“A Call To Harms” Is Church Discipline For Today? -- By: Jacob A. Taggart

Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 07:2 (Fall 2010)
Article: “A Call To Harms” Is Church Discipline For Today?
Author: Jacob A. Taggart


“A Call To Harms”
Is Church Discipline For Today?

Jacob A. Taggart

Mr. Taggart is Vice President for Risk Management at Mid America Bank, President of Concord Christian School, and Deacon at Concord Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Missouri, and is an M.A. in Theological Studies graduate of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary

Introduction

If you see your neighbor sin, and you pass by and neglect to reprove him, it is just as cruel as if you should see his house on fire, and pass by and not warn him of it.

–Charles Finney, in his sermon, “Reproof, A Christian Duty.”1

Church discipline: the words alone cause many modern American evangelicals to shudder. For some, the term evokes images of archaic castigation sifted from a Nathaniel Hawthorne novel – a black eye of the church no more applicable to the modern era than the primitive means of Puritan living. Others, however, quietly lament the church’s abandoned expectations of holy living, as surely as the same God who commands us to “be holy; for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44 NKJV) would not permit His church to sacrifice such an exhortation on the altar of modernity for the mere comfort of its members. And still others, some at the other extreme end of the spectrum, would be all-too-desirous to act as the final arbiter of church discipline by aggressively excommunicating all who do not subscribe to their ecclesial views. With such divergent approaches, some may be understandably ignorant of the legitimacy of church discipline—particularly evangelicals who are generations removed. In this paper I will define church discipline, and examine the church’s historical views on the practice, the biblical underpinnings for church discipline, and the ways it can be applied. Upon conclusion, I will demonstrate why the practice of church discipline is a necessary component of biblical orthodoxy.

What Is Church Discipline?

For many contemporary evangelicals, the mere mention of invoking church discipline causes a visceral reaction among church members that often enacts a guard against any such affront to an individual’s freedom of choice. Over the last one hundred years, the American church has exhibited an embedded reaction that presupposes each individual’s “inalienable rights” of personal conduct. Undoubtedly, this “liberation” comes as a by-product of liberal philosophy

now manifesting itself in a culture of postmodernism, sprouting from seeds sewn during the Enlightenment period. In so doing, the inalienable rights of an individual have co...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()