Dialogue with a Mennonite on Christian Ecclesiology (Especially in the Early Church)

 Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15)
This exchange took place on Devin Rose's blog, in the combox of his review of my book, 100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura . Phil Wood is a Mennonite, and sometimes calls himself an Anabaptist as well. His words will be in blue. This dialogue is posted with Phil's express permission.

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Devin, as you know by now I’m no fan of Catholic/Protestant apologetic ping pong. I agree with your tack on this one for the first few steps, but part company half way through. It is quite right that Sola Scriptura is biblically untenable. I offer a loud ‘Amen’ to the role of the Church. Even a mainstream Conservative Evangelical scholar such as F.F. Bruce makes a cogent case for the importance of Tradition in ‘Scripture in Relation to Tradition and Reason’ (ed Dewery and Baukham, Scripture Tradition and Reason).
I do think you make a leap though, in assuming that ‘the Church’ is co-terminous with the views of the hierarchy. I’m coming at hermeneutics from below. I believe in a hermeneutic of peoplehood and (with Moltmann) that there is nothing higher than the congregation. The best example I can find of that perspective is found in John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom. I have also developed his theme of the ‘shape of conversation’.

I’m curious how this is squared with the Jerusalem Council in Scripture (Acts 15)? Are you saying that this council was strictly a temporary (and henceforth merely optional) expedient, and that St. Paul preached its results as binding (Acts 16:4), but then as history goes on all that is kaput and we go to a strictly congregational model?

That makes no sense to me. There is also all the scriptural data about Petrine primacy that seems to presuppose an overarching authority of one “super-bishop” and leader of the Church, so to speak. I lay that evidence out most succinctly in my “50 New Testament Proofs for the Primacy of Peter”.

I am somewhat surprised that you should use the example of the Council of Jerusalem. Of Peter, Paul and James it is the latter who takes the lead role. Acts 15:22 makes explicitly shows ‘the whole church’ engaged in the decision-making. 
I followed your link. My overall sense is that you are seeking biblical precedent to bolster the authority claims of a contemporary institution (i.e. it’s anachronistic). Petrine primacy is a phrase from a later period. As far as we know it was Clement of Rome who first used the term ‘lay’ to mean a non-minister in A.D.96. The idea of priestly ordination wasn’t fully complete until the 5th Century (as Herbert Haag points out). 
Congregationalism makes far more modest claims. One of the few passages in the Gospels which mentions ‘church’ (Matt 18.15-20) follows the rabbinic precedent of binding and loosing, focusing on ethical reasoning, pastoral care and conciliation. Where two or three gather together in the name of Christ, there Christ is present (Matt 18.20). I see no mention of clergy or super-bishops.
You didn’t reply to my direct questions; instead heading off onto various rabbit trails, of varying degrees of irrelevance; therefore I won’t answer yours (too busy anyway to get into this in depth today). It so happens that I just cited one of my arguments in the book in another discussion that had to do with the Jerusalem Council. I’ll quote it here again (slightly different from the book, as it is my final manuscript):

74. Paul’s Apostolic Calling Was Subordinated to the Larger Church and Was in Harmony with Peter

Paul’s ministry was not “self-validating.” He was initially commissioned by Peter, James, and John (Gal 2:9) to preach to the Gentiles. After his conversion, he went to Jerusalem specifically to see Peter (Gal 1:18). In Acts 15:2-3 we are told that “Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent their way by the church,” they went off on their assignment.

That is hardly consistent with the idea of Paul being the “pope” or leading figure in the hierarchy of authority; he was directed by others, as one under orders. When we see Paul and Peter together in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15:6-29), we observe that Peter wields an authority that Paul doesn’t possess.

We learn that “after there was much debate, Peter rose” to address the assembly (15:7). The Bible records his speech, which goes on for five verses. Then it reports that “all the assembly kept silence” (15:12). Paul and Barnabas speak next, not making authoritative pronouncements, but confirming Peter’s exposition, speaking about “signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles” (15:12). Then when James speaks, he refers right back to what “Simeon [Peter] has related” (15:14). Why did James skip right over Paul’s comments and go back to what Peter said? Paul and his associates are subsequently “sent off” by the Council, and they “delivered the letter” (15:30; cf. 16:4).

None of this seems consistent with the notion that Paul was above or even equal to Peter in authority. But it’s perfectly consistent with Peter’s having a preeminent authority. Paul was under the authority of the council, and Peter (along with James, as the Bishop of Jerusalem) presided over it. Paul and Barnabas were sent by “the church” (of Antioch: see 14:26). Then they were sent by the Jerusalem Council (15:25, 30) which was guided by the Holy Spirit (15:28), back to Antioch (15:30).

Just one more thing:

Acts 15:22 makes explicitly shows ‘the whole church’ engaged in the decision-making.

Yes, of course; but so what? This is the Catholic model: ecumenical councils make decisions (led and guided by the Holy Spirit), in tandem with the popes who preside and have “veto power.” It’s both/and.
The Council spoke for and to the entire Church. This is the whole point. Paul then proclaimed its edicts (in other regions; in this case, Asia Minor or modern-day Turkey, which was quite a ways away) as binding and obligatory upon all (Acts 16:4: “for observance”). If you want to say James was top dog at the council, fine. Even on that view, he is being a bishop (of Jerusalem), and presiding over a council that makes binding legal decisions, obligatory on all Christians everywhere. That ain’t congregationalism, sorry; it’s not even Presbyterianism [i.e., that form of Church government]. It is clearly episcopal / Catholic ecclesiology.

This precisely contradicts some notion of local congregationalism only. The problem is with your view of ecclesiology, not ours. Hence, you sidestepped the relevant issue and went into diverting side-issues.
Perhaps you didn’t intend to (people often wander off-topic to the detriment of constructive discourse and dialogue), but that was the result.

Dave,as I began by original contribution to this thread by expression disdain for ping pong I’m not going to go down the route of you say black and I say white. I think you’re beating the text into shape to make it serve the truth claims of a clerical elite. I’m a Mennonite writing from a UK and not a US context. Frankly, after thousands of years of Christendom truimphalism we have had enough of hierarchical church structures and forms of argumentation that resort to ‘our bishop is more purple than yours’.

Why comment at all, then, Phil, if you’re not willing to subject your positions to scrutiny and defend them? I don’t write this in any anger whatsoever, but in perfect calmness, and with true befuddlement. I always marvel at people who want to take their potshots at other views; then when challenged back, appeal to a calm, “above the fray” non-involvement ethos, as if their initial comments were not getting involved in the discussion.

So you were involved in this thread, but really not. You entered the discussion but in fact never did . . . I can’t be faulted for simply responding to your critique, in any event.

Hi Dave, I apologize if I was unclear. I’m looking over what I said in my previous comment and I agree with you; it’s inconsistent. I suspect the business of arguing back and forth, point by point would take up more time than either of us have. I’m in something of a cleft stick where this blog is concerned, as Devin knows from my previous comments. Fundamentally I don’t believe apologetics is an appropriate form of Christian communication. I am very much an unreconstructed liberal wishing for the good old days of enthusiastic ecumenism. At the same time, I think it’s important for Christians of different traditions not to retreat into our comfort zones.

There are clearly disagreements between us. Broadly, I believe we have stumbled over centuries of scaffolding and encrustation where the ‘Council of Jerusalem’ is concerned. The phrase ‘Council of Jerusalem’, is after all a later interpretation of what went on. I am wary of attempts to impose a model (e..g. the Calvinist fourfold ministry) on a 1st Century picture than was almost certainly far more fluid and eclectic than attempts at systematization allow.

My sense of ‘befuddlement’ lies mainly in why it should matter so much to ‘prove’ Petrine Primacy. Is this a way of arguing us back to Rome? What is your objective?


Fair enough. I appreciate the clarification.

I’m as ecumenical as you are, which is why I just completed the book, The Quotable Wesley : presently under serious consideration by a Protestant publisher. There is no fundamental conflict between ecumenism and apologetics, though for some odd reason lots of folks seem to think there is.

Last Friday we had a very friendly discussion at my house with three atheists (one the main presenter) and about a dozen Catholics. That’s about as ecumenical as it gets, I think.

I agree that there was fluidity in early ecclesiology, and stated that in my first book, written in 1996. We would fully expect this, because ecclesiology developed, just as all theology did. That said, the outlines of the later episcopal structure of Christian government is remarkably evident in the New Testament. See my Appendix Two from A Biblical Defense of Catholicism : The Visible, Hierarchical, Apostolic Church.



Apologetics is thoroughly biblical, as I have, I think, demonstrated many times. “Contend earnestly for the faith” (Jude 3). “Stand ready to make a defense [apologia] for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Paul argued and disputed endlessly with Jews and Greeks; he didn’t simply preach. Jesus argued with Pharisees, and engaged and challenged them. Paul defended his Christian views at great length at his trial. It’s all very biblical. In fact, the word apologia is the same one that was the title of Plato’s famous book, detailing Socrates’ defense of himself at his own trial.

My “objective” (since you asked) is to seek truth and follow it wherever it leads. Period. End of story. I defend what I believe to be the fullness of Christian truth (Catholicism) because I think it is better to reside in the fullness than not to: that truth (along with love) is a wonderful, godly end that all should seek with all their might. We all [should] proclaim and defend what we believe in good faith to be true. If I am convinced that the fullness of truth lies elsewhere, then I surely will move to that position, just as I moved from religious nominalism / paganism to evangelicalism, and from that to Catholicism.

It’s all by God’s grace. I proclaim and defend, as an apologist / evangelist. God moves hearts as He wills, and as human free will allows, in cooperation with God’s grace. But (like Paul) “woe to me if I preach not the gospel” because this is my calling.

Is it okay with you if I put our dialogue on my blog (it’s already public here, anyway)? I can include your name or not, as you wish. I think it is an exchange that might be of some value to others. I am a great advocate of putting up dialogues and letting people decide where truth lies.

Dave, you are welcome to include the dialogue on your blog. It may also give me an opportunity to contribute in some more detail on some of the knotty ecclesiology we have touched on. I’ll place your blog on my blogroll. It’s an interesting discussion, partly because I’m not coming at this from a mainstream Protestant perspective. 
As for Apologetics, I entirely agree with your helpful biblical summary. Where I have concerns lies in interface between Apologetics and ecumenism. I have a strong sense, in talking to some Traditionalist Catholic interlocutors, that Apologetics have supplanted ecumenism. As you will gather from my own blog (and blogroll) I have an extensive range of Catholic contacts. My wife Anna is Roman Catholic. I wish you well with the writing. I also have a book in process at present – The Gospel of Slow. 
I sometimes wonder why I have stuck with this blog for so long. In large part it’s because I have always found Devin gracious and fair. To be honest, some of the discussion has been bruising, because I’m frequently expressing a minority viewpoint. God forbid, five hundred years after the Reformation, that disunity should ever be seen as ‘normal’. Speaking as an Anabaptist can be a painful in-between place – as Walter Klaasen said, ‘neither Catholic nor Protestant’. I believe there is something in that experience of value across the ecumenical spectrum, as all of us encounter a sense of loss and marginality after Christendom.
If you'd like to continue the discussion, that would be great. From where I sit, the "hard questions" I asked about the Jerusalem Council still remain to be dealt with. I'm curious how an advocate of congregational government would answer those. You can always concede that you don't  have any answers to my questions; that's fine, too. :-)


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