In the Reformed churches our process is laid out in church orders that have their roots in the 16th century. I don’t know much about the polity of the Acts 29 churches but in the Reformed churches officers are accountable to broader (or higher) assemblies and courts. Our process to excommunication takes months and years. Before one may be excommunicated the case must go to the regional assembly of pastors and elders (classis) and the procedure reviewed. Sometimes classis says, in effect, “Not yet. Keep trying.” In other words, in a Reformed church there are checks and balances.
Jonathan Merritt has an interesting two-part post chronicling reaction to the struggles of The Village Church, a large (twice the size of at least two NAPARC denominations) multi-site Acts 29 congregation in Texas, with a church discipline case. In this case a woman discovered that her husband was addicted to child pornography. She sought an annulment of the marriage without consulting the church leadership (I’m unsure, whether, in their polity, they are elders) and she found herself under church discipline for proceeding with the annulment without consulting the church. This, they said, violated the church membership covenant to which they both had agreed. She renounced the jurisdiction of the church and they proceeded with public discipline, including a mass email to the membership. The move by the church to discipline the woman caused a storm of protest. In response the pastor has apologized for the way the case was handled.
In his posts, Merritt interviews Jonathan Leeman at 9 Marks about his understanding of discipline and Eugene Volokh about the law surrounding this sort of case. Both Leeman’s and Volokh’s comments are helpful. Volokh notes that most such cases should stay out of the civil courts but that churches who abuse the process could find themselves liable to civil action. Leeman is correct that the intent behind church discipline is to restore and the abuse of discipline is grievous and abuse does happen.
Wade Burleson, whom Merritt quotes, is surely right when he says, “Church discipline doesn’t mean kicking people out when they fail…it means loving people enough to walk with them through their valleys.” Amen. We should remember some basics, however. Nowhere in Merritt’s two-part post is any reference made to Matthew 18:
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt 18:15–20; ESV)
Our Lord himself outlined the basic procedure for church discipline. In the case of personal offense, one ought to be reconciled to another. The church as an institution becomes involved when the offender is resistant. Only after the impenitent person refuses does it the procedure become more formal. Our Lord did say, “tell it to the church.” That is a public announcement to a congregation, to the visible, institutional church. Should one remain impenitent, that person does lose status in the church. It’s in this church-judicial context that our Lord spoke of binding and loosing and a gathering of two or three. We cannot be faithful to God’s Word and not excise this passage from Holy Scripture.
The instruction is so plain, so straightforward that the real question here seems to be whether there is such a thing as a visible church, whether there are officers, and whether they are charged with the matter of discipline.