Earlier, I posted a blurb from Mike Horton on Volf and Grenz, specifically discussing Free-Church ecclesiology. Volf had a penetrating critique which Horton draws upon and expands from the Reformation point of view in People and Place. By way of reminder, Volf (himself within the Free Church tradition), criticized Free Church ecclesiology for giving into the spirit of the age – consumerism and personal choice.
Also by way of reminder, Grenz’s ana/baptistic congregational ecclesiology is summarized this way (in his own words): “The true church is essentially people standing in voluntary covenant with God.” Grenz also writes, “Because the coming together of believers in mutual covenant constitutes the church, it is the covenant community of individuals.” In other words, individuals form the church rather than vice versa (p. 177).
Here are a few of Horton’s repsonses.
“…The Reformed confessions defined the visible church as believers together with their children. Yet even this violates the rule that is basic to congregational polity: a voluntary covenant, which not only entails the independence of local churches but also the independence of invidivuals within them until they mutually agree on the terms of that relationship” (p. 177).
Drawing on Bonhoeffer (”Only a community [Gemeinschaft], not a society [Gesellschaft], is able to carry children”), Horton writes:
“Infant baptism, therefore, is not incidental but essential for a covenant ecclesiology. It is integral not only to the continuity of the covenant through Old and New Testaments, but also to a conception of the church as the place where faith is born and fed as well as the people who exhibit it. The inclusion of believers’ children underscores the priority of God’s sovereign grace in ecclesiology as well as soteriology, challenging all voluntaristic and contractual interpretations that contribute to an individualistic faith and practice. When construed in the context of a covenantal theology, the baptism of believers together with their children underscores 1) the priority of divine activity in creating the church (i.e., covenant over contract); 2) the ‘mixed’ character of the body of Christ at present, which subverts overrealized eschatologies; 3) the importance of personal faith as well as communal mediation in the nuture of faith and repentance” (p. 186).
I realize some of our readers may disagree; yet I think it is essential – as Horton notes – to see that and how the doctrine of salvation (soteriology) affects or carries through to our doctrine of the church (ecclesiology), and vice versa. Both go together, of course, if there is consistency. The Reformers worked hard to balance church as place (institution) and church as people (organism); covenant theology was the balancing biblical factor. Of course this has to do with Arminianism and Calvinism as well, which I’ll leave you to ponder when it comes to soteriology, ecclesiology, and covenant theology. Read Horton’s stuff again!
Quotes taken from People and Place (Louisville: WJK, 2008).
shane lems
sunnyside wa







