John Calvin’s theology of the church (ecclesiology), the power of bishops and his analysis of the dynamics of schism are highly significant for the Anglican Communion as the church begins to schism. There are two lessons we can learn from Calvin. First, how schism can be avoided. Second, how bishops can chose to relinquish power. The article includes my personal convictions on whether to stay or leave. It is an 8 minute read.
In Book 4 of the Institutes, Calvin is concerned with the nature of the church, the limits of episcopal power, church discipline and order.
Calvin reminds readers at the beginning of the book how he established, in the preceding books, that salvation is an operation of the will of God, through the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit and the salvific work of Jesus Christ, so that believers are saved by God’s grace alone through the gift of faith alone. We are made one church by the will of God.
Concerning the church, Calvin focuses on the gathering and nurturing work of God. The church, properly understood to be our mother, aids God’s children, who are gathered into her care.
“But as it is now our purpose to discourse of the visible Church, let us learn, from her single title of Mother, how useful, nay, how necessary the knowledge of her is, since there is no other means of entering into life unless she conceive us in the womb and give us birth, unless she nourish us at her breasts, and, in short, keep us under her charge and government, until, divested of mortal flesh, we become like the angels (Mt. 22:30). For our weakness does not permit us to leave the school until we have spent our whole lives as scholars.”
Calvin’s vivid description of the church as our mother has worked two changes in me. First, I have grown in my grasp of being nurtured and educated within the loving bosom of the church. I have learned much, and still have much to learn, until I am divested of mortal flesh. Second, although it is sometimes deeply painful to belong to the church, and I’d much rather live on a croft in northwest Scotland, not nearer than 10 miles from my nearest neighbour, our mother church loves her children and holds us close to her as we learn and grow in her care.
Calvin’s ecclesiology is relational and local. The church, in his view, is any congregation where the word of the Lord is proclaimed and the sacraments duly administered, but it is also universal. And to make this point, Calvin takes the reader to the creed. ‘I believe the church’, visible and invisible (seen and unseen). His ecclesiology is of the local congregation and the catholic church.
“It is not sufficient for us to comprehend in mind and thought the multitude of the elect, unless we consider the unity of the church as that into which we are convinced we have been truly ingrafted. For no hope of future inheritance remains to us unless we have been united with all other members under Christ, our Head.”
In spite of the great schisms of church history, Calvin restates the testimony of scripture which points to the invisible, unseen church, the ‘catholic’ church, where there are not two or three churches, but one church, to which all elect are grafted in.
He then turns his attention to the appearance of the visible church, with all her distortions and imperfections;
“The name of Church is designated the whole body of mankind scattered throughout the world, who profess to worship one God and Christ, who by baptism are initiated into the faith; by partaking of the Lord’s Supper profess unity in true doctrine and charity, agree in holding the word of the Lord, and observe the ministry which Christ has appointed for the preaching of it.”
This may or may not be what Stephen Cottrell said about our unity by baptism after February’s synod. We are certainly visibly united as the church through our profession of faith and baptism. But Calvin goes on to say:
“In this Church there is a very large mixture of hypocrites, who have nothing of Christ but the name and outward appearance: of ambitious, avaricious, envious, evil-speaking men, some also of impurer lives, who are tolerated for a time, either because their guilt cannot be legally established, or because due strictness of discipline is not always observed. Hence, as it is necessary to believe the invisible Church, which is manifest to the eye of God only, so we are also enjoined to regard this Church which is so called with reference to man, and to cultivate its communion.”
It is very important, to me, that we seek to cultivate the communion of the visible church, rather than to destroy it. I take this to mean we are to unite, engage, question, wrestle theologically, teach, exhort, encourage, debate and reform. Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.
Calvin presses home just how dysfunctional the visible church can be, turning his attention to the Corinthians.
“Among the Corinthians it was not a few that erred, but almost the whole body had become tainted; there was not one species of sin merely, but a multitude, and those not trivial errors, but some of them execrable crimes. There was not only corruption in manners, but also in doctrine. What course was taken by the holy apostle, in other words, by the organ of the heavenly Spirit, by whose testimony the Church stands and falls? Does he seek separation from them? Does he discard them from the kingdom of Christ? Does he strike them with the thunder of a final anathema? He not only does none of these things, but he acknowledges and heralds them as a Church of Christ, and a society of saints.”
In my context, the Church of England, the Diocese of Lichfield, the deanery of West Bromwich and the parish of Holy Trinity, despite all our corruption in manners and doctrine, is called a society of saints and, in order to cultivate her communion, we are to avoid one of two evils, according to Calvin:
“The name of heretics and schismatics is applied to those who, by dissenting from the Church, destroy its communion. This communion is held together by two chains—viz. consent in sound doctrine and brotherly charity. Hence the distinction which Augustine makes between heretics and schismatics is, that the former corrupt the purity of the faith by false dogmas, whereas the latter sometimes, even while holding the same faith, break the bond of union (August. Lib. Quæst. in Evang. Mt.)”
The Archbishops of Canterbury and York insist that we ‘Walk Together”, placing emphasis on the catholicity of the church whilst ignoring, downplaying, minimising, even obliterating, the need for consent in sound doctrine. To avoid schism we need both brotherly charity and sound doctrine. We are to be of one mind. The pain we are all enduring at this time, which could lead to visible disunity, is due to false doctrine.
The visible church needs to develop and agree on sound doctrine on what it means to be human, made in the image of God, male and female, as sexual beings, whilst holding to the sound doctrine of marriage, between male and female.
I am more solidly confident now, inlight of reading Calvin and my teaching on church history for Lent at Holy Trinity, that God our Father and the church, our mother, mature the church through disagreement, scandal, crisis, even war. The love of God and the care of the church toward the elect is expressed in such turmoil as much as the wrath of God is being revealed toward the ungodly (Romans 1:18). The rich theology being developed by the church is the sweet fruit of a bitter argument. It has always been thus in the church. Rich doctrines, including of the Trinity, Christology, doctrine of salvation, the sacraments and so on were developed in the heat of theological crisis.
I was once an international athlete, of a mediocre standard, representing Scotland twice. Sometimes the discipline of training made me physically sick. And I am reminded that no discipline seems pleasant at the time but, for those who are trained by it, it produces a harvest of righteousness (Hebrews 12).
Having established the nature of the church as local, universal, seen and unseen, with a mixed congregation of the elect, whom God alone knows truly, and the wicked, which is still called the church, the society of the saints, whose communion we are to cultivate, Calvin moves onto consider the limits of the power of bishops.
Calvin has a high view of scripture as God’s depository of true doctrine, revealed directly to the patriarchs, the prophets, evangelists and apostles and recorded for our learning and contemplation.
In an earlier book, Calvin presents the case of the authority of the scriptures and concludes:
“As Christ declared that he spoke not of himself (John 12:50; 14:10), because he spoke according to the Law and the Prophets; so, if anything contrary to the Gospel is obtruded under the name of the Holy Spirit, let us not believe it. For as Christ is the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets, so is the Spirit the fulfilment of the Gospel” (Chrysost. Serm. de Sancto et Adorando Spiritu.) Thus far Chrysostom. We may now easily infer how erroneously our opponents act in vaunting of the Holy Spirit, for no other end than to give the credit of his name to strange doctrines, extraneous to the word of God, whereas he himself desires to be inseparably connected with the word of God; and Christ declares the same thing of him, when he promises him to the Church. And so indeed it is. The soberness which our Lord once prescribed to his Church, he wishes to be perpetually observed. He forbade that anything should be added to his word, and that anything should be taken from it. This is the inviolable decree of God and the Holy Spirit, a decree which our opponents endeavour to annul when they pretend that the Church is guided by the Spirit without the word.”
This argument for the supremacy of scripture leads Calvin to caution us to be very earnest in our contemplation of God in his word.
“if we reflect how prone the human mind is to lapse into forgetfulness of God, how readily inclined to every kind of error, how bent every now and then on devising new and fictitious religions, it will be easy to understand how necessary it was to make such a depository of doctrine as would secure it from either perishing by the neglect, vanishing away amid the errors, or being corrupted by the presumptuous audacity of men. It being thus manifest that God, foreseeing the inefficiency of his image imprinted on the fair form of the universe, has given the assistance of his Word to all whom he has ever been pleased to instruct effectually, we, too, must pursue this straight path, if we aspire in earnest to a genuine contemplation of God.”
Calvin distinguishes between the Apostles, who were carried along by the Holy Spirit to write scripture, and their successors, the bishops.
“I have observed, there is this difference between the apostles and their successors, they were sure and authentic amanuenses of the Holy Spirit; and, therefore, their writings are to be regarded as the oracles of God, whereas others have no other office than to teach what is delivered and sealed in the holy Scriptures. We conclude, therefore, that it does not now belong to faithful ministers to coin some new doctrine, but simply to adhere to the doctrine to which all, without exception, are made subject.”
Calvin cautions bishops not to vainly invent doctrine from human imagination but to continually refer to the Word:
“they [the bishops] will have our faith to stand and fall at their pleasure, so that whatever they have determined on either side must be firmly seated in our minds; what they approve must be approved by us without any doubt; what they condemn we also must hold to be justly condemned. Meanwhile, at their own caprice, and in contempt of the word of God, they coin doctrines to which they in this way demand our assent, declaring that no man can be a Christian unless he assent to all their dogmas, affirmative as well as negative, if not with explicit, yet with implicit faith, because it belongs to the Church to frame new articles of faith.”
Is it not clear to us all that the current division occurs in the Anglican church on this point? The disagreement and division over the blessing of same sex couples is not primarily about the presenting issue. The disagreement is far more fundamental and complex. The disagreement revolves around the place of scripture, tradition and reason; the authority of bishops and councils; and the discipline and order of the visible church.
On one side there are the Calvinists, although most would not call themselves such, who believe in the scriptures as the rock upon which we are anchored and we aspire, in earnest, to contemplate God and mine true doctrine. On the other side, there is a belief that the Holy Spirit will lead councils of bishops and synods to coin some new doctrine, contrary to scripture.
The current, painful disagreement is really a reenactment of the reformation in the opposite direction. The modern-revisionists are attempting to revert to a pre-reformation epistemology, of a mystic and/or gnostic kind. The direction of travel for the church, if history is to be repeated, is the separation of the church into two strands. Just as ‘protestants’ were cast out of the Roman church to form new alignments, so the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion will realign in this generation.
I believe this is why there is such a high degree of exacerbation and frustration with the House and College of Bishops. The bishops presented the so-called Prayers of Love and Faith without any theological rationale or grounding in scripture. Bishops are being accused, rightly it seems, to have presented something vainly invented from their untethered imagination having long since abandoned our reformation roots. Calvin faced a similar situation:
though our opponents should name councils of thousands of bishops it will little avail them; nor will they induce us to believe that they are, as they maintain, guided by the Holy Spirit, until they make it credible that they assemble in the name of Christ: since it is as possible for wicked and dishonest to conspire against Christ, as for good and honest bishops to meet together in his name. Of this we have a clear proof in very many of the decrees which have proceeded from councils. But this will be afterwards seen. At present I only reply in one word, that our Saviour’s promise is made to those only who assemble in his name. How, then, is such an assembly to be defined? I deny that those assemble in the name of Christ who, disregarding his command by which he forbids anything to be added to the word of God or taken from it, determine everything at their own pleasure, who, not contented with the oracles of Scripture, that is, with the only rule of perfect wisdom, devise some novelty out of their own head (Deut. 4:2; Rev. 22:18).
I have grown in my appreciation that our own Articles are clearly derived from Calvin. Canon A5, on the authority of scripture, Canons A20 and A21 on the authority of the church and councils, which may err. The House of Bishops, the College of Bishops, the General Synod, may err and will be seen to have erred if they devise some theological novelty out of their own head. It seems, to me, that parish churches which seek to remain rooted in scripture, whether they think of themselves as Calvinist or not, know that the synods and councils of the church may err and stray.
Calvin’s understanding of episcopacy in the early church highlights the bishops’ pastoral care and discipline of the clergy. The bishops’ supported and encouraged clergy to proclaim the Word of God and administer the sacraments. If a bishop was accused of failing in his duty, then synods could meet and remove the bishop from his post:
…each bishop was entrusted with the superintendence of his own clergy, that he might govern them according to the canons, and keep them to their duty. For this purpose, certain annual visitations and synods were appointed, that if any one was negligent in his office he might be admonished; if any one sinned, he might be punished according to his fault. The bishops also had their provincial synods once, anciently twice, a-year, by which they were tried, if they had done anything contrary to their duty. For if any bishop had been too harsh or violent with his clergy, there was an appeal to the synod, though only one individual complained. The severest punishment was deposition from office, and exclusion, for a time, from communion.
Perhaps my greatest frustration with the House of Bishops at this time is a lack of accountability. The House has morphed, it seems to me, into a club of like minded managers, who are attempting to follow secular change management techniques. The vote by houses at general synod hands bishops the veto to their own motions. The church needs a means by which bishops who have done anything contrary to their duty, set out in the scriptures, canons and ordinal, to be fairly tried and called to repentance and forgiveness or removed. CDM is the closest we get to holding bishops to account, but matters of doctrine are not permitted under the measure. Bishops stand apart from any proper means of accountability.
In his seventh chapter, Calvin considers the political path which led to the establishment of the Bishop of Rome as the ‘first bishop’ or ‘chief bishop’ rather than a fellow bishop, brother bishop or colleague of the African and Eastern bishops. The establishment of the first Archbishop of Canterbury followed the same path. Appointed by Rome and latterly by the King or Queen, the episcopacy was imposed on England from above. The Scots chose to reject Charles the First’s attempt to impose episcopacy from above, which led to civil war. The meeting of GAFCON in April this year, where many African and Asia Archbishops refused to follow the lead of the Archbishop of Canterbury and no longer recognise him as the ‘first among equals’ was, in large part, an undoing of the politics of Empire as much as it was a correction to the notion that one bishop can be superior to another. We are to follow Christ in the footsteps of the Apostles and Prophets. We do not follow the holder of the first See of the Anglican Communion, nor even our diocesan bishop. If our bishops chose not to follow Christ in the footsteps of the Apostles and Prophets, the clergy and laity may choose not to follow their bishop. The question is, then, how do congregations, committed to being episcopally led, choose a new bishop?
These four excerpts from the Institutes Book 4 chapter 4, on the rise of the Bishop of Rome and power struggles, reveal there is truly nothing new under the sun when it comes to church politics. This is not the first time the African bishops have been ignored by European bishops:
[At the second Council of Ephesus] the Roman bishops were never ashamed to stir up the greatest strife in contending for honours, and for this cause alone, to trouble and harass the Church with many pernicious contests.
Next came the Council of Chalcedon, in which, by concession of the Emperor, the legates of the Roman Church occupied the first place. But Leo himself confesses that this was an extraordinary privilege; for when he asks it of the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria Augusta, he does not maintain that it is due to him, but only pretends that the Eastern bishops who presided in the Council of Ephesus had thrown all into confusion, and made a bad use of their power.
In regard to the mere title of primate and other titles of pride, of which that pontiff now makes a wondrous boast, it is not difficult to understand how and in what way they crept in. Cyprian often makes mention of Cornelius (Cyprian. Lib. 2 Ep. 2; Lib. 4 Ep. 6), nor does he distinguish him by any other name than that of brother, or fellow bishop, or colleague. When he writes to Stephen, the successor of Cornelius, he not only makes him the equal of himself and others, but addresses him in harsh terms, charging him at one time with presumption, at another with ignorance. After Cyprian, we have the judgement of the whole African Church on the subject. For the Council of Carthage enjoined that none should be called chief of the priests, or first bishop, but only bishop of the first See.
Wherever the bishop be, whether at Rome, or Eugubium, or Constantinople, or Rhegium, the merit is the same, and the priesthood the same. The power of riches, or the humbleness of poverty, do not make a bishop superior or inferior” (Hieron. Ep. ad Evagr.).
The Anglican Communion and Church of England have moved from torn fabric to the early stages of schism. Schisms in the reformation were brutal, murderous, ugly. The schism in the Episcopal Church was litigious, mean and bullying. Bishops in the West must, as Justin Welby has indicated, be willing to relinquish both their historical, political superiority and their attitude of ‘west knows best’. In the Church of England, the bishops face a choice between fighting for the buildings or providing an ordered, peaceful and gracious separation. The attitude of the bishops towards their power will determine which we face.
Bishops could allow parishes to align with a bishop who shares their pastoral and theological convictions. It would be very Christlike for bishops to relinquish their power to the laity. The only way to give this power to congregations is to change from graphical to theological bishops. Bishops can say, ‘If this is of God, it will wither and die. Allow them to continue.’ Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. His people are his temple. The branches which remain faithful to Christ, will grow. Those which cut themselves off from the root, will wither and die.
Schism is, now, inevitable. The national and global realignment which has begun will follow the existing fault lines, between those who elevate the subjective to the place of highest authority and those who hold the scriptures to hold authority over all. Lex Rex.
Calvin lived through a period of schism from which we can learn much. Calvin’s theology of the unity of the one true church and the dynamics of schism give us serious pause for thought.
We have seen that Calvin believed in the one church, visible, whose members are to work for her communion under her head, Christ, the only source of light and truth. He was for the unity of the church, for her wellbeing:
Cyprian, also, following Paul, derives the fountain of ecclesiastical concord from the one bishopric of Christ, and afterwards adds, “There is one Church, which by increase from fecundity is more widely extended to a multitude, just as there are many rays of the sun, but one light, and many branches of a tree, but one trunk upheld by the tenacious root. When many streams flow from one fountain, though there seems wide spreading numerosity from the overflowing copiousness of the supply, yet unity remains in the origin. Pluck a ray from the body of the sun, and the unity sustains division. Break a branch from a tree, and the branch will not germinate. Cut off a stream from a fountain, that which is thus cut off dries up.
He goes on to discuss the dynamics of schism. The bishops of Rome accused him of heresy. He fled from France when widespread deadly violence erupted against the reformers. Having ‘withdrawn’, i.e. run for his life, he was content to leave his accusers to judge him as a schismatic, but his own conscience was clear before Christ.
Words could not more elegantly express the inseparable connection which all the members of Christ have with each other. We see how he constantly calls us back to the head. Accordingly, he declares that when heresies and schisms arise, it is because men return not to the origin of the truth, because they seek not the head, because they keep not the doctrine of the heavenly Master. Let them now go and clamour against us as heretics for having withdrawn from their Church, since the only cause of our estrangement is, that they cannot tolerate a pure profession of the truth. I say nothing of their having expelled us by anathemas and curses. The fact is more than sufficient to excuse us, unless they would also make schismatics of the apostles, with whom we have a common cause. Christ, I say, forewarned his apostles, “they shall put you out of the synagogues” (John 16:2). The synagogues of which he speaks were then held to be lawful churches. Seeing then it is certain that we were cast out, and we are prepared to show that this was done for the name of Christ, the cause should first be ascertained before any decision is given either for or against us. This, however, if they choose, I am willing to leave to them; to me it is enough that we behoved to withdraw from them in order to draw near to Christ.
Calvin helps me to address the question, as a Church of England vicar, should I stay or should I go? This is my thinking so far, following Calvin.
- There is only one true church.
- I am a member of a visible church, local, denominational and in the world.
- God is teaching and maturing me in the church where I have been placed.
- I am to work for her communion under Christ, by the proclamation of the true word and right administration of the sacraments.
- I do this locally and, by engaging in synods and meetings, regionally and nationally, and by writing.
- The House of Bishops and General synod have erred on a point of first order doctrine, a salvation issue.
- I face no accusations, yet, of heresy.
- I am not being cast out, yet.
- The power to order a peaceful settlement lies with the bishops.
- The bishops will either relinquish their power and make provisions for a peaceful settlement or go to war against parishes which reject their leadership.
- The church which cuts itself off from Christ will die.
- The dynamics of schism, for Calvin, are for all members to work for reform under the word of God until the false teachers cast them out. [I have a question regarding being cast out: False teachers today do not hold the threat of imprisonment or deadly violence, rather, they patiently discriminate against their enemies, choosing not to appoint those who hold to true doctrine to positions of responsibility until the whole church is cut off and dies (as statistics from TEC, The Scottish Episcopal Church etc confirm). I am not qualified to know what God has in mind for the Church of England in the future. Who knows what might change! Reformation and revival or slow death? I will content myself by focusing on today, for tomorrow has enough worries of its own. I will lean in, move toward, seek to make the Church of England better by teaching and the proclamation of the truth.]
I am left with an increased love of the visible church, a more realistic perspective on the struggle we face today, a willingness to be taught by God within the church through theological and political crisis, a desire to lean in, to seek reformation. I am more committed to being episcopally led but also frustrated by the lack of proper, objective accountability for our Bishops. How far our synod seems to be from the nature of the synods of the early church. We have standards by which to measure the conduct and beliefs of bishops and clergy, but cannot use them. I asked, in my letter to you in October last year, how do we replace bishops who fail to uphold the teaching of the prophets and apostles? This is a question which synod should be asking, especially after the point of order made by Stephen Hophmyer over the ability of Bishops to veto every amendment to their own motion. The veto seems, to me, and many others, to be a serious abuse of power.
What are my hopes?
I hope there will be an honest discussion about the primary issues, with regards the authority of scripture and the subordinate authority of bishops and councils. I hope we will discuss the development of a means by which bishops can be removed from office by synod for failing in their duties as established in scripture, the Prayer Book and the ordinal. I pray that the presenting issue regarding human sexuality will be subsumed by the primary issue of authority. I pray that the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion will be united both by true doctrine and by filial affection. My fear is that we will continue to argue, from very different starting points, about who can have sex with whom and the church will schism and realign. I am also fearful of a repeat of the ungodly power battles which occurred in the Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church. My ultimate hope is that a righteous branch will grow from the stump.