It’s funny isn’t it? People were fairly relaxed about me writing articles reflecting on issues around flags, marches and nationalist ideology. However, as soon as I suggested that this should lead to action, specifically that church networks should not partner with, or include in their number, those who endorse and align with the far right and specifically with fascism or ethno-cultural nationalism,then I got some pushback.
The pushback I got included a question over whether I would exercise church discipline and then whether or not I was right to suggest that ethno-cultural nationalism was idolatrous (offering a false gospel and a false god). I was told that the burden of proof lay with me. So, I thought it would be helpful to deal with those things.
First, it is worth noting that my initial argument was not focused on church discipline but on networks and partnerships. There are numerous issues which specific church networks exclude and include, including ecclesiastical structure and polity, views on gifts and gender roles which would not be church discipline matters but are significant enough for a network.
Incidentally, to make such a decision does not require comment on specific news stories. For me, events this summer have flagged up where we are seeing an issue arising. However, we can disagree on whether flags and specific marches were promoting a false ideology whilst recognising that the ideology itself is false.
My point at this stage is simply that we should be able to categorise far right ideology as something we would separate on even if it is not a discipline issue.
I would however, argue that it is a discipline issue. Now, I happen to argue this because I consider it a matter of idolatry and a false gospel. I have begun to argue as to why this is so in other articles and plan to continue to develop this argument. However, it is not necessary to make this argument in order to argue for partnership conditions or church discipline. In the New Testament, we see a couple of examples where church discipline is called for including sexual immorality and divisive talk. Now, I think you can build a case for how both of those do reflect idolatry and distortion of the Gospel but Paul feels no pressure to make that argument in order to say that they are wrong and to insist on discipline. Again, if New Frontiers say that being cessationist is incompatible with being part of their church network or FIEc that egalitarians can’t join their Pastors’ Network, this does not mean that they think those who disagree are idolatrous.
And now we come to the question of burden of proof. Is the burden of proof with me? Well, remember that there is nothing new about the far right today. Names may have changed and organisations come and gone: National Front, BNP, EDL but there has been a consistency to who is involved, tactics, rhetoric and underlying ideology.
If I had suggested in the past that you couldn’t be a BNP or EDL member and part of an Evangelical network or indeed a church member then I doubt that would be controversial. Similarly, I think we could look back historically to those who marched with Oswald Mosley at Cable Street and see that as not consistent with Christian faith and living. Therefore, it is those who are seeking to suggest we should be okay with or even positive towards things like Unite The Kingdom who are pushing something entirely novel. The burden of proof lies with them to make their case. So far they have not
I will come back to questions of ideology and idolatry but in the meantime, it is clear that there is no reason for us to partner with or include in church membership those who align with fascism or ethno-cultural nationalism. This includes those who tag the word Christian in front of that nationalism.
Faithroots 