Part X

One of the current struggles in many of the fellowships of the Anabaptist community is about coming to terms with the practice of church regulations for the individual members. I will not suggest that it is easy to find the Scriptural balance on this matter.

My own observation would be that in fellowships where there has been extensive regulations on the lifestyle of members, at some point uncertainties will begin to develop in the fellowship. Questions will be raised about what constitutes “additions to the Scriptures” and concerns about legalism.

Most likely another influence would be the strong voice coming from the Evangelical community that would insist that any lifestyle commitments a fellowship would choose to adhere to that is not directly forbidden by the Scriptures is legalism.

Often church members of regulated fellowships observe glaring contradictions and inconsistencies. This becomes the seedbed for the thinking that it is best to minimize or remove any regulations that attempt to apply an application of principle on an entire group. It is deemed that the best Scriptural approach would be to allow the Holy Spirit to lead the individual believer to spiritual maturity.

It is clear that churches can be caught up in a dead formalism. It also is evident that sometimes when fellowships move from a high level of regulation to a more minimal level of regulation, some members seem to lose their footing spiritually. For example, while they may insist they still believe in principles such as modesty, they may abandon any reasonable application of modesty very quickly after the external pressure is removed.

To me this would suggest that there are inherent problems in excessive regulation. Personal convictions can become very anemic and shallow in an excessively regulated environment. The “glue” that holds individuals or fellowships to the practice of commendable applications of Biblical principles may be rooted more in a social dynamic than a spiritual dynamic. The focus becomes, as Coblentz observes, “rule conformity” instead of “Christ conformity”.

In this environment, a culture of reporting rule infractions of others to the church leadership may develop. This creates a very stressful and joyless atmosphere. Some members may live in the fear of “not being good enough”. Others will constantly be testing or ignoring the rules. Their main goal is to escape detection. Outwardly, they may conform, but their heart is not in their “conformity”.

A “rule conformity “ environment also distorts leadership activity. Spiritual faithfulness as a leader becomes measured by how well he keeps his congregation conformed to the rules. It also breeds an atmosphere of fear. Control of the membership is, at least some level, maintained by instilling fear. The leader himself may feel the pressure to “perform”, because he is being evaluated by other leaders in the fellowship. So, he also lives in fear. Often, in this environment, private group Bible studies are discouraged or prohibited. There is an always-present fear of losing “control” within the leadership.

I recognize this is a bleak picture and hopefully it does not describe your fellowship. I do believe such situations I have described do exist. It becomes a very tough situation for those who see beyond “rule conformity” mentality in such a fellowship. They may be viewed with suspicion. They might be labeled as troublemakers when in reality they are not. The leadership may view them as a threat to the congregation simply because they ask honest questions.

But, I would also hasten to say that there are many fellowships who do not live under the extremes I have described. Yet, there still may be a real grappling with the issues surrounding group uniformity and group standards. Hopefully I have not been unkind or unfair in my assessment.

I have digressed from examining John Coblentz’s writings on church standards. I will return to that in the next post.

DSJ