Membership as Covenant: Where We Stand and Why

In a previous post, I discussed passages from the Bible and the theological reasoning behind church membership. In this blog, I will focus on the covenantal dimension to church membership that

The task of a theologian (and every Christian for that matter) is to make sense of the whole Bible, to show unity in its diversity. Because the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament were written over a period of roughly 1,000 years, identifying a single metaphor that shows complementarity with the New Testament is a daunting task. One fruitful and enduring theme to express harmony is covenant.

A covenant is an oath-bound agreement between individuals and/or parties. God covenants with Noah and Abraham; He covenants with Israel’s kings. The patriarchs and Hebrew kings make covenants with other kings. There is debate concerning the inauguration of the first covenant in the Bible. Did it happen in human history or even in eternity (Ephesians 1:4)? Chronologically, the first explicit mention of covenant in the Old Testament is in Genesis 9:9, yet the 8th century B.C. the prophet Hosea could say, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me,” (Hosea 6:7), indicating that God covenanted with the first man. A similar import is from Isaiah 24:5 “The earth lies defiled under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant.”

Some covenants were conditional in nature. In 1 Kings 2:4, David charged Solomon, saying, “if your sons pay close attention to their way, to walk before me in faithfulness with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel.” Others were unconditional. In 2 Samuel 7:15–16, Nathan the prophet spoke of a future Davidic king saying, “but my steadfast love will not depart from him…and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. You throne shall be established forever.”

From their beginnings in the 17th century, Baptist churches wrote covenants that served to establish the terms of membership and the beliefs that constituted the church. Because each autonomous congregation did not have recourse to an ecclesial body that could appoint or remove pastors, seize property, or excommunicate heretics, a Baptist church was in essence, as good as its word. While this approach appeared to provide meager grounds for unity with other churches, hundreds, and eventually thousands of churches adopted identical confessions of faith. If you attend most Baptist churches today, you will find a strong degree of theological consistency among members and leaders. There are numerous reasons for this model’s durability, and usefulness. I will briefly discuss two of them.

A church’s theological identify is consistent and recognizable

People often wonder what a particular congregation believes and either cannot know because the church has no official doctrinal statements (in print or on a website), or because a formal process to vet prospective members or remove errant ones does not exist. Men or women can claim an array of diverse beliefs, many of which may contradict the beliefs of others.

In many churches, a denomination has an official set of beliefs that a higher body (Presbytery or Synod for example) crafts, but to which few assent. In fact, some may not even know the church’s official positions on given issues. There is inconsistency, for example, between the Roman Catholic Church’s official teaching on contraception and what most Catholics believe.

One solution to this dichotomy is proper instruction and if necessary, discipline for obstinate dissenters. The other option is to adjust and/or clarify doctrine. In both instances, a church strives to assure that an individual Christian’s confession is in accord with some authoritative standard. Without correction, a congregation will invariably devolve into a club, social or otherwise, that has little, if anything objective to say about God. 

Evangelical churches who do not have membership are often subject to the theological whims of charismatic pastors. If parishioners are simply loyal to a leader, they may adjust their beliefs accordingly. The perils of this (cultish) scenario are obvious. Most men or women who attend a church expect a pastor to have settled convictions, not introduce new private revelations. But without a membership document of some kind, there is little recourse when or if a pastor goes rogue. This brings us to the second, and often overlooked value of church membership.   

A pastor’s own theology is subject to the membership covenant

Do you know your pastor’s theological beliefs? You could ask him in detail, but most folks don’t have the time for that. A pastor’s sermons are a primary source. Years can go by, however, and some doctrines are never addressed from the pulpit, especially if he isn’t preaching through books of the Bible. If the congregation does not ask, the pastor may not tell.    

Over a century ago, Washington Gladden (1836–1918), a theologically-liberal Congregationalist pastor criticized “credal orthodoxies” (e.g., doctrines that members must believe) that churches required of pastors. Such statements compelled ministers to “hide the truth that they really believe.”[1] Gladden’s admission is both humorous and tragic. This pastor did not believe the creed yet pretended to. The congregation believed in the creed, but the pastor privately rejected it. There are two ways to resolve the dilemma: discard the creed or dismiss the pastor. Gladden advocated for the former. His church agreed.

An unfortunate, yet common misconception is that lay members do not have the same relationship to the church covenant (e.g., membership) as the pastors. Under such an asymmetrical scheme, pastors operate as members a distinct class. They decide the terms of membership and can tinker with the details. Or in the case of Washington Gladden, members are overawed by their pastor’s learning or force of personality that they eventually cave.

When church membership is understood in covenantal terms, the resolve to “stake a claim” about doctrine equips believers to resist elements of our culture that deny the gospel. We are consequently reminded of the promises we made to God and to each other.

[1] Cited in Gary Dorrien, The Making Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion (1805-1900), 280.