Lloyd-Jones, evangelical unity, and the loss of ecclesiology

Over at Against Heresies, Martin Downes has been reflecting on Martin Lloyd Jones and the split with evangelical Anglicanism (Stott in 1966 and Packer in ’70) that had, and continues to have, such profound consequences for British evangelicalism. Martin has done us a particular service in reproducing Lloyd Jones’ momentous address at the 1966 Evangelical Alliance meeting which precipitated the division.

Re-reading that address, there is much with which to agree. Having trained for the ministry in the theologically mixed Church of Scotland, but eventually ministering in the conservative Free Church of Scotland, and now Presbyterian Church in America, I agree with Lloyd Jones that on-paper-affirmations of doctrinal points left deliberately ambiguous to allow widely differing interpretations, is no basis for church unity.

Evangelicals ought not to tolerate visible unity with those who reject the gospel.  Agreed.

But from a confessional presbyterian vantage point, Lloyd Jones’ alternative does not satisfy. From where I stand, the diagnosis of the problem is better than the suggested treatment of the disease. Lloyd Jones’ alternative to compromised mainline denominations was to call  evangelicals in Britain to visible church unity among themselves. But it was not, notice carefully, a call for denominational connection among churches. He wanted evangelicals to set aside secondary distinctives and unite together…

“And who knows but that the ecumenical movement may be something for which, in years to come, we shall thank God because it made us face our problems on the church level instead of on the level of movements, and really brought us together as a fellowship, or an association, of evangelical churches. May God speed the day.”

He wants a ‘fellowship and association of evangelical churches’ to replace both mixed denominations on the one hand and a casual co-operation of churches across denominational lines on the other.

What has always bothered me about that call however, as pious as it sounds, is that it requires the rejection of a connectional ecclesiology.  It is a call to Congregationalism by default.  

Lloyd Jones’ rhetoric makes it seem overly narrow,  ungodly even, to insist on certain ‘secondary’ distinctives. Paedo-baptism involves a doctrine of the church that is incompatible with credo-baptist ecclesiology.  Presbyterian polity is incompatible with independency. Elder-led churches are incompatible with popular vote congregationalists. This is not to make minor things major and needlessly divide the Body over secondary issues. This is rather to insist that the Bible teaches an ecclesiology as well as a soteriology.

Ironically one of the common features of both Lloyd Jones and the evangelical Anglican brethren with whom he parted ways was the absence of a robust doctrine of the church. British evangelicalism has never recovered from the marginalizing of ecclesiology that took place in that era.

What is fascinating as one observes the spread of the Gospel Coalition/Together for the Gospel movements in the States, and the Gospel Partnership movement in the United Kingdom is that it appears to be the triumph of a Lloyd Jonesian solution to challenges facing evangelicalism.

While I do not wish to minimize the value of those conferences and movements among brethren of like mind for gospel ends, I do want to insist that the church is the institution Christ has appointed for the advancement of his Kingdom. If we really take that seriously we will immediately ask, “What ought that church to look like? How ought it to be governed? How do we ‘do church’ faithfully?”

While I recognize that those questions have been answered differently by different streams of the evangelical movement I would much rather have a Baptist be a robust and consistent Baptist about baptism and membership and church government, and then be able to have open and loving dialogue about our real differences, than sweep those differences under the carpet and ‘just get along’.

I simply cannot see how else to say that we love the local church without also saying that we believe the local church should function this way and not that way. Let’s love the church enough to have a clear ecclesiology!

The one thing that is so urgently needed now is not another conference or another movement across denominational lines. What is really needed is a clear and unashamed articulation of robust, catholic, Reformed, ecclesiology.