Discipline Within the Church

DISCIPLINE WITHIN THE CHURCH

"Vicar casts out adulterers from his flock" announced the headline of page three of the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, 14th June 1994.

The article went on to describe how the Vicar, the Revd Peter Irwin-Clark, had "told his congregation not to associate with two of his 600 strong flock who (had) left their spouses to live with each other".

The reason for his action was to persuade the couple to repent. "I am doing as I would with my own children" he said, "in sending them upstairs to their rooms and saying they can come down when they say they are sorry".

"The Church is a family", he continued. "I don't want them to stay in their rooms for ever. I want them to come back and say they are sorry".

The article concluded with a Church of England spokesman offering the bland comment that Mr lrwin-Clark's action was "quite unusual".

Is that all we can say? "Quite unusual"?

Surely the action of the Revd Peter lrwin-Clark raises the whole question of the place of personal and corporate discipline within the life of the Christian community.

Like any organisation, whether it be a golf club, the Masonic Lodge or a Rotary Club, the Church has always had the right to expel from its fellowship, those members who wilfully set at naught its decisions or are disloyal to its principles.

It is called "excommunication". It can be applied on a temporary or permanent basis, depending upon the gravity of the offence.

The practice goes right back to the foundations of the Christian Church within the Jewish tradition. For instance, temporary exclusion from the services in the sanctuary was applied to those Jews who broke the ritual taboos. For the more serious offences, such as eating leaven bread during the Passover season, the penalty was to be cut off from the congregation. However, the first threat of permanent excommunication against a disobedient member of a religious community is to be found in the prophet Ezra's campaign against mixed marriages in the fourth century before Christ.

This Jewish practice of religious discipline continued in the days of Jesus. He himself, according to St John's Gospel was "put out of the synagogue" and he warned his disciples that they too should also expect to receive similar disciplinary action.

It is therefore not surprising, that the first Christians should have adopted a similar method of religious discipline. For instance, St Paul uses it as a means of establishing moral order in the church at both Thessalonica and Corinth, whilst in the Pastoral Epistles, there is evidence that excommunication was applied to those who taught false doctrines, in order to preserve the purity of the Christian faith.

The practice of excommunication was therefore firmly established, in both Judaism and the life of the early church, by the time the first evangelist came to write his Gospel at the end of the first century. In it he claims that Jesus gave to Peter, and through him, to the whole church, the keys of the Kingdom of heaven. "Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth" - in other words what you declare forbidden - "shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth" - in other words, what you declare allowed - "shall be loosed in heaven". This is the basis of the authority for the church to exercise religious discipline.

There is certainly evidence of the practice of excommunication being regularly employed by the early church to maintain the faith "in the loose moral atmosphere of heathen society and amid the multitude of conflicting systems of religion, philosophy and magic" in which it found itself.

In the Middle Ages the practice also began to involve civil penalties applied by the civil authorities.

Nevertheless, it may come as a bit of a shock to discover that the Church of England continues to uphold the practice of excommunication as a means of religious discipline.

For instance, in Article 33 of the 39 Articles of Religion, written in 1563, we read "That person which by open denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church, and excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an Heathen and Publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a Judge that hath the authority thereunto".

The practice is also assumed in the rubric at the beginning of the service for the Burial of the Dead which says, "Here is to be noted, that the Office" - in other words, the service - "ensuing is not to be used for any that die..... excommunicate".

Likewise, after the saying of the Nicene Creed in the Communion Service, the Curate is instructed that "notice be given of the Communion..... and Excommunications read".

Finally, the rubric before the Holy Communion Service says "If a minister be persuaded that anyone of his cure who presents himself to be a partaker of the Holy Communion ought not to be admitted thereunto by reason of malicious and open contention with his neighbours, or other grave and open sin without repentance" he is to withhold the sacrament until such time as the Bishop gives permission.

In case you may think that this is no longer applicable, I would point out, that The Alternative Service Book (1980) is only "intended to supplement the Book of Common Prayer, not to supersede it" to quote its Preface. Furthermore, it is reaffirmed in the latest edition of The Canons of the Church of England - that is to say, the rules and regulations governing the life of the Church of England, published in 1993.

So much for the history of the authority and practice of spiritual discipline, by the means of varying degrees of excommunication depending upon the gravity of the offence, within the life of the Christian Church - and particularly, within the life of the Church of England.

However, the question that the Revd Peter Irwin-Clark’s action poses, still remains. Is there a place for discipline within the life of the Church today?

More often than not, we seek to avoid the question by concentrating our attention upon secondary issues. We are only too well aware of our own human frailty and the plank within our own eye, that we often choose to ignore the speck that is on our brother’s eyes, rather than risk being judged hypocritical. Furthermore, we are so very sensitive of public opinion and our need to be popular that we are often afraid of upsetting people and much prefer to turn a 'blind eye'.

We therefore tend to draw back from the idea of discipline. But such an attitude, I would suggest, misses its primary purpose. Discipline is not about punishment but rather it is about preserving the identity of the corporate life of the church and the restoration of individual offending members to its life.

Firstly, discipline is about preserving the identity of the corporate life of the Church.

This was particularly necessary amongst first generation of Christians, as it is today in the mission field overseas, where there was a need to establish clear boundaries between the life of the Christian community and the surrounding pagan environment in which it found itself.

I would suggest that the church is in a similar situation today. Where the life of the Christian Church is often barely distinguishable from the life of the society in which it finds itself in terms of belief, morality and worship, it often appears to stand at best for very little or at worst for nothing.

What we believe, how we behave and how we express ourselves in worship, does matter. We do not have an a Ia carte menu from which we can pick and choose, but rather a set menu, based upon the Bible and interpreted in the Christian tradition, which needs to be safeguarded against "do it yourself” Christianity.

Unless the church can demonstrate that it can offer a valid alternative lifestyle, there is no reason why the world should take it seriously. Incidentally, it is those churches and sects which take discipline seriously that appear to flourish numerically, as is the case of Mr Irwin-Clark’s Church with over 600 members!

Secondly, the exercise of discipline is also about the restoration of individual members to a right relationship with God and with each other, it is not about punishment.

This is nowhere better expressed than in the 6th Century Rule of St Benedict. This was written to enable monks to live together in a community and is still the basis of all religious communities today. Out of 73 chapters, 11 are devoted to the subject of discipline. Commentators often refer to this as "corrective legislation" because of its overall approach towards those who have broken the rules and let the community down.

Benedict uses two images to describe the role of the Abbot in this respect. The first is that of a shepherd. He says that the Abbot should, "have great concern and to act with all speed, discernment and diligence in order not to lose any of the sheep entrusted to him. He should realise he has undertaken care of the sick, not tyranny over the healthy...He is to imitate the example of the Good Shepherd who kept the ninety nine sheep on the mountains and went in search for the sheep that had strayed. So great was his compassion for its weakness that he mercifully placed it on his shoulder and carried it back to the flock". (Chapter 27). You don't call that punishing. That is caring. That is loving concern. That is seeking to restore the wayward member back into the community.

Secondly, he uses the image of a doctor. He writes, "The Abbot must exercise utmost care and concern for wayward brothers, because it is not the healthy who need the physician, but the sick". (Chapter 27). Only in extremes should he behave as a surgeon by removing the offending limb and organ in order to prevent infection to the whole body.

Perhaps, the soundest advice which St Benedict has to offer in applying discipline, comes towards the end of his Rule when he says that the Abbot, "must hate the faults but love the brothers. When he punishes them, he should use prudence and avoid extremes; otherwise by rubbing too hard to remove the rust, he may break the vessel....he should prune (faults) away with prudence and love as he sees best for each individual". (Chapter 64).

CONCLUSION

Whether you agree or disagree with the method employed by the Revd Peter Irwin-Clark, in respect of his two parishioners, there can be no doubt that the Christian church has always exercised spiritual discipline by means of excommunication in order to preserve the identity of its corporate life and to restore to fellowship, those who have fallen away through disobedience.

Perhaps this is an opportune time for us all to examine our lives and to see whether or not we need to exercise a greater degree of self-discipline if we are not to let ourselves, the Church and, above all, Christ down.