From The New Reformation Review
courtesy of Dan Trotter
Printed with Permission
Vol. 8, No. 5 - December 2002
HOUSE CHURCH DIRTY DIAPERS CHRONICLES NUMBER SIX
The
Gene Edwards Disaster
A reviewer of house church websites once said that The New Reformation Review was the funniest site on the web. Well folks, there ain't nothing funny at all about this issue. It is very sad for me to have to finally come out publicly and acknowledge the grave problems afflicting Gene Edwards' "radical wing of the house church movement." The first home church material I ever read was by Gene Edwards. About ten years ago, I devoured everything I could find by him, either books or tapes. I attended one of his conferences, even one of his church meetings. I was part of the trio who invited him three times to the Annual Southern House Church Conference. The early issues of NRR are peppered with favorable references to him. In dealing with me personally, he has never been anything but gracious and kind. In person, he is one of the funniest men alive. He is also, of course, brilliant. He should be one of our greatest assets. But instead, he and his followers have become a disastrous liability. There have been way too many seismic rumblings by discontented, upset, and hurt Christians involved with Gene Edwards' churches for me to ignore this any longer. I have heard too many personal testimonies by people involved in his churches, and read too many emails such as this one: "I see Gene as way over the top. He is dangerous. I have lost people I care about to his deception... Anger at the rest of the body is not a good reason to do anything. It's too bad. I think Gene could have been a wonderful bridge builder between people coming out of institutionalism and those involved in house church." There's something wrong. The brother who introduced me to Gene Edwards' writings, who every morning got up before work and read Edwards' books to his kids for their devotions, told me after watching Edwards' performance at an Annual Southern House Church Conference meeting, that Edwards was simply "indefensible". I've held out as long as I could. But my brother was right. Edwards is indefensible. The following article, written jointly by me, Steve Atkerson, Beresford Job, and Jon Zens, tells why.
Gene Edwards: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Authors' note: This article was written for publication on the authors' individual websites. Any one reading this article should note that the authors are not responsible for the contents of any other website which may have published this article.
By Steve Atkerson, Beresford Job, Dan Trotter, and Jon Zens
We need first of all to apologize for referring to Gene Edwards by name. He is a phenomenon, a figurehead, a legend. His impact on Christians outside of the institutional church system, especially in the United States, has been massive. He is to the out-of-the-institution church what Chairman Mao was to Chinese communism. Gene Edwards and friends have taken it upon themselves to divide the house church movement into “the radical wing” (them), and everyone else who is short of the genuine thing. He has become so closely identified with the self-styled "radical wing" of the house church movement that it is impossible to critique that radical wing without referring to Gene Edwards by name.
We need to make it very clear that all of the concerns that are expressed in this article have long since been put to Gene Edwards and his followers by letter, email, and telephone. Because no reasonable or satisfactory response has been forthcoming, we are proceeding with this article, which is intended to be a warning to those who may be seduced by Edwards' ideology.
It is very difficult to assess Gene Edwards, and for several reasons. One is that some of his books are excellent. They contain much with which we all wholeheartedly agree, and they are crafted in a style that all four of us put together could never match. However, Gene Edwards in person is a different story. As one wag has put it, it's a shame that Gene Edwards' tongue doesn't have an editor as good as his pen. In listening to Edwards perform (and the word "perform" is used purposely), one is inundated with an ocean of hyperbole, and it is often difficult to know whether the bombast is merely meant to be funny, or taken seriously. For instance, did Gene Edwards really believe that every single book on the book table at a Southern House Church Conference (except his) was "worthless"? Or was he just trying to be funny in making a point? It is difficult to know, and that is the second reason his movement is so difficult to analyze. Putting all the pieces together, however, would lead us to believe that Edwards is not interested in being funny, but is intent on promoting his idiosyncratic agenda.
The third reason it is so hard to objectively critique the Edwardsians is that many of the problems come from practices that prevail in their churches, and news of such comes from those who have dropped out, and who may be tainted with bias. However, we must point out that the authors have spoken to at least thirty people formerly involved in Gene Edwards' churches. In every case, their testimony has been consistently parallel. Their testimony is independent of each other, and unrehearsed. In many cases there is absolutely no animus towards Gene Edwards, but rather a sadness that things turned out the way they did. In this article, we will diligently try to distinguish those things that have been written from those things which we have heard. Written things with which we disagree will be categorically critiqued. On the other hand, things which we have merely heard with which we disagree, we will present as a warning, with the plea that you proceed with caution.
The Good
No criticism of Gene Edwards and his disciples should proceed without a heartfelt acknowledgement of the great good that has been accomplished by many of their writings. The authors have used many of their writings with profit, and have recommended many of their works to those uninitiated to out-of-the-system Christianity. In these books one may discern a wholesome focus on knowing Christ as the central purpose of our being, a call for the recognition of the oft-neglected ministry of the church planter, passionate appeals for unity between the brethren, articulate appeals for open, participatory meetings with no dominant and controlling leaders, deep knowledge of both church history and the bogus ecclesiastical traditions that have sprung from it, a profound appreciation for organic community life not centered on meetings, a perceptive psychological analysis of the house church Christian driven by a hidden agenda to construct his fantasy church, and a deep understanding of the parallels between the koinonia in the Godhead and the community in the Bride of Christ. So, with so much good, why do we presume to criticize the Edwardsians? The answer is simple: most of the good is negated by what Gene Edwards and his workers actually say and do. Please read on.
The Bad and The Ugly
Elitism
One is not around Gene Edwards' radical wing for too long before one experiences whiffs of arrogance. A common criticism one encounters by those attending the Southern House Church Conferences is that the Edwardsites only attend sessions led by Gene Edwards and his right-hand man, Frank Viola, and don't have much to do with anybody else at the conference. And lest the reader think that subjective assessment is erroneous, let us quote from a recent book written by four Gene Edwards epigoni (Tom Begier, Tim Richey, Nick Vasiliades, and Frank Viola), The House Church Movement - Which Direction? (SeedSowers, 2001, henceforth HCM), which contains quotations typical of the style of Gene Edwards and his followers. On page 13 we read, "Are there such firebrands anywhere out there in the house church movement? Out of hundreds of frontline leaders and thousands of quickly-ordained dictators called elders, there may be a few, if you count the entire world. But you can number these men of fury on two hands - maybe one." The not-too-subtle implication is that the authors are among the countable few. On page 149, they piously proclaim in all caps, "WE HAVE LIVED THAT WHICH WE HAVE WRITTEN." One may be forgiven if the reader of HCM takes out his five fingers and counts: Gene Edwards, Tom Begier, Tim Richey, Nick Vasiliades, and Frank Viola. Gene Edwards and his followers appear to be fixated upon their own importance. They claim that there are at the most only ten church planters in the world (HCM, p. 13). This assertion is both ridiculous and insidious. To begin with, how could anyone possibly know that there are only ten legitimate church planters in the world? It supposes omniscience, which is absurd. And of course the very claim, when made by a group of men who assert it precisely in order to communicate that they think they are among that exclusive number, is not only symptomatic of lazy thinking, it is, more seriously, immature and arrogant in the extreme.
Gene Edwards and his followers appear to be fixated upon their own importance.
Guruism
A guru produces robotic clones, virtually indistinguishable from himself. We invite you to read HCM and tell if you can distinguish anything in it that is not Gene Edwards. The book might as well have credited Gene Edwards as the author. There is not one scintilla of stylistic difference, and the ideas are monotonously Edwardsian. No other human being in the house church movement produces such mystical admiration by his followers. Listen to his followers whisper adoringly that Gene says this, and Gene wants that, and Gene will talk to me after I carry my pup tent into the wilderness to spend a weekend with him in his august presence. No matter how brilliant and gifted Edwards may be, he bears great responsibility for many of the screwy things those training under him do in their circle of assemblies. Of course, we understand that a brilliant and gifted man is not entirely responsible for the nutty things his followers do. But somewhere in the scheme of things, it would surely be helpful if Gene Edwards would take an objective look at how his followers come across to the rest of us peons in the house church movement, and actually did something about it.
The great problem is that Gene Edwards and his associates make the church planter the sine qua non of church life. While acknowledging the great worth of the church planter, we would nevertheless urge the notion that having Jesus with you, and going with what the Scripture reveals, is enough. The need for experts is part of what's wrong with the institutional church today, and we are keen for people to get away from that. Any thinking that locks believers up to the ministry of particular individuals borders on the cultic and is dangerous. We believe in the centrality of Jesus Christ, not the centrality of the church planter. Rather than proclaim that a church needs a church planter or it should disband, as do Gene Edwards and company, we rather proclaim to believers the words of Paul the apostle: "I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge and competent to instruct one another." (Rom 15:14).
Bombast
Examples are legion of the wild, extremist statements made by Gene Edwards in public and recorded on tapes, yet rarely printed in his books. Here are some examples:
· Edwards has claimed publicly to be the only man who has read every English book on the history of the early church, and to be the first person on earth in modern times to truly understand the history of the New Testament.
· At one of the annual Southern House Church Conferences, Edwards told the crowd that he was the only speaker of the weekend who had ministered Christ, and that every other speaker was an example of warmed over Plymouth Brethrenism. It is unclear how Edwards knew this since he arrived late, and attended very few, if any, of the sessions. What made his statement even more embarrassing was that it was given just a few hours after another speaker, with Edwards absent, gave an excellent talk on knowing Christ and focusing on Him as the only reason for doing home church.
· At that same conference, Edwards dismissed every single book on the book table as essentially worthless. Perhaps Edwards is exaggerating for effect. Perhaps he's trying to be funny. But is it any wonder that he's misunderstood, and that bruised feelings inevitably follow in his wake?
Is it any wonder that he's misunderstood, and that bruised feelings inevitably follow in his wake?
Another typical example of radical wing fustian may be found in HCM on page xxi: "This book is about the house church becoming a revolutionary force so endued that it will turn church history upside down. It is about becoming a force as great or greater that the Reformation of the 1500's." Please excuse us for being skeptical, but the few little ragtag Edwardsian churches, the one's that haven't already blown up, that is, are not going to do anything of the sort.
Antibiblical Tendencies
Every speaker or writer knows the difficulty involved in correcting a misemphasis. One side of the issue has been so overemphasized that one has to talk a little longer and louder on the other side in order to make oneself heard. One could argue that the Edwardsites really do believe in the Bible, and that they are merely pointing out abuses when they deride those who study the Bible and parse Greek in their services. Jesus' statement concerning the Pharisees is serviceable for the Edwardsite cause, when He said: "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life... yet you refuse to come to me to have eternal life” (Jn 5:39,40). That apparently sets up a dichotomy between knowing the Scriptures and knowing Jesus, which is just what Gene Edwards and his camp love to do. But notice how in the same passage Jesus goes on to say: "These are the Scriptures that testify about me” (Jn 5:39). And thus we can see that there is actually no false dichotomy at all. Jesus was blaming the Pharisees misuse of the Scriptures, not the Scripture itself.
Jesus, upon whom the Edwardsites constantly urge us to focus, made many other ringing affirmations of the authority of Scripture. And Paul the apostle, whom the radical wing routinely refer to as the authority of church planting practice, entirely agreed with Jesus about the importance of Scripture. One could write pages showing this, and although this is not the place to do that, we can nevertheless briefly consider a few words by Jesus and Paul about the divine authority of the written word of God. First Jesus: "...until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law...” (Mt 5:18). "The Scripture shall not be broken...” (Jn 10:35). "You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures...” (Mt 22:29. "How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled?” (Mt 26:54). We could add the at least sixteen times Jesus appealed to the authority of the written Scriptures by saying "…it is written…" and the at least six times he said "Have you not read?" Now for Paul: "and how from infancy you [Timothy] have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed..." We ask our readers to read and listen to all of Gene Edwards' books and tapes. Please read HCM. The writers of the radical wing don't even sound like the Jesus upon whom they continuously lobby us to focus.
The writers of the radical wing don't even sound like the Jesus upon whom they continuously lobby us to focus.
Where does one find a healthy approbation of the written word of God in Edwardsite materials? Instead, all we find is a monotonous denigration of the written Scriptures. Here are representative examples:
· "Beware the man bearing verses. A person who has known genuine church life will not be bearing verses or theory. He will be bringing you Christ" (HCM, p. 56, emphasis by the Edwardsite authors).
· "Only a move from being Bible-centered to being Christ-centered can save us from the dubious honor of being like the past" (HCM, p. 59).
· In referring to the members of an ideal church, the authors of HCM state on page xix: "As to doctrine, I don't know what they each believe. And they don't ask me about mine! That I love Jesus and that I am in Him is all that they are interested in."
· "The pattern for the church is not found in the New Testament. What is found in the New Testament is merely a manifestation of the pattern. The pattern itself is found in the Godhead before creation." (Tim Richey, quoted on an Edwardsite website at http://www.atlantachristians.com/germany.html)
In these quotations one discerns the false dichotomy that runs through the literature of the radical wing. It is routinely suggested by the radicals that it's either Christ, or Scripture, but not both. Did Paul ever suggest such a thing when he called the Scriptures "holy," and then said that those same Scriptures had led Timothy to Christ (2 Tim 3:15)?
Gene Edwards' camp very often makes the point that the Bible wasn't important to the early church. "With an illiteracy rate over 99% and books as rare as a three-horned cow, are we actually convinced that first-century believers sat around and studied the Bible?" (HCM, p. 90) It is touching to see the quasi-mystic junior Edwardsites appeal to the pattern of the early New Testament church as their authority, but one must note that if the church is "elastic, adaptable, changing, and indefinable... forever unfinished" (HCM, p. 44), as these gentlemen say, then it is perfectly possible that God's ideal church has evolved into a church that doesn't ignore Bible study. But beyond that, we should also note that even though the early church was mostly illiterate, it was not deaf. The letters of the apostles were read to the brethren, and were considered authoritative as Scripture. (I Tim 4:13)
When one is correcting a misemphasis, it is very important not to create one's own misemphasis in the attempt. We need to concede enthusiastically that the Edwardsites have isolated a very big problem in the home church movement: a lack of focus on Jesus Christ. We heartily affirm what they say in HCM on page 82: "Imagine: a church never having a burden for anything except fellowship with Jesus Christ and Him alone! Would not that local gathering discover his heart, in deep and wondrous ways? And in that discovery she would naturally respond, as a bride to her groom, to the things that are on the Lord's heart. She would move forward with God's eternally purposed desire for expansion of fellowship." Here, we are presented with an elegantly stated truth: to do things for the Lord (evangelism, carrying forward God's desire for expansion of fellowship), we have to know him deeply first. In addition, in this statement one hears an approval of something that transcends sitting around in a mystical fog entranced in the beatific vision of Christ.
Gene Edwards and his associates are a part of an honorable tradition of Christian pietists, people who throughout church history have moaned about Christians who emphasized something else, like ecclesiastical and political power, over the interior knowledge of Jesus Christ himself. The Edwardsites follow in the old and honored tradition of Brother Lawrence, Thomas a Kempis, Madame Guyon, and Philip Jacob Spener. We aren't trying to trash that tradition, but we are calling for a more balanced presentation that will avoid misleading those who inquire into house church matters. The fundamentalists are called Bible-bashers because they appear to bash others over the head with the Bible. However, the Edwardsites seem to be Bible-bashers in that they appear to bash the Bible itself.
Even a revelation that we should “focus on Jesus” can become more important than Jesus Himself.
The next time Gene Edwards and his fellow workers crusade against "paper papists" and "Bible-worshipers," the next time they repeat their slogan "focus on Jesus," we would suggest that they realize there is a similar trap into which they have fallen. The danger is that even a revelation that we should “focus on Jesus” can become more important than Jesus Himself. Anyone's beliefs are subject to abuse and extremist application. Those who respect the Bible might forget the Jesus of the Bible; but that is a human failure, not the failure of the Scriptures. And followers of Gene Edwards are just as apt to take their minds off the centrality of Jesus as anyone else. However, we will not suggest that they not focus on Jesus the way they suggest we shouldn't focus on the Bible. The abuse of something does not bar its use.
There are certain rhetorical techniques the Edwardsites could use to correct the misimpression they are making. They could at least genuflect in the direction of the love of Scripture every now and then, as they do in a rare instance on p. 59 of HCM: "We will in no way neglect Scripture. We will use it far more than most Christians do, but our focus will be on Jesus Christ." They could state that a MERE love of the Scripture without the love of Christ is worthless. If the radical wing doesn't start guarding its flanks, it will find itself in the same position of the charismatic movement, which, having failed to chasten its extremists, is now paying a bitter price for its lack of moderation.
The crypto-mysticism of Gene Edwards and his workers leads to an effective abandonment of Scriptural authority for church practice. Consider this egregious falsehood on page 44 of HCM: "The ekklesia is not an idea, a philosophy, or concept. The nature of the ekklesia is elastic, adaptable, changing and indefinable. Organic. Forever unfinished. Yes, and always defying definition." This statement completely ignores the apostle Paul's numerous statements in which he clearly appeals to a certain normative church structure, albeit a simple one. "...he [Timothy] will remind you of my ways which are in Christ, just as I teach everywhere in every church” (I Co 4:17). "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ. Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions, just as I delivered them to you” (I Cor 11:1-2). "But if one is inclined to be contentious, we have no other practice, nor have the churches of God” (I Co 11:16). "For this reason I left you in Crete, that you might set in order what remains...” (Tit 1:5). "I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are…” (Col 2:5).
Ironically, Gene Edwards' four disciples are stating here exactly what the institutional church believes. Institutional churchmen don't want there to be any biblical authority for church practice either, so they can go out and do what's right in their own eyes. The only effective difference between them and Gene Edwards is that the institutional church substitutes church traditions for the authority of Jesus' Scriptures, whereas the radical wing substitutes the authority of the church planter-guru for the authority of the Scripture. It's a sad thing, but earthly Christians just cannot do church by mystically focusing on Jesus alone; and if you don't believe us, look at the track record of Gene Edwards' own church plants. We need the Scriptures, too. Jesus and Paul weren't ashamed of the Word of God. Why should we be?
Even the HCM authors have to acknowledge the need for scriptural authority for doing church. On page 125 they state: "Abandoning all present-day practices, heading straight for Christ and his ekklesia, reintroducing the ekklesia as she was long ago, these have not yet been tried!" If the ekklesia is "elastic, adaptable, changing, and indefinable... forever unfinished... and always defying definition" (p. 44), in other words, if there is no scriptural definition for what the church is, why do we even care what the ekklesia was like "long ago," and why should we try to "reintroduce the ekklesia"? Two thousand years of elasticity is going to give us a church unrecognizable to first-century Christians. The Edwardsites don't practice what they preach, because they can't. The only way they are going to "reintroduce the ekklesia as she was long ago" is to pick up their dusty Bibles and read about the Girl. They need the Scriptures just like all the rest of us do.
In its attack on Bible-centeredness, the radical wing makes a fundamental error of fact. HCM states on page 87 that "This is unquestionably the most Bible-centered... and Christ-neglected... age since the days of the Pharisees." After one who respects the Scriptures gets over being associated with the Pharisees, he will wonder to which planet the Edwardsites are referring? On planet Earth the modern church is afflicted with charismania, neo-orthodoxy, and raging ignorance of the Scriptures. George Barna's polls tell of huge sections of believing Christians who don't believe in either the Bible or in the fundamental doctrines in the Bible, like Hell. Those polls also indicate that not only do large numbers of Christians not believe in the Bible, they don't even believe in the abstract concept of truth. Most modern day Christians on a workaday level ignore the Scriptures entirely when they are faced with a difficulty. The present-day Christian is in effect a mystic or pragmatist, doing what he "feels" like, or what he thinks "works." May we be excused from blame if we suggest that perhaps the radical wing is fighting on the wrong front?
Do They Practice What They Preach?
Miscellaneous Examples. When one is being lectured with a bony finger pointed at one's nose, one tends to be a little less charitable than usual about the lecturer's inconsistencies. May we point out a few instances in which the radical wing doesn't practice what it preaches? For example, we are told eloquently in Gene Edwards' book How to Avoid a Church Split that church splits are evil, and yet the house church landscape is pockmarked with explosions engineered by the radical wing. The wounded bodies are everywhere.
Another example: the Edwardsites inveigh against Greek-parsers and academicians (cf. HCM, p. 9), and yet, in their attempt to defend their view of women's ministry in the church, the authors of HCM use the Greek definition of ekklesia (p. 110), and in dealing with Paul's statement that women were to be silent in the church on page 109 state that "every Bible scholar familiar with the Greek language knows that is an incorrect translation." In addition, they use a sophisticated piece of historical research concerning the sociology of ancient Corinth that could only have been done by a scholar. One wonders mischievously if these Bible scholars so lovingly quoted were focused on Christ, and Christ alone, when they did their scholarship.
A third example: on page 9 of HCM the four Edwardsite authors, in the midst of disparaging all others in house church circles, write this: "To illustrate what is abroad in the land, what is supposed to be new, great and deep, consider this: four-day conferences with fifteen speakers - most of them educators and seminarians." And yet we discover on p. 151 that two of the authors are, in fact, educators! And in fact, Gene Edwards himself is a seminary graduate!
Examples of inconsistency abound. A fourth example may be found on page 11 of HCM. There we see men touted who will "lay a foundation which will last, not for a year, or a decade, but a foundation built to last a thousand years." But where are the house churches of the radical wing that last? Even though they all have a church planter, they blow up with dreary monotony.
For a fourth example: On page 108 of HCM, the four junior Edwardsites boast: "In the radical churches you will find women have equal standing with the men... women decide for themselves what role they wish to play in the church." But for some reason, none of the women in the radical churches have decided for themselves to share in the church planting tasks undertaken by the one-hundred percent male Edwardsian church planters. A statistical aberration, perhaps?
Selective Appeals to the Biblical Pattern. Gene Edwards and his disciples probably exhibit the greatest deviation from preaching and practice when they call for the restoration of the church planter. For with regard to no other elements of the scriptural New Testament church pattern do we hear appeals from Gene Edwards and friends to follow the pattern. But when it comes to the church planter, consider the following quotation from Overlooked Christianity by Gene Edwards, found on p. 131 in a chapter called "To Restore the Pattern": "How shall this drama, this first-century way, this divine pattern, be brought back? Bringing back these ancient ways is difficult, maybe impossible. But let us get caught trying!" (emphasis Edwards). Edwards then goes on to describe how a church planter should fit the biblical pattern. Consider also this quotation with reference to church planters on page 141 of HCM, in a chapter entitled "A Consistent Pattern": "Are we on good scriptural ground? Yes. The best of scriptural grounds. In fact the only scriptural grounds!" (emphasis by the Edwardsite authors). We read also on page 62 of HCM: "he [the church planter] figures so plainly in Scripture..." So we see that it is perfectly alright for the radical wing to appeal to Scripture when it suits their purposes, but are others allowed the same grace? Consider this quotation on page 105: "When you hear 'what we need is the recovering of the gifts and offices of the first century' head for the door. You are seeing the western mind about to create an organization." In the first quotation, don't the Edwardsites do just that and appeal for the "recovering of the gifts and offices of the first century," namely, the gift of the church planter? When confronted with the Edwardsites' erratic, self-serving and overblown pleas for the restoration of the church planter, should we not perhaps "head for the door" too? It is quite ironic to see the radicals bemoan the creation of organizations, when that is exactly what Gene Edwards has done. He has created a small network of assemblies which is under his control and he assigns his trainees to the various works. It is very obvious whether or not you are "in" or “out" of Edwards' orbit of influence. He decries institutional churches for their denominationalism, but at the end of the day he has created another tightly-knit denomination with a mini-hierarchy.
So why does the radical wing holler so loud when their brethren in out-of-the system Christianity try to restore parts of the pattern other than the church planter? Why are those outside Edwards' system called dead, legalistic, Greek-parsing systematizers when they try to restore such things as the agape love feast, biblical church discipline, interactive meetings, exponential expansion, meeting in homes, consensual church government, etc.? Why is it said that they are then interfering with the growth of the "girl"? Consider these "girl" quotations, which the Edwardsites repeat mantra-like: "No New Testament structure? There never has been. There never will be. This is a girl. Her biological genetics, her DNA, has been mistaken to be New Testament structure. No such structure exists in her. What you see in the New Testament is her DNA at work!...The New Testament does not give us a blueprint to glue together a church. What you read in the New Testament is a girl growing into her natural expression” (HCM, p. 104, emphasis by the Edwardsite authors). But ask yourself: is not sauce for the goose also sauce for the gander? If Edwards and his workers can persistently din our ears with appeals to restore the church planter as part of the New Testament structure, why is it not also permissible for others to request the restoration of other parts of New Testament structure, without being blindsided with charges of Girl-abuse?
Let's examine this "girl" metaphor further. There is, of course, truth in the analogy of the organic growth of the "girl." No man, unaided by the Spirit of Christ, is going to mechanically reproduce the New Testament church. But can any reasonable person believe there is no such thing as a New Testament structure? Does anyone believe that there is no structure in a girl? Is not the DNA which the Edwardsites venerate the very God-created "girl-structure" whose existence they deny? The metaphor is askew. A girl does have a structure. She has a head, two arms, two legs, and a female body. She has a pattern. Sure, she grows organically, but she grows according to the pattern that God created for her. And so does the church.
Do Their Church Planters Let the Girl Grow? The radical wing's writings are further laden with exhortations for church planters to "leave," that is to say, to not remain planted with the church they start, and not to become controlling and dominant. But a subtle thing happens in practice. Because the Edwardsian ideology so de-emphasizes the authority of Scripture, and so de-emphasizes the ministry of elders, and so emphasizes the role of the church planter, what happens in practice is rather the following. When the inevitable crisis occurs, the church planter steps into the vacuum of authority created by the both the lack of Scripture and elders, and becomes the very same dominating and controlling figure the Edwardsians profess to despise! Instead of focusing on Christ alone, their churches actually focus on Gene Edwards alone. Admittedly, this is a subjective assessment, but we ask our readers to observe carefully when they converse with folks in Gene Edwards' churches. Where does the conversation always go, to Christ, or to Gene Edwards?
Gene Edwards and his workers say they "leave." But do they really? Aren't they constantly present in the form of email, phone calls, visits, books, tapes? Ask yourselves when you examine Gene Edwards' churches: Are the people free to operate only within worker-prescribed boundaries? Are they knitted together tightly into a system which brooks no deviance from the will of the church planter? Are they free to question the authority of the church planter? Are the members usually younger than average and thus more likely to follow and less willing to challenge excessive authority? Are the believers ever told "not to talk about" certain things? Are all the believers given all the facts concerning important issues, so the brothers can make an informed decision, or are they merely given diktats from on high? Would any of Gene Edwards' churches ever be given the freedom, for instance, not to have separate Brothers and Sisters meetings?
When God made girls, he didn't make them all five feet two inches tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. He created a girl structure, but he allowed a certain amount of freedom within the form. It is ironic that Gene Edwards and friends trumpet freedom for the Girl in their books, but in practice create churches that are mere clones and are virtually indistinguishable from each other, with no freedom to deviate from Edwards’ pattern. The Edwards churches all start the same way: no Bible study, no singing, the brethren eat together, give testimonies, read Gene Edwards' books and listen to Gene Edwards' tapes, and then begin Brother's and Sister's meetings. After the churches are up and running they all write their own songs and then stand around in a football huddle singing them. May we be forgiven for asking the Edwardsites to please take their hands off the Girl?
Are All Their Church Planters Trained by Church Planters? A sine qua non for a radical wing church planter is that he must have been trained by another radical church planter. "Sit at the feet of a beat up old church planter! Watch how he deals with problems, answers questions…” (HCM, p.101). Tom Begier, Tim Richey, Nick Vasiliades, and Frank Viola are being trained by Gene Edwards. But may we politely ask: so who trained Gene Edwards, then?
Is the Church Planter Absolutely Necessary for a Church's Existence?
There are several things as well that are troubling about Gene Edwards' conception of the church planter. The church planter is said to be part of the scriptural pattern, and yet we must question just how closely Edwards and his associates conform to that scriptural pattern. For example, in the New Testament we see church planters evangelizing the lost, and then organizing the infant churches from those converts. However, a church planter in Gene Edwards' camp rather works with people who already know the Lord. Another example: a biblical church planter never asked people to move to a specific location, unnaturally uprooting their lives, for the sake of an artificially-created community that probably won't last. A third example: a New Testament church planter always traveled in mutually-accountable teams, but quite to the contrary, Gene Edwards and his crew apparently travel solo. But the most egregious way the self-styled radicals deviate from the scriptural practice of church planting is their elevation of the church planter to godlike, guru status.
The Gene Edwards literature is replete with exhortations for the reestablishment of the authority of the church planter. Representative quotations may be found in Rethinking Elders by Gene Edwards. "'But if elders don't deal with a crisis who does?' The man most needed, but the man nobody wants: the church planter” (p. 49). "The church planter and elders are inseparably linked... True eldership exists only in the presence of the itinerant church planter” (pp. 73-74). "the itinerant church planters, and they alone, are the one consistent influence in the decision of who elders will be and when elders will be. They are the ones who lay hands on these men. No itinerant church planters, no elders”[emphasis Edwards] (pp. 35-36).
Now we hold no brief for the extinction of the church planter. Apostles exist today, and we need more of them. However, there are several problems with Edwards' approach. First, such heavy-handed emphasis on the function of the church planter derogates from the authority of the entire church. Edwards does a great job in his book Rethinking Elders in pointing out that the New Testament is utterly silent about the authority of the elder. He also correctly points out that ecclesiastical authority is rather in the hands of the brethren collectively. However, his left hand takes away what his right hand has granted. When he says that "itinerant church planters, and they alone, are the one consistent influence in the decision of who elders will be, and when elders will be," what has Edwards thereby done to the authority of the brethren collectively? Shouldn't they have a say in who and when elders are to be? We ask our readers to examine for themselves the practice of Edwardsian churches to ask if Edwards' erroneous theory of apostolic preeminence has not indeed played out in practice. In a Gene Edwards church plant where is the real authority, in the brethren collectively, or in the church planter?
Another problem with Edwards' approach is that his definition of a church planter simply breeds discouragement. Since there are only five or so of them in the world (all conveniently tied up with Gene Edwards, of course), and since a church can not remain in existence without a church planter, the average Christian seeking the biblical church is forced to throw up his hands in despair because he thinks that he will never have a true church. Edwards' binding of a church's existence to the existence of a church planter, and by implication to an Edwardsian church planter, leads to elitism and arrogance. One follower of Gene Edwards, after listening to an apostle at a Southern House Church Conference who had started forty or so functioning churches describe what he had done, had the cheek to ask the speaker if the "BIBLE STUDIES" he had started were still in existence. When Gene Edwards and company do it it's an ekklesia, but when anybody else does it, it’s a "Bible study." The Edwardsites have even been known to suggest to little groups struggling to get started that they disband until they can get a church planter (call 1-800-Jacksonville)!
The final problem with Gene Edwards' notion of a church planter is that it is simply not true that a church will not remain in existence long without a church planter. (Ironically, most of Gene Edward's plants over the years have not lasted long themselves!) What Edwards and his crew have done is to isolate the pattern of the apostle Paul and to universalize his practice to that of the whole church. However, before a New Testament pattern can be normative, it must be as it is "in all the churches" (I Cor 14:34). But when we examine other apostolic patterns as well as Paul's, we discover apostles who did not "leave" the church they planted. We also find other churches that we can not, with any confidence at all, say were started by church planters.
First, let's look at some scriptural examples of stationary church planters. Peter represents an entirely different scriptural model for the church planter, but Peter is never emulated by Gene Edwards and his disciples. For example, unlike Paul, Peter is referred to both as an elder (I Pet 5:1) as well as an apostle (I Pet 1:1). Elders are stationary, and since Peter was both an apostle and an elder, this means Peter was a stationary apostle who traveled occasionally as the Lord led. Peter and the apostles who were with him at the founding of the church in Jerusalem did not itinerate for roughly the first seventeen years of the church's existence. They devoted their time to evangelizing and teaching in Jerusalem (Acts 1-7), occasionally taking short missionary journeys while based out of Jerusalem (Acts 8:14,25). It is not till Paul came to Jerusalem at the end of his third journey that we find that most of them had left the city (because the only apostle who met Paul was James) [Acts 21:18]. But not only Peter and friends were stationary for long periods of time. The Edwardsites' favorite apostle Paul was also stationary at times. He stayed in Corinth for "a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them" (Acts 18:11). Paul stayed with the Ephesians even longer, three years (Acts 20:31).
But even without the above scriptural examples showing that apostles sometimes did not itinerate, the radical wing's claim that surviving churches must perforce have church planters is fundamentally flawed methodologically. HCM on page 137 claims that "virtually every church in the first-century was birthed at the hands of an extra-local, itinerant... worker... (the few churches mentioned in the New Testament that emerged without the direct aid of an itinerant worker were always helped by such a worker after its birth.)" Now, if this claim were made about every church in the New Testament, it would be true. But the claim is made for every church "in the first century." But there were lots and lots of churches in the first century whose origins are not recorded in the New Testament (for example, the church in Alexandria, Egypt). How can the Edwardsites know for certain that these other churches were either started or helped by a church planter? They can not. And if they want to extrapolate from New Testament churches to churches not found in the New Testament, they have a big problem. All of the churches we know about were of course started and helped by apostles, because all of the churches we know about are found in the Scripture, and the Scripture-writers were apostles, who are naturally only going to write about the churches they started and helped. They are not going to write about other churches which perhaps were started without the help of church planters, because they had no experience with such churches. The Edwardsites can claim that it is generally a good thing for church planters to leave the churches they plant. But they have no warrant to elevate that claim to a universal principle.
Conclusion
What do we make of an old man and his little band of four men who write a book and claim that "a revolution is brewing in America... and this book is written by the men who are fomenting that revolution"? Puffery by book publishers is perhaps understandable, but the radical wing's pompous, over-inflated, overbearing rhetoric is insufferable. The back cover of "The House Church Movement - Which Direction?” blares: "You will be hearing from these men again. And again!" Well, no we won't, not if we care about Jesus' church. Blazoned on the same back cover in all capitals is this admonition: "BE ADVISED: THIS BOOK COULD BE DANGEROUS TO YOUR CHRISTIANITY." They sure got that right!
The sobering truth is that the terrain of the house church movement is strewn with the wounded bodies of those left bleeding in the road as Gene Edwards' troops have marched through with their church-planter-centered ideology. Over the years precious saints in assemblies under Edwards' control have been left bewildered, confused, and deeply hurt by the orchestrated manipulation of events, by the intimidating gag orders, and by the slanted spin given to issues and problems that arise. Problems are handled in terms of how Gene Edwards and friends can be protected and preserved, not in terms of any objective attempt to find Christ's mind. It is time for such spiritual carnage to stop.