Doomed edifice : the eclipse of the prophetic ministry and the spiritual captivity of the church

147 Pages·2010·1.41 MB·English

by  Baker

Table of Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1: Ecclesia
Chapter 2: Early Organization and Worship
Chapter 3: Early Christian Life
Chapter 4: The Ecclesia Changes
Chapter 5: The Rise of the Episcopacy
Chapter 6: The Ecclesia Becomes the Church
Chapter 7: Excursus on the Episcopacy
Chapter 8: Excursus on the Supernatural Gifts
Chapter 9: Recapitulation
Chapter 10: Conclusion
Bibliography
Doomed Edifice
The Eclipse of the Prophetic Ministry and the Spiritual
Captivity of the Church
P. W. B
AKER
Doomed Edifice
The Eclipse of the Prophetic Ministry and the Spiritual Captivity of the Church
Copyright © 2010 P. W. Baker. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or
reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the
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To: my best friend, fellow-sojourner, and wife, Stephanie and
Claire, Chris, Sam, James, Loukas, Duncan, Kyle, Amanda, Emma, and Judah

So intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of
the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people.
—E G T D F R E
DWARD IBBON HE ECLINE AND ALL OF THE OMAN MPIRE
Acknowledgments
I immeasurable debt I owe to Eberhard Arnold,
GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGE THE
Alfred Edersheim, George Edmundson, Ivan Illich, Thomas Lindsay, and
Edward Selwyn—men whose writings were watersheds in my spiritual
understanding and development. I recommend their works to all who seek truth
above comfort.
I thank Messiah for the concurrence of circumstance that caused me to cross
the path of John Clifton—who shattered forever my conceptions of the church
and ministry and set me on an arduous, often uncomfortable, and yet strangely
familiar, path to the truth.
I thank Valerie Severtson, my sister in the Lord, for urging me to finally write
this book, and for her invaluable help in reading the manuscript, at various
stages, when she had far more pressing responsibilities of family life.
My thanks also to Claire Kimball for reading the first draft and making
numerous suggestions for its improvement.
Finally, I would like to thank Step for fighting with me in the struggle for
truth, for her insight, and for her constant encouragement to complete the task
set before me.
List of Abbreviations
1 Clem. 1 Clement Did. Didache Eusebius, Hist. eccl. Eusebius, Historia
ecclesiastica Ign. Phld. Ignatius, To the Philadelphians Ign. Smyrn. Ignatius, To
the Smyrnaeans Ign. Trall. Ignatius, To the Trallians Irenaeus, Haer. Irenaeus,
Against Heresies Justin, 1 Apol. Justin, Apologia i Minucius Felix, Oct.
Minucius Felix, Octavius Origen, Cels. Origen, Contra Celsum Rom. Hist.
Roman History Tacitus, Ann. Tacitus, Annales
Introduction
I Christianity and politics in the United States for the past
F THE COMINGLING OF
thirty years is representative, apparently Christian doctrine now includes
being patriotic and supporting the troops, being against abortion, for gun
ownership, against homosexuality, against welfare, for the death penalty, and for
free-market capitalism. But those defining qualities denote a particularly
American political viewpoint and agenda that has virtually nothing to do with
historic Christianity. In fact, it is safe to say that first century Christians would
concur with only two items on that list—homosexuality and abortion. Yet, to the
believers of that time, those two sins were understood as manifestations of all
sinful sexual behavior and killing of any kind. So, quite simply, American
Christianity has got it wrong.
It must be admitted that few who call themselves Christians today are either
aware of or care about this play-acting that passes for living as a disciple of
Messiah Jesus. And it is neither an exaggeration nor cynical to say that many
evangelical Christians in the United States believe that Jesus came into the world
and died so that all people would be guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
Yet, it’s not only American, evangelical, fundamental, reformed, charismatic,
Bible-based Christianity that has got it wrong. All institutional Christianity has
strayed from its original path and created a host of convenient excuses that
permit a way of life that is contrary to its earliest doctrines and principles. What
is surprising is how quickly it began to stray.
No single event brought Christianity to its current lamentable state. Rather, a
confluence of decisions in the first and second centuries—decisions deemed both
justified and prudent by those who made them—produced the institutional
Christianity, the church that exists today. Once those decisions were
implemented and established, inertia prevailed. Over the ensuing centuries, a
few lonely souls howled for restoration, but it was far easier to dispatch those
who howled than attempt to recover whatever was lost. Anyway, inertia had its
emoluments—and it’s extremely difficult to compete with emoluments.
But the church paid an awful price.
Before Israel went in to take possession of the land given to them by Jehovah,
Moses explained repeatedly that they were being given the land not because they
were more righteous, but that the current inhabitants of that land were being
dispossessed as punishment for their sin (Deut 9:4–6). Israel was being used by
Jehovah as an instrument of wrath. Moses carefully instructed Israel that they
were to make no treaties with the nations residing there (Deut 7:2), or covet their
gold (Deut 7:25), or intermarry with them (Deut 7:3–4), but to drive them out
entirely. He warned that, if Israel comingled with the surrounding cultures, they
would be snared into serving other gods and Jehovah would also remove them
from the land (Deut 4:23–28).
It’s amazing how quickly everything deteriorated.1 The events are recorded in
the first two chapters of Judges. Joshua brought the tribes across the Jordan and
into the land. Judah, Ephraim, and Manasseh only partially drove out the
inhabitants from their allotted portions. The rest of the tribes did not drive out
those who inhabited the remaining allotments. Thus, the Angel of the Lord
walked among them and announced judgment (Judg 2:1–3). Those who had
experienced Jehovah’s awesome power and protection during the exodus from
Egypt were spared from witnessing the apostasy and disaster to follow (Judg
2:7–13).
Israel eventually comingled with the native cultures and served their gods.
Jehovah sent prophets to call them to repentance, but Israel ignored them, or
prohibited them from speaking, or killed them. After repeated pleadings and
numerous warnings, Jehovah removed Israel from the land and sent them into
captivity. Those he chose—“the pupil of his eye”—were banished from their
inheritance. Yet, Jehovah didn’t forget them. He hid and recalled a remnant
many decades later, eventually bringing forth Messiah through that remnant for
the sake of all mankind.
Scripture contains many lessons that are woven like threads through both its
Testaments. One of those threads is that deliberate and unrepentant sin,
especially by those whom Jehovah has chosen, results in captivity and exile for
that individual or group, and serves as both punishment and an impetus to
repentance. Just so, Israel’s apostasy and subsequent captivity has always been a
clear, prophetic message for the church.

Thirty years ago, near the end of summer, and shortly before I was to start
seminary classes, I met a young man whom I later discovered was an apostle.
We met while I was working part-time at the publishing warehouse where he
worked. He was a voracious reader and had an astonishing memory (he could
recite huge portions of Scripture and was a human concordance), spent his lunch
hour in prayer (perched twenty feet up on the stacks of boxed books in the
warehouse), loved science fiction, and was actually fun to be with. He was one
of several pastors of a small church that met in the rented basement of a post
office in a nearby town.
Over the following weeks, we discussed some of the concerns I had since
reading Deschooling Society earlier that summer. I was having second thoughts
about the validity of the church as an institution and the establishment of an
ordained class of leaders, and was also skeptical that the institutional church was
actually the church that Jesus established.
He wanted to help me sort things out and suggested that I read The Church
and the Ministry in the Early Centuries by Thomas Lindsay and The Problem of
Wineskins by Howard Snyder. He predicted somewhat ominously that the Lord
would take it from there.
He was correct. Those two books led to more questions and many more
books, years of frustration and impatience, and much prayer. Although it took
far longer than I expected, what finally emerged was a radical concept of the
state of the church—but it is not a novel idea.
Twenty-five years or so before the outbreak of the First World War, biblical
scholars in Europe, Great Britain, and the United States were engaged in a
vigorous debate over first-and second-century church polity and doctrine. Those
men are all dead and their books are in danger of being forgotten—abandoned in
dark recesses of university libraries or used book stores. But their meticulous
research and clear insight remain relevant and instructive.
Edward Selwyn—one of those scholars—wrote: “True criticism is really
constructive in its tendency. When it seems to destroy, it is only removing
materials from a doomed edifice to build a new and more enduring dwelling.”2
That is the goal of this survey. It is not a purist’s irrational devotion to an
abstract principle, but a practical critique in the hope of recalling something
more truthful and enduring—a digest and synthesis of the historic record that
explains the wantonness, horror, and play-acting that is both the past and current
state of the church. As is the case with any analysis leading to judgment, it does
not examine all details, but selects and sifts for those “significant in relation to
the point at issue.”3 It is too easy to get entangled by all the intricacies of history
and miss the bigger lessons it can teach us.
Adolf Deissmann explains that the words of Jesus were not recorded for
posterity in their original Aramaic because “Christianity, in becoming a world