellowship with the other pastors and the opportunity to learn from them. They didn’t agree with me on many theological subjects, but they all respected me as the senior pastor because we all knew that God had called each one of us to serve him in that church and we all knew what our role in that church was supposed to be.

Differences in opinion do not lead to divisions unless the church is very unhealthy. The exercise of the hammer and sickle is, in my opinion, a very poor way establish church unity.

 

Craig,

Wow!! Oh what a wonderful church, you pastor there!

Your church always open for seven days a week, and opening almost 24 hours!!! I think you have a BIG HEART for souls. God really blessing your ministry!!

In Christ
Rev. 22:20 -Amen!

 

Dr. Bob clarified, "Hey, I'm dispensational AND reformed."

I've kind of assumed that would be sovereign grace, rather than "reform", though calvinism is a mark of the reformers.

When I use the term "reform" I see in my cloudy minds eye, Calvinist, Amill, Covenant theology and that you ain't!

I weary of trying to keep up with terms these days, they change meaning as often as colleges/seminaries change names