How Can We Get Accountability and Church Discipline Right?
Oral Roberts University shocked the world when they beat Ohio State in the 2021 March Madness tournament. The Oklahoma-based Christian school went on to win again in the next round as a 15 seed and became one of the biggest stories of the men’s basketball tournament.
However, as the school came into the national spotlight, not everyone was cheering for them. A writer for USA Today suggested a protest because of the school’s conservative views.
Cancellation seems to be the order of the day. If someone doesn’t align with what we consider proper, we lose them faster than a toupee in a hurricane! Cancel culture says if you have messed up, you get canceled. In a bit of irony, the USA Today columnist was fired the day after calling for an ORU boycott… for an insensitive tweet.
We are no strangers to this in the church. Not only have we pioneered visible boycotts of companies and products, but we have enacted church discipline, put people under the ban, and excommunicated brothers and sisters, citing 1 Corinthians 5:13, “Expel the wicked person from among you” (NIV).
The goal is to restore the person in their walk with Christ and in their fellowship with others.
But there is a biblical model of warning people and walking with people before reaching the point of cancellation. It is called accountability. We offer grace, and we restore when someone has fallen. So how do we get accountability and church discipline right?
The context for 1 Corinthians 5 is that there was an incestuous relationship between a man and his stepmother that was not being dealt with. Paul says that this sin cannot go unchecked. The man needs to be dealt with for the salvation of his own soul and for the witness of the church. This kind of discipline is genuinely meant to help the sinner. It is done with love and compassion. The goal is to restore the person in their walk with Christ and in their fellowship with others.
However, a very important distinction is made here. Holding a brother or sister accountable must only take place in matters of sin. This is not a grey area. This is not arbitrary, or based on cultural preferences. If and when an individual is placed under church discipline, it must be for a sin issue and no other. If it is done for reasons other than the biblical definition of sin, it is legalism. Human rules must never be enforced as if they are God’s Word.
Accountability begins with living in community.
In our zeal to maintain our Anabaptist witness, we have often gotten this wrong. There are matters of personal conviction on which we can differ. We ought to accept one another and serve the Lord together without fear of being excommunicated.
Head coverings are an example of something which has been divisive. Can we let coverings be for those who want to honor God in this way, but not cast judgment on the ones who do not share those convictions? Choices of clothing and hairstyle are personal preferences. Food and drink choices differ. The use of technology, parenting philosophies, the wearing of jewelry, musical styles, and whether or not to get the COVID vaccine are not issues over which to break fellowship.
The Bible is explicitly clear on many sin issues: sexual immorality, greed, gossip, drunkenness, swindling, sorcery, pride, anger, stealing, lying, murder, lust, jealousy, hypocrisy, hatred, envy, blasphemy, idolatry, favoritism, complaining, and disobeying and dishonoring one’s parents.
If the answer to wrongdoing is not cancellation, then should we adopt the “I’m OK, you’re OK” mentality? “Live and let live? You do you?” No! If we truly have compassion, we speak into the lives of others with tact and love. We call out sin and implore the sinner to repent. And when they do, we help to restore and offer grace.
Sin within the church needs to be dealt with, not ignored. We need to cultivate loving communities of believers as safe places to learn from our mistakes and course-correct on our faith journey. Accountability begins with living in community. This means that we submit one to another. We do life together. We know each other and trust each other.
We have a responsibility to one another. We are called to come alongside one another and help bear the burden. This is the work of Christ. He came near to us and carried the burden that we ourselves could not carry. This is how we should experience accountability: side by side and hand in hand. And when we fall, we are met not with cancellation, but restoration.
2 Responses
Alvin, very good questions! I appreciate your desire to learn, grow, and be sharpened by others in the kingdom. Thank you for the opportunity to dialogue.
The teaching in the New Testament Epistles is relevant and applicable for the church today. Yes! Paul clearly teaches that women are to cover their heads AND that there are unique roles given to each gender. His teaching gives us these instructions and many more and we adhere to all of the Scriptures and by the Holy Spirit’s help, we walk in obedience to them.
In my original post I am referring to cloth coverings. This can be a divisive issue. Many women understand that God has given hair as a covering. Paul teaches, “For long hair is given to her as a covering.” (1 Corinthians 11:15) For others, the conviction is that they cover their head with cloth. God is honored by both. Having a covering is not a matter of preference. The method of covering is.
Fellow believers might have different convictions but can still be unified within the body of Christ!
As Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 1:10, “I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church.”
The covering is a matter of preference? Did Paul instruct it or not? I realize we do not practice it, but does scripture mean what it seems to say or does it not? Do we consider the epistles relevant to a time and place or binding on the church today? If they only address issues in that culture we have little grounds for opposition to female leadership. The same guy opined on both issues, the head covering and qualifications for leadership. What criteria are used to justify adherence to one and make the other optional and something that is divisive and therefore to be ignored?