reformation.
The purpose of the ban seen in this last clause is consonant with the Spirit’s work. The confession further clarifies that the goal of this harsh practice is not that the individual be condemned but that he repent and reform. This should not be carried out, the same document tells us, as if these persons are enemies but precisely because they are siblings, in hope that they might know and turn from their sins, “so that they may become reconciled to God, and consequently be received again into the church.”
Without whitewashing the hazard of perfectionism and the inherent potential for abuse, we must acknowledge that the ban functions as an example of a point at which these historic Anabaptist confessions describe the interweaving of the actions of the church and the actions of God.51 God works through the discipline of the church; likewise, as the “habitation of God in Spirit,” the Christian community is the place where God is present. Obviously, the concept of ecclesial mediation is not entirely foreign to the Anabaptist tradition. This is quite remarkable since many of these early Anabaptists would have been keenly aware of the violent and stifling potential of this assumption.52
The view of church discipline in the contemporary Anabaptist denominational documents introduced in the last chapter resonates with the theology of these two historic statements. These resonances occur under a variety of topical headings including, “Discipline within the Church,” “Discipleship,” or “Mutual Accountability.” The strictures have softened since the seventeenth century, but theological similarities remain. The Conservative Conference’s statement of practice is one example:
We believe Jesus Christ has given authority to His church to exercise corrective discipline within the community of believers. This discipline is intended to bring those who are in error to repentance, helping them to receive the forgiveness, grace, and love that are available in Jesus . . . At any point if the erring one hears the admonitions brought and repents, he/she is restored to full fellowship with Christ and His church. The purposes of discipline include maintaining the integrity and witness of the church, restoring to fellowship those who are in error, building faithfulness in the believers, and strengthening godly teaching and conduct.53
Similarly, the “Confession of Faith” used by the Mennonite Church in Canada and the United States reads:
We believe that the practice of discipline in the church is a sign of God’s offer of forgiveness and transforming grace to believers who are moving away from faithful discipleship or who have been overtaken by sin. Discipline is intended to liberate erring brothers and sisters from sin, to enable them to return to a right relationship with God, and to restore them to fellowship in the church. It also gives integrity to the church’s witness and contributes to the credibility of the gospel message in the world.54
In this statement the meaning of the word “sign” is clarified by the fact that discipline is said to “liberate,” “enable,” and “restore.” In this context, the ecclesial practice of discipline is more than a testimony or a memorial: it effects what it signifies. Anabaptists believe that the discipline of the church is a sacrament.
Both historic and contemporary Anabaptism contains elements of theology and practice in which it is recognized that God’s sanctifying task is furthered by the church community. This is the high ecclesiology by which some Anabaptist groups are recognized to be more Catholic than Protestant. The extract above from the “Confession of Faith” is an example of the church’s concrete involvement in liberating individuals from bondage to sin. In this practice, Anabaptist groups approach a clear naming of the church community as a body through which God acts. It might seem as if we need only to apply the theology of church discipline to Christian initiation to recover the objective elements of baptism. In a limited sense this is true, but it is also simplistic.
These contemporary documents do not offer many general statements about the function of the church in the divine economy. At one point the “Confession of Faith” used by Mennonite denominations in the United States and Canada comes close. Under the heading “Discipleship and the Christian Life,” it says, “The experience of God through the Holy Spirit, prayer, Scripture, and the church empowers us and teaches us how to follow Christ.” Despite being one of the strongest statements in this regard, it is important to notice what it does not say: it does not say that we experience the Spirit through the fellowship of the congregation; it does not say that we learn to pray in the congregation; it does not say that we learn to rightly read Scripture by participating in congregational life. This confession does not say these things because it seems not to assume that Christians learn to follow Jesus in the presence of others. In fact, the statement that directly precedes the one just quoted reads: “We believe that Jesus Christ calls us to take up our cross and follow him. Through the gift of God’s saving grace, we are empowered to be disciples of Jesus, filled with his Spirit, following his teachings and his path through suffering to new life. As by faith we walk in Christ’s way, we are being transformed into his image. We become conformed to Christ, faithful to the will of God, and separated from the evil in the world.” This is the lead paragraph in this confession describing “Discipleship and the Christian Life.” It is only in the context of an individualized, spiritual encounter with Jesus that the church is named as a way in which people “experience God.” The nature of response to the call of Jesus as stated here almost disregards the church.
The Brethren in Christ, like other Anabaptists, affirm the church’s role as a disciplining body. Under the heading “Nature of the Church” their denominational statement says, “The objective of church discipline is to restore the erring church member and to maintain the integrity and purity of the church’s fellowship and witness.”55 In contrast to this, the view propounded under the heading “Coming to Faith” describes initiation in faith as an individual process involving personal encounter with God. The Spirit is invoked as the causal bridge between the unseen realm of divine activity and the gritty physical world of repentance and obedience, the church—the visible community of Christ’s followers—fades from view. In a relevant part of the “Coming to Faith” section we read:
The salvation graciously provided by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ becomes effective in our lives by the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit who prepares us for faith in Jesus Christ. He awakens us to our need, enables us to acknowledge our guilt, and calls us to respond to God in faith and obedience. The response of faith is a personal reliance on God’s grace and a turning from sin to righteousness . . . [Repentance] is expressed in genuine sorrow, forsaking sin, and a change in attitude toward God, preparing for the continuing ministry of the Holy Spirit. Repentance includes a willingness for reconciliation and restitution.
As in the “Mennonite Confession” this portion of the Brethren in Christ “Articles of Faith and Doctrine” fails to parallel what is said about church discipline.
The confession used by the Mennonite Brethren is another example. It declares, “By calling his followers to take up the cross, Christ invites them to reject the godless values of the world and offer themselves to God in a life of service. The Holy Spirit, who lives in every Christian, empowers believers to overcome the acts and attitudes of the sinful nature.”56 Again the place of the church’s mediation of God is filled by an individualistic and incomprehensible spiritual encounter. By describing this as “incomprehensible” I aim to point out the vagaries of the language of the Spirit’s empowerment. It has no specified location, characteristic features, or physical signals. It is not clear when, how, or where the individual meets this empowerment. In other contemporary Anabaptist documents the church’s mediating role is taken not by this sort of encounter with the Spirit, but more brutishly by a sort of individual voluntariety. This language shows up quite clearly in the Brethren in Christ statement when it says, “The response of faith is a personal reliance on God’s grace and a turning from sin to righteousness.” The “Confession of Faith” of the Mennonite denominations includes a statement comparable in tone that demonstrates similar reliance upon the individual’s will: “Conformity to Christ necessarily implies
