False churches.

Is there such a thing as a "false church?" If so, how do you determine its falsity?

And if you answer, "I determine it by the Bible," I want to ask, "Which part of the Bible do you use to make this determination. How do you know that a "true church" is "true"? Many of the two thousand years of Christian history have been dominated by loud and stormy repudiations of "false churches." Likewise, much of Christian history and Baptist history reverberate with ringing affirmations that someone has discovered the "true church." Three incidents have converged recently to cause me to reflect on the idea of "false churches" or, conversely, on "true churches."

The first incident was an inquiry from a journalist. She wanted to know if Baptists thought that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was a "false" church. I told her that my best guess is that most Baptists would probably think that the LDS constituted a "false" church. She asked what I thought. I told her that I had been teaching a course called "Religious Groups in America" for almost forty years, and my classroom approach was to accept the self-designations of religious groups. I let the groups define themselves, rather than rushing to judgment about which groups are Christian and which are not. I also said to her that I urge my students to approach the study of religious groups in that manner. I urge them, with little success, to eschew the language of "sects" and "cults."

The second incident was my recent re-reading of J. R. Graves's 1880 classic, Old Landmarkism: What is It? Graves, contrary to what many Baptists think, did not deny that non-Baptist individuals were Christians. He often said, "Christ before the church, blood before water" (41). In other words, you could be a Christian and not be a Baptist. "We may unchurch an organization ... without unchristianizing its members" (25), Graves said. It was as close as he could get to Christian inclusiveness. But while Graves accepted non-Baptists as Christians, he was certain that Baptist churches constituted the "true" churches. Other "churches" were "religious societies," "apostate churches," "counterfeits of Christianity," and "unscriptural organizations." Graves was honest enough to admit that his position was not the dominant Baptist position before he came along (16). Graves probably had more company in Baptist history than he knew. Landmarkism was more of an intensification of a Baptist idea than an innovation in Baptist theology.

The third incident that caused me to think of "false" and "true" churches was Stephen Wright's new book, The Early English Baptists, 1603-1649 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press, 2006). This book is one with which all Baptist historians will have to spend some time. Among other things, Wright claims, as does Sydney James in his book on John Clarke, that the orthodox approach that divides early Baptists into "General" and "Particular" Baptists is full of holes. But what really struck me about Wright's book is his description of Smyth's and Helwys's search for the "true" church. They unhesitatingly designated other churches as "false" churches with "false" ministries and "false" baptisms and "false" governments. These two Baptist ancestors were not smitten with a case of ecumenical tolerance! They knew a "false" church when they saw one!

Do you? How do you know a "false" church from a "true" church? Do you measure by your favorite creed or your favorite biblical texts? Do you use 1 Timothy or the early chapters of Acts, Leviticus, or the Sermon on the Mount?

Walter B. Shurden

Callaway Professor of Christianity

Executive Director

The Center for Baptist Studies

Mercer University, Macon, Georgia