David Stone with some lessons from the past about church co-operation
At the end of the Gospels, Jesus commissions his followers to ‘make disciples of all nations’.
Churches follow that commission today, working together in gospel partnership to proclaim his name. But how should churches best co-operate? Can churches co-operate and still believe the Bible teaches that they should be independently governed?
Our generation is not the first to face these questions. There is recent history of churches working together, but over time moving from groups of independent churches to regulated denominations. The two biggest groupings of independent churches during the Victorian era were the Baptist Union of Great Britain (BUGB) and the Congregational Union of England & Wales (CUEW), now part of the United Reformed Church. If you were an independent evangelical during the 19th century, then chances are you would have been in one of these groups.
Both started the 19th century as groups of independent churches and ended it as denominations with increasing control over their churches. What does this movement teach us about church co-operation, and what can we learn from it today? This article will be of most interest to those who believe the Bible teaches that the members of a local church hold the final authority (Congregationalists), but it raises questions for all types of churches.
In this first article, of two, we’re going to look at the history of these groups, then next month we’re going to consider lessons to learn from them.
Revival
We begin with the evangelical revival of the 18th century. While for many churches it brought new evangelistic vigour, it also brought two changes which influenced later years. The first was a strong desire for cross-church evangelical outreach, which tended to play down any secondary issues such as church government. The second was the growing number of churchgoers with no affinity to any particular denomination or creed. Both these factors tended to push away from the importance of church government and towards a focus solely on conversion. How importantly do our churches today view the secondary issues?
The 19th century
Despite the blurring of boundaries, as the 19th century began, churches outside Anglicanism could still broadly be classified into three groups: the Congregationalists (also known as the Independents); the Presbyterians; and the Baptists. All three groups were committed to Reformed theology as outlined in the Savoy Declaration (Congregationalists), the Westminster Confession (Presbyterians) and the 1689 Baptist Confession. Denominational unions did not arise from nowhere, but rather from established groups of churches who knew each other and already co-operated locally.
Formation
The CUEW was formed in 1809 and the BUGB in 1812. The CUEW started with a commitment to ‘the interest of the kingdom of Christ’ and ‘the principle of the independ-ency of every church … inviolably maintained.’ Likewise, the BUGB had a firm commitment to congregational government and was explicitly both Reformed and Particular.
In 1831 the CUEW adopted a statement of faith as ‘representative’ of the faith of the churches forming the Union. Reading it, we notice firstly its lack of theological precision (compared with the Savoy Declaration) and secondly that it was emphatically not a creed, a doctrinal statement to which all must subscribe. It had no power to bind ministers or congregations, and no assent to it was required. It was simply a statement of the majority theological view of Congregationalists at one particular time. We will see later the significance of this.
We see a similar pattern within the BUGB. A revised constitution was published in 1835, where union was established between churches ‘who agree in the sentiments usually denominated evangelical’. The BUGB confessional basis was dropped, partly because it stood in the way of them cooperating with other groups. Again this challenges us to consider our own attitude to creeds; how important do we think they are in our church life? How in-depth should they be? Is it enough to work with all churches who define themselves as ‘evangelical’ if this is not further explained?
Theological crisis
By around the 1850s, for both the BUGB and CUEW, Calvinism was in decline, accompanied by a dwindling interest in systematic theology. This movement came to a head in a crisis for both Unions; the Leicester Conference for the CUEW and the Downgrade Controversy for the BUGB.
Because Downgrade is more widely known, we’re going to look at the Leicester Conference. In 1877, a group of Congregationalist ministers called a conference to promote church co-operation based on experience rather than theology (an aim not unfamiliar for us today). In response to the conference, the CUEW met to debate their own identity. Were they a group united by their views on church government, or because they were evangelicals who happened to be Congregationalists? The issue of creed again raised its head. How could a body committed to the theological independence of the local church impose a standard for belief? If not, were they bound to accept any theological position within their churches?
The CUEW hoped that by stating their evangelical beliefs, those who no longer shared them would leave. However, despite claiming that they still kept their founding beliefs, it seems the CUEW leadership had lost faith in them. In the light of this, it’s not surprising that no church left the Union because they had become too liberal for it. The Union was then in an impossible position. The only option open to enforce orthodoxy, that of a creedal test backed up by the threat of removal from the Union, was that which it could not take because of its own avowal of creeds. Many of the leadership did-n’t even believe their creeds anyway! In the second article of this series, we will consider in more detail what this means for us today.
Centralisation
Between 1890 and 1918 the pace of change within both Unions accelerated. In 1891, the BUGB (begun as Calvinistic) merged with the General Baptists (avowedly Arminian). The bodies united, but the only clear basis for union seems to have been ‘evangelicalism’ (a fairly elastic term) and believers’ baptism. Theological distinctives had not been overcome by consensus, but rather by theological apathy, both groups forgetting what had made them distinctive in the first place. It should have been possible to create a confessional union which respected both parties’ theological distinctives. The fact that they didn’t reflected a choice for co-operation at the expense of theological clarity. Again, are we doing this today? Would we prefer the easy win of working together and burying theology, or the harder job of engaging with theological difference?
For the Congregationalists, a focus on unity based on Christian experience, and a collapse in confidence in the Bible, led to a strong desire for ecumenical partnerships. After making no progress with a union with the Anglicans, eventually in 1972 CUEW merged with the Presbyterian Church of England to form the United Reformed Church (URC). We only have to compare the statement of faith of the URC with the Savoy Declaration to see the extent of the change undergone.
By the 1920s both Unions were in a position of strength over their churches. There was far more centralised policy and churches received far more guidance from above. Ministers were increasingly hired, trained and paid for by denominations. Superintendents and Moderators were proposed, as ‘a first step towards Free Church bishops’. There were increasing calls for united denominations ‘comprising everything congregational throughout the land.’ The independence of the local church was in decline.
For Baptists, the process of centralisation was perhaps less total and BUGB churches today are more independent than their URC counterparts. However, they too have moved a long way from their Particular Baptist roots.
If you are part of an independent church today, the experience of the Baptists and Congregationalists should be a challenge. Do you see independency as a biblical tool for preserving the gospel? Can we learn the dangers from the past of ignoring theology for the sake of working together?
