Church Discipline (Part 1)

Tough love. Who wants it!? Who doesn’t prefer cushy love, or chocolate and rose-petaled love, or even beatific vision love!

Western culture doesn’t seem to understand tough love. Love today means unconditional acceptance. If you love me with conditions, you don’t love me. You’re judgmental and intolerant.

God knows better. He knows we’re finite and fallen. Therefore, his love challenges us at the very points of our finitude and fallenness for our good, and that’s not comfortable.

Church discipline is just such an uncomfortable act of tough love, which is why 9Marks would like to spend two issues of the eJournal considering this important topic. In this issue, Wyman Richardson and Greg Wills help us to count the cost of practicing or not practicing church discipline. Ken Sande offers some legal counsel. And Kevin DeYoung, a pastor in mainline Protestant land, offers words of warning to evangelical land, a land where tough love increasingly has to shout to be heard.

In case you are new to the topic of church discipline, I offer a primer and review three good books on the subject. Also, check out Bobby Jamieson’s user’s guide to the intimidating but inimitable Polity volume.

When asked what she learned from 1 Corinthians 13, my three year old daughter said, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love is huggy and kissy.” Yes, she is a darling. But I must ask, shouldn’t we expect deeper sentiments from our church’s leaders?

Facing Up to Church Discipline
A Church Discipline Primer
By Jonathan Leeman
What would you think of a coach who instructs his players but never drills them? Or a math teacher who explains the lesson but never corrects her students’ mistakes? Or a doctor who talks about health but ignores cancer? You would probably say that all of them are doing half their job. Athletic training requires instructing and drilling. Teaching requires explaining and correcting. Doctoring requires encouraging health and fighting disease. Right? Read more >
More Than Worth It: Costs and Benefits of Church Discipline
By Wyman Richardson
Obedience or comfort: which will you choose? One costs more up front, but will be more than worth it in the end. Read more >
Church Discipline in Historical and Cultural Perspective
Was Dagg Right?
By Gregory A. Wills
When discipline leaves the church, does Christ really go with it? Read more >
Informed Consent: Biblical and Legal Protection for Church Discipline
By Ken Sande
How can churches wisely practice discipline in a litigious society? Read more >
Discipline in the Mainline - Is it Possible or Even Wise?
By Kevin DeYoung
Can you exercise discipline in your local church if your denomination clearly won’t? Read more >
Church Discipline Resources
Polity on Church Discipline: A User's Guide
By Bobby Jamieson
Treasures of biblical wisdom lie buried beneath dense prose in this collection of historic Baptist writings. This article helps you mine them out. Read more >
Book Review: Handbook of Church Discipline, by Jay Adams
Reviewed by Jonathan Leeman
The first sentence of Jay Adam's Handbook of Church Discipline says it all: "This book in your hand is just what it calls itself—a handbook." Indeed, the book is as straightforward and helpful as that sentence. It's short, easy to read, and nicely divided so that the "busy pastor" and "Christian worker" can almost use it as a reference guide, if need be. AN EVEN-HANDED INTRODUCTION Read more >
Book Review: The Transforming Community, by Mark Lauterbach
Reviewed by Jonathan Leeman
I have to admit Mark Lauterbach's book on church discipline The Transforming Community started kind of slow for me. It's not a quick, bullet-pointed read like Jay Adams' Handbook of Church Discipline (click here for a review). Adams, you might say, marches up to the podium, marshals a few texts on church discipline, turns to the chalkboard behind him, and dashes out numbered lessons with a clacking piece of chalk. Read more >
Book Review: Discipline with Care, by Steven McQuoid
Reviewed by Jonathan Leeman
On the whole, the genre of contemporary books on church discipline seem to have been written by nice guys. Which is good. You don't want to take your cues on church discipline from someone who sounds like they work for the Gestapo. Stephen McQuoid, principal of Tilsley College in Glasgow, fits the nice-guy profile well. Just notice the book's title—it tells us to Discipline with Care. Read more >
Miscellaneous Book Reviews
Book Review: Who Runs the Church? Four Views on Church Government, edited by Steven B. Cowan; Perspectives on Church Government, edited by Chad Owen Brand and R. Stanton Norman
Reviewed by Bobby Jamieson
Of the making of many multiple views books there is, apparently, no end. At last count Zondervan alone has published 25 of them, and other publishers are beginning to join the fun. Read more >
Book Review: Restoring Integrity in Baptist Churches, ed. Thomas White, Jason G. Deusing, and Malcomb B. Yarnell, III
Reviewed by Greg Gilbert
It's hard to assess the health of Baptist churches with any claim to accuracy. For one thing, there are just so many of them in so many different places with so many different ideas. For another thing, it seems that for every step Baptist churches take in a good direction, there's often another step in the opposite direction. Read more >
Book Review: Organic Church, by Neil Cole
Reviewed by Kevin McFadden
When you hear the term "house church," what comes to mind? Maybe some place where Christianity is not free to go public, like China? But did you know that house church movements are also growing in the United States? So we learn from Neil Cole, who is the executive director of Church Multiplication Associates and the author of Organic Church. Organic Church is the product of his own journey planting "spontaneous multiplication movements" resulting in hundreds of "organic" churches.[1] Read more >
Book Review: Crazy Love, by Francis Chan
Reviewed by Patrick Schreiner
"Your love has got me looking so crazy right now." So sings Beyonce in her song "Crazy in Love." Francis Chan doesn't quite use this line in his book Crazy Love, but switch out Beyonce's mythical man for the eternal God, and the lyric works nicely: God's love should make us look crazy right now. Read more >