Feb
23
2012
Un-churching of a Church
You should read John Piper’s new article “Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Wolfhart Pannenberg on Schism.” It is short, wise, biblical, and sobering.
The article also contains this powerful paragraph from Pannenberg on schism and the approval of homosexuality:
Here lies the boundary of a Christian church that knows itself to be bound by the authority of Scripture. Those who urge the church to change the norm of its teaching on this matter must know that they are promoting schism. If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. (“Should We Support Gay Marriage? No“)
Read the whole thing, especially if you belong, like me, to the RCA. These are trying times which call for courage.