The Insider Movement claims that people can be true believers in Isa (Jesus) while remaining within Islam, often because Isa has appeared to them in a dream or a vision.  But this involves misunderstandings about the nature of salvation.  Whether we like it or not, God has entrusted the means of grace to his church.  Therefore, the church is inextricably linked to the believer’s spiritual life from start to finish. 

In a recent article, Asbury Seminary president Timothy Tennant posed an important question: “Can someone say ‘yes’ to Jesus and ‘no’ to the existing local expressions of the church?”  This issue, along with the omission of Son of God language from the Bible, is at the heart of the Insider Movement that the evangelical church has recently encountered like a ship approaching a dark object in the water.

Yet in the hazy discourse typical of contextual progressives—wherein mutually inconsistent positions may all be valid depending upon the situation (see the example in the CT editorial)—the question is never actually answered.  The implicit message, however, is rather clear: given the cultural context, this seems like a good idea.

At the risk of “impeding human flourishing” by speaking in direct terms, I would give a rather different answer.  The answer is no.  If you say “yes” to Jesus, you must also say “yes” to His church.

The Insider Movement claims that people can be true believers in Isa (Jesus) while remaining within Islam, often because Isa has appeared to them in a dream or a vision.  But this involves misunderstandings about the nature of salvation.  Whether we like it or not, God has entrusted the means of grace to his church.  Therefore, the church is inextricably linked to the believer’s spiritual life from start to finish.

Even if God were to use visions in the way that He did for Cornelius in Acts 10, the vision would not contain any saving message itself but rather a direction to seek out an authorized messenger of the church in order to hear it.  Cornelius “was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you [Peter] to his house, and to hear words from you” (Acts 10:22).

That is why Paul, who was aware that God could speak to men through visions if He wanted to, could make such a dogmatic pronouncement in Romans 10:14: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?  And how shall they hear without a preacher?  And how shall they preach unless they are sent?”

The entire chain is predicated upon the existence and involvement of the church.  That is why Calvin could say, “…those to whom he [God] is Father, the Church is likewise mother” (Institutes IV.i.i ; Mk. 10:8 with Eph. 5:32).   We do not become believers apart from the church.

Furthermore, we do not remain Christians apart from the church.  If they are truly “Christ-loving people” as Tennant says, then they will do what Christ said—“If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:14 NKJV).  One of these commands is to be baptized, which (Tennant’s questioning notwithstanding) necessarily entails incorporation into the church both local and universal.  Notice, incidentally, that this is what happens to Cornelius and his associates at the end of Acts 10: they are publically brought into the Christian church through baptism.

Another one of the Lord’s commands is not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together in local churches (Heb 10:25).  Moreover, we know that Christ maintains his flock through the ongoing ministry of the ordinary means of grace.  Christ did not say to Peter in John 21, “Feed my sheep… unless they are Insiders, in which case they either do not need feeding or can feed themselves.”  He simply said to feed my sheep, and gave the impression that this activity was of the greatest importance.

What about, say, the thief on the cross, who had no opportunity to join a local church?  Well, if rebuking your friend for his unbelief and blasphemy and publically identifying yourself with the crucified Jesus Christ is what we mean here (Luke 23:40-24), then I am sure that there are such exceptions.  But of course these are the sort of things the Insider Movement discourages.

In any case, we do not make rules on the basis of exceptions.  And more to the point here, Tennant does not argue on the basis of isolated exceptions in which there is no local church at all, but is attempting to justify on principle a mass movement involving of hundreds of thousands of people who persistently reject available local churches.

Finally, if the arguments of the Insider Movement advocates are true, the early Christians died for nothing.  Why did they not simply carry on as “insiders” within their native Jewish or Roman contexts?  Of course, many tried to do something along these lines.  It was just that, in their desire to speak and to live in consistent obedience to Christ, this proved impossible.  They were cast out of the synagogues.  They were excluded from the pagan trade guilds.  Most importantly, they would not accede to the civil religion of the Roman Empire.

In many cases, the point of friction was their refusal to say a simple salutation—“Caesar is Lord.”  Any contextual theologian worth his salt could find a way to justify how a Christian could say this in good faith (as they justify Christians continuing to use Islamic customary greetings that feature the name of Allah).  After all, it was just a culturally-conditioned statement of political reality.

Yet, the early Christians thought that Christ was Lord, and to say otherwise was to be unfaithful.  Scores of martyrs could have gotten out of persecution with the flimsiest of attempts at being an “insider” by offering a little incense to Caesar.  But they chose rather to suffer and to die for their Savior.

The Bible knows nothing of Christian believers who refuse to identify themselves publically with Christ and His people.  To justify those who have been led astray in this manner is no credit to a president and professor of missions at an evangelical seminary.  Yet such is the fruit of the contextual movement, of which the Insider Movement may prove to be but the tip of a large iceberg.

William M. Schweitzer, A Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America, is the minister of Gateshead Presbyterian Church in England and the author of God is a Communicative Being: Divine Communicativeness and Harmony in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards (T&T Clark).