Church & Ministry

Christian primary and secondary education (sometimes called “Christian Day School”) became popular among fundamentalists during the 1970s. While some have alleged that the Christian school movement was a response to racial integration,¹ it was more likely a reaction against the increasingly vicious secularism of public education. For a generation, many Christian parents sent their children to Christian schools, even when the cost of tuition meant significant financial sacrifice.

Over the past decade, however, most Christian schools have begun to decline. Administrators speculate about the reasons, but at least a few seem pretty obvious. These are generalizations that will not hold in every instance. Certain tendencies, however, can be observed more often than not.

First, Christian schools have not typically produced a better academic product than public education. True, the average test scores from Christian school students are higher than those of public school students. That is partly because public schools are required to accept students (including special education students) whom Christian schools uniformly reject. Take the top ten percent of graduates from the typical Christian school, and compare them to the top ten percent of graduates from the typical public school, and you will likely find that the public school graduates are better prepared.

A second reason that Christian schools are in decline is because they do not generally produce a better quality of Christian. Granted, the environment of a Christian school does shield its students from the most brutal influences of the secular school environment, such as rampant drug use and open promiscuity. It also grants Christianity a normative status, so that a student’s faith is not overtly and constantly under attack. Nevertheless, graduates of Christian schools do not seem to be noticeably more spiritually minded than Christian graduates of public schools. The real test is in what happens to Christian school students after they graduate. How many of them are walking with the Lord five years later? The proportions do not seem markedly higher for Christian school alumni than for other Christians of the same age.

“Dr. Watts’s Hymn-book does not satisfy and suffice me,” said London Congregational minister Thomas Toke Lynch to his Mortimer Street church in 1851 (Memoir of Thomas T. Lynch, p. 95). Three years later, Lynch began penning his own hymns. In November 1855, while minister at Fitzroy Chapel on Grafton Street, Lynch published The Rivulet: A Contribution to Sacred Song also known as Hymns for Heart and Voice. A second edition appeared in 1856 and a third in 1868.

Lynch’s hymns were laden with his own religious interests and poetic expressions and light on doctrine, creed or orthodoxy. In the preface to the second edition, Lynch wrote that his intent was to supplement, not supplant, existing hymnody.

Within two months of the first edition of The Rivulet, conflict broke out among religious newspapers and within the Congregational Union the likes of which has never been seen in any denomination concerning a hymn book. John Campbell, editor of the Congregational Union’s official newspaper, used a newspaper not supported by the Union, titled the British Banner, as a means of criticizing Lynch, his hymns, and those who spoke favorably of them. James Grant, editor of the Morning Advertiser, joined Campbell’s cause. The Nonconformist and Eclectic Review fought back by supporting Lynch and his hymns. By the time “The Controversy”—as it came to be called—ended a year and half later many other periodicals joined the fray. Hundreds of articles and pamphlets had been written in criticism or defense of the hymnal. The bitter debate so engulfed the Congregational Union that the regular autumnal meeting scheduled for September 23, 1856, at Cheltenham, was canceled out of fear that peace could not be maintained.

On June 9, 2011, James MacDonald posted a blog article under the title “Congregational Government is from Satan.”¹ SharperIron provided a link to the article, thus I am replying through SharperIron.

MacDonald begins his message by saying:

NOTE: the tone of this post is intentionally aimed at engaging those who are engulfed in this system of church government that neither honors the Scriptures nor advances the gospel.

That’s right! It’s actually the title to a book I have had percolating in my mind for a long time. After almost 30 years in ministry I have come irreversibly to this conclusion: congregational government is an invention and tool of the enemy of our souls to destroy the church of Jesus Christ. So there, I have said the strongest part of the message first; now some commentary.

In his commentary MacDonald lists five arguments against congregational church government. They are:

1. Congregational meetings are forums for division. He says:

When church life is going well, the leaders of a church struggle to get a quorum for decision making. When things are going wrong, every carnal member lines up at a microphone to spew their venom and destroy the work of Christ in the church.