Freedom of Conscience
On January 5th 1527 Felix Mantz, who was one of three of the initial leaders of the ‘Anabaptist’ movement in Switzerland during the reformation, was charged with re-baptising people. The Magistrate condemned him because in the Magistrate’s opinions Mantz’s doctrines were contrary to Scripture, contrary to the entire Christian tradition, and furthermore caused nothing but uproar and disunity . He walked to the river with courage, praising God and preaching to his assembled audience, all the while being encouraged by his mother and his brother. Upon Arriving at the lakes edge he started to sing his favourite Latin hymn of praise. He was tied up and thrown into the icy waters of Lake Geneva. He was the first ‘Protestant’ martyr, killed at the hands of Protestants.
Why?
Everybody born in the West in the 1500’s was a member of church. There was no separation between the church and the state. The kings ruled the church under the pope. The Baptists in England and the Anabaptists before them in Europe believed in a church that was made up only of those who had decided to become a follower of Jesus. Everybody was a ‘Christian’. Everyone was baptised as a baby. However not everybody was a ‘follower of Jesus’.
These (ana)baptists believed that the church should be made up of people that have made a decision to follow Jesus. Their belief was based on the understanding that the Bible was the sole authority on matters of religion or religious conscience. Which came first is a matter for debate, but both are fundamentally important to understand what Baptists are about. We will be talking more about the concept of the church in the next few weeks.
So how were they to determine who was a ‘follower of Jesus’ or really a Christian from the mass of people in society? For the early Baptists it was done through a decision to take baptism. They saw in the scriptures that baptism was a decision people made and they sort to do likewise. This decision led to great suffering. Why? One reason was that there was no sense in amongst those who ruled that people should be able to make such decisions. It was seen as an act of treason and rebellion. It was seen as undermining society. Baptismal records were the only records people had of existence. If people were undermining these records, through starting their own, or not having their kids baptised, how could any ruler know who was who? There are a number of other reasons, for example under Papal law the farms had to give ‘the tithe’ one tenth of all produce to the church. These people rejected the Catholic Church’s use of the Old Testament and hence rejected these laws as well. These people were costing the society money. These rebellious people must suffer. And suffer they did. Like the way that we have just read.
Last week we looked at the concept of Scriptural authority, that Scripture is the way through which Jesus rules over his church. Today we are looking at how that plays out in the lives of the individual. There are really two concepts which are important and we will look at them both together.
The first is the idea of soul competency. What that means is that God has gifted each person with the ability to read and with the help of the Holy Spirit understand scripture. The second idea comes along with that, is that if we can read and understand then we should have the freedom to act according to that, our conscience becomes the basis for interpreting Scripture. And I think we saw that in some of the passages that Leni read for us today. (1 Cor 8:7-11, 1 Cor 10:23-31, 2 Cor 4:2)
It doesn’t mean that everybody will have complete knowledge of Scripture, but that God will speak to them, through the Scripture, through his Holy Spirit, in a way in which each person will know enough to have a relationship with him, like Jesus did, and through that relationship go to heaven. This was in reaction to the prevailing view of the church which was that only the ‘authorised’ teachers could read, interpret and understand the bible. This is still current in some people’s thinking today.
In Scripture we find teaching on how we do things when we gather. How we should live our lives. How we enter into a relationship with God. These things are all written about in Scripture and people during the Reformation started to read the Scriptures and started to think, ‘I can understand this. This doesn’t match with what the church is telling me to do. I think I’ll do things differently, the way I think Jesus taught they should be done.’ And they thought that others should likewise be free to do things the way they think the God, through the Scriptures has taught us to do things.
This is really the basis for the idea of freedom of conscience. And today I want to share some of the ways it works out in the life of the church.
The first thing is that as a church we don’t believe that we can tell other people what they should believe, except maybe that they should read the Scriptures and figure out what they are telling them. If we are to hold to our beliefs as Baptists we hold that it is up to individuals to read the Scriptures and follow whatever we they wish. This might include rejecting the Scriptures, but they are free to do that it is between them and God. We can try and persuade, we can teach what we believe, but we can’t tell them that this is everything there is to know. Period.
The second thing is that in the difference between acceptance into church membership and the freedom of conscience. Just because we believe that you can interpret Scripture the way you wish to, doesn’t mean that we, as a church, have to accept your interpretation. It works both ways. You are free. The church, as a corporate identity is free. And the church has defined a set of beliefs that they hold as central. Anybody holding to these central beliefs is free to join. Outside of these central beliefs there is freedom. Although I suspect that we as a church have more work to do on what we do with people with some beliefs outside of the ‘unofficially accepted’ interpretation.
Now the beliefs that our constitution lay out as fundamental are … Divine inspiration of Scriptures, the triune God, accepted Christian Christology, sinfulness of humanity, Jesus’ atonement, work of the Holy Spirit in conversion and life, immortality of the soul, the return of Christ, baptism and the Lord’s supper.
It doesn’t say anything about having pews. It doesn’t say anything about singing hymns. It doesn’t say anything about drinking alcohol. It doesn’t say anything about the interpretation of the Greek word, porneia which is the big ‘problem’ most Baptists will have with the theology of the Uniting church in Australia. These are issues mostly of conscience and culture and issues that need to be worked out as a church for the good of the church.
I want to give an unlikely example about how this might work out in church life. Say somebody starts reading the Old Testament and starts reading about various sacrifices. Say this person is a butcher by trade and used to cutting animals. Say this person at work one days starts to think about the OT’s teaching on sacrifice and is cutting up an animal and feels a real sense of cleansing from ‘doing a sacrifice’. They wonder if this might be in the New Testament and read about the first believes being in the temple day by day and think, well maybe they were sacrificing in the temple day by day – they had to eat something. Then later this person reads about Paul going to the temple and fulfilling his vow, which probably involved sacrificing. Then this person makes the interpretation that based on his or her honest view of Scripture that getting a sense of being cleansed by sin and feeling the full impact of Jesus’ death, through killing an animal is OK from the Bible. How do we deal with such a person?
Well firstly I’d tell them to read Hebrews, but assuming that they still feel that this is acceptable behaviour I don’t think that we can tell this person to stop doing it. Particularly if there is nothing cruel about the way it is being done and the meat is being used in an appropriate way. Now of course it is a pastoral issue to continue to encourage this person to grow in their understanding of Christ and his death and what that means to them.
Problems start arising if this person wants to start bringing sacrifice into the service. OK, we are going to have a meal together, let’s get some really fresh meat! Let’s all participate and get the feeling of seeing something dying for sins. At this point the church can intervene and say; ‘well it isn’t up to you to impose your views on others. Others have the freedom not to be involved in such stuff and the church has the freedom to not have such things involved in the service.’
Another problem can occur if this person then wants to represent the others in the church, or lead others in the way we do things. As a church we need people to step up and take leadership over various aspects of church life. John, Grant and I can do so much but if we want to be more affective it will take the skills and abilities of others to contribute. Who the church chooses to take these leadership positions is also comes under the freedom of the church. The church needs to choose those who are fairly consistent with the understanding of the majority of members. And if somebody seems to be showing a major difference in their understanding of Scripture to the rest of the church, it isn’t a good idea for that person to take a leadership role within the community. It will lead to confusion and doubt, particularly in those who are trying to discover what the community is about.
So what does this mean for each of us as an individual in the church? Well part of our role as a member of the church is to bring our individual perspective to the group. It mightn’t always be accepted by others but contributing allows others to consider and broaden their perspective as well as allowing others to maybe help us refine our understanding of Scripture or church practise.
You see soul competency doesn’t deny is the reality of each person having a unique life. Each person has a different cultural background; each person has different relationships with parents and grandparents, different languages or even combinations of languages. All these things impact the way we read and therefore understand Scripture. It can blind us to some things and open our eyes to others. If my eyes are closed to some thing that your eyes are open to, if we share I can learn. Likewise if your eyes are close to some thing that mine are open you can learn as well. And I just don’t mean me as pastor. I mean each one of us sharing with others.
The other thing we need to do is accept the majority decision, in so far as it affects life of community, as opposed to individual faith life. For some things you might differ from the rest of us, or at least the majority of us. And so for that thing we need to accept that. For me, one example is the pews in the church. I would be happy to get rid of them, the majority at the moment are happy with them there. I think that in time that will change. However for now I need to accept that decision. I can’t just go and act without permission and get rid of them.
So what is the role of the pastor in a Baptist church? Well part of the role is in teaching but not commanding. The authority of the church to decide who does what, or who represents the church doesn’t lie with the pastor but with the people. Traditionally, the pastor is only here at the invitation of the people, not the people here to serve the pastor’s vision.
My job is to teach and encourage. The church’s job is to continue to learn and grow in response to how the Scriptures are speaking to us.
