The Danger of Presbyterian Apostasy
"The church that is abandoned by the poor must soon be abandoned by the Lord."
I understand that some readers found my previous essay on the failure of Presbyterianism to reach the poor to be too “dramatic.” While it may be true that Presbyterians could improve their ministry to the poor, won’t every church be limited in its demographic reach? No church can minister to everyone. Perhaps it is simply the Presbyterian calling to minister primarily among the wealthy in society. Sure, we could do more to reach the poor, but to label us as evil? You’re being too dramatic, Ben.
I don’t deny my love for dramatic flair. Many of my mentors agree that I tend to wear my emotions on my sleeve. Nowadays, the cheesiest drama on screen makes me tear up quickly. Still, I never called the Presbyterian church evil. Charles Hodge (1797-1878), one of the architects of American Presbyterianism, did. I thought we liked him?
In 1825, Hodge founded the Biblical Repertory journal, which was later renamed Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review in 1837. Under this name, Hodge published Preaching the Gospel to the Poor in 1871, which I cited in my previous essay.
As it turns out, Charles Hodge was not alone in his assessment. Joshua Hall McIlvaine (1815-1897) was a Northern Presbyterian pastor who graduated from Princeton Seminary in 1837, sixteen years after Hodge. Nine years before Hodge’s essay, in which he labeled the Presbyterian system as evil for its failure to reach the poor, McIlvaine published his own prophetic condemnation of the Presbyterian Church in the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review. In his essay, The Relation of the Church to the Poor, McIlvaine condemned his “beloved” tradition not only for its evil but also for its very real danger of apostasy. McIlvaine wrote:
From the prevalence of this evil, it seems to us that the greatest calamities to our beloved branch of the church are to be apprehended. The great calamity to be feared by us, is barrenness and dearth in our own spiritual life, and consequent apostasy. For whenever the church comes to be generally deserted by the poor, not only does she fail to demonstrate her Divine mission to the world, but also, and no less to her own members. The church that is abandoned by the poor, must soon come to be abandoned by the Lord.[1]
Many Reformed and Presbyterian Christians today view this period of Princeton theologians as a golden age for Presbyterian theology. However, I disagree with such fondness for several reasons, particularly due to the influence of racism that this generation had not only on Presbyterianism but also on the American Church overall. Nevertheless, the legacy of this generation on American Presbyterianism cannot be overlooked.
If we give any regard to this generation of theologians, we must do so truthfully and honestly, considering the full account of their views. As imperfect and sinful as these men were in their racism and White supremacy, they still had eyes to see Jesus’ commitment to the poor and the dangerous trajectory of their beloved tradition. Nearly 160 years ago, our Presbyterian ancestors saw a great evil taking root in our tradition and the imminent danger of being abandoned by Jesus.
Did we listen? Has our tradition changed? Can we honestly say that we have done everything in our power to become a tradition for the poor and oppressed? Or have we become so accustomed to their neglect that we no longer see it as evil but as the acceptable status quo?
What if Hodge and McIlvaine were correct? What if a tradition that neglects the poor is truly at risk of Christ snuffing out our flame?[2] What if a tradition with great theological precision that fails to include the poor as Jesus commanded is at a greater risk of apostasy than those with less precision but a profound love for the poor?
If this is the case, the threat of apostasy remains very real, and we might be running out of time. I can’t help but wonder whether the rising level of infighting and division within my theological tribe signifies that our time is nearly up.
But don’t listen to me. Let the dead in Christ speak to us and shape our hearts to more noble, Christ-honoring ends.
For the remainder of this essay, I will summarize McIlvaine’s Scriptural and ecclesiological arguments, which he used to reach his conclusion above. In a later essay, I will elaborate on McIlvaine’s proposed solution to remedy our failures and suggest practical applications for our churches, presbyteries, and denominations today.
The Witness of Scripture
McIlvaine began his essay by describing the close relationship between natural symbols given to us in Scripture and their spiritual significance. His language was nearly sacramental in how he saw the “intimate connection” in Scripture between the language of natural poverty and spiritual destitution. This emphasis in both the Old and New Testaments should lead us to the conclusion that the people of God in all ages “would sustain a peculiar relation” to the poor and oppressed in the world. In his analysis, “this anticipation [is] fully verified.”[3]
The evidence of such love for the poor is so evident in the Old Testament that McIlvaine would not even attempt to cite them. He said such repeated emphasis in the Old Testament is so obvious that “they cannot have escaped the attention of the most cursory readers.” Citing Scriptures such as Isaiah 29:19, McIlvaine believed that it is also apparent that the literal poor in Israel were the most zealous of all worshippers in the Old Testament.[4]
This deep connection between God and “his” poor was an “inheritance” developed and fully realized by the New Testament church. This becomes immediately evident in the life and ministry of Jesus in the gospels. Jesus was born into poverty; his father was “a poor mechanic.” It was among the poor that Jesus spent most of his time. Through his emphatic care for the poor, Jesus “sought to win their confidence and gratitude” by bringing the last of the world into a deeper relationship with God as a matter of first importance.[5]
Jesus’ prioritization of the poor is evident in his first public discourse in that synagogue in Nazareth (Luke 4:14-30) where he opened his heart “to the destitute and afflicted” and showed his “deep interest in their temporal and eternal welfare” which “in his subsequent ministry seems to have missed no occasion of making itself known.” Jesus would later point to his ministry among the poor as the greatest evidence that he was “the true Messiah and Savior that should come into the world, as foretold by the prophets” (Luke 7:18-23). Jesus considered love for the poor “the principle by which he will distinguish at the last judgment the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25:31-46). False professors and hypocrites “will be those who have neglected to minister in his name to the poor and necessitous.”[6]
The Messiah’s prioritization of ministry to the poor was instilled in the Twelve Apostles, most of whom were chosen from among the poor and working class. It is evident in Acts that the Twelve “took up the matter of making provision for the poor, and placed it upon a permanent and responsible footing, in the first church which they organized, by the institution of a separate office for that sole purpose.”[7] The early emphasis on this office is a model for all other churches to follow.
McIlvaine also showed great insight into the Apostle’s instruction to Paul when he came to them in Jerusalem. That their only charge to Paul was to “remember the poor” (Galatians 2:10) is evidence that they feared Paul might not understand “the peculiar relation which the church must bear to the poor” such that they “deemed it necessary to give him a special charge upon that one point alone.” The remaining Epistles in the New Testament “are no less full and clear” on this matter.[8]
The Witness of Presbyterian Ecclesiology
While the witness of Scripture and church history[9] are clear, McIlvaine considered the greatest evidence for the church’s purpose “to bear the poor” is found in Presbyterian ecclesiology (yes, you read that right!). If the church is Christ’s body, then the “organ of his manifestation” will be found in his church by the degree to which “her organization affords him suitable instrumentalities for his work.” In the offices and organization of Presbyterian government, McIlvaine saw that our churches should be well-ordered to carry out Christ’s threefold aim in the world: the preaching of the Word, care for the Christian community, and ministry to the poor.
In the office of pastor, McIlvaine recognized the priority of preaching the gospel “to the final end of the salvation of the people of God.” If this office is not maintained, or if the duties of this office are absorbed by another, the preaching of the gospel will lose its priority in the church and then the world.
McIlvaine believed that the office of elder was established to prioritize the church's maintenance, care, and purity. The people of God must be organized into a healthy body that ensures the vitality of all its members.
The office of the diaconate embodies the third “specific object of the church,” which is care for the poor. The diaconate was established “to manifest the grace and compassion of the Lord for the poor in their destitution and suffering; to exhibit the peculiar relation of himself and his church to them as a class; to give prominence and dignity, and sacredness to their cause; to ensure the systematic and adequate provision should be made for them in his church; by the supply of their temporal necessities, to gain their confidence, and win their hearts to him as able and willing to supply all their spiritual wants; to hold him up before the world as a most bountiful almsgiver of spiritual life and blessing; and to signify to us all that the sole claim we have upon him is that of utter destitution and helplessness.”
The special relationship of the church to the poor should be recognized in the diaconate given no other class but the poor has a special office established just for them. In the diaconate, provision for the poor “is made one of the three immediate objects for which the Christian church exists in the world.” Contrary to contemporary Presbyterian ecclesiology, which often regards the diaconate as an optional office of far less importance than pastors and elders, deacons are “second to no other, except that for the preaching of the gospel.”[10]
The Danger of Presbyterian Apostasy
Just as the most substantial evidence of Jesus’ messianic role was his ministry to the poor, the “strongest proof” that his church can give to her validity is if “she also does reach the poor with her gospel, does provide for their spiritual wants, does attract and win their affections to herself, and make known to them the saving grace and compassion of their Savior.”
If any church, “from any cause whatsoever,” cannot say, “with a large and full significance, ‘The poor have the gospel preached unto them,’” it will have lost the evidence necessary to show that it is a true church.[11]
Like Hodge, McIlvaine observed a general pattern of neglect for the poor among urban churches. He cited various reasons for this phenomenon in London’s churches, including their close ties to state power, hierarchical leadership, and reluctance to share authority with the laity. Today, there are warnings for us, particularly with the rise of Christian nationalist movements and those denominations and networks that prioritize speed and size at any cost.
Yet in the American churches, McIlvaine saw an even stronger influence alienating the poor from the church: materialism and greed. To quickly become self-sustaining, churches organized themselves in such a way as to intentionally attract the middle and upper classes. In such churches, the preaching of the gospel “tends to adapt itself more exclusively to the intellectual and esthetic tastes” of the rich and powerful. The preacher “becomes an essayist, rather than a proclaimer of gospel facts and revealed truth.”
Thus, the church's entire ministry is structured so that if members pay enough for its services, they will receive corresponding benefits and an elevated social status. Their families will benefit from the intellectual stimulation and entertaining recreation intentionally designed for the upper classes. The individual or family can claim they sit under a great, popular preacher rather than an ordinary one. “A high money value becomes attached to every sitting” in the church, reinforcing the elite status of the rich over the poor.
Such ministry systems can only have one effect: “The poor are turned out of their Father’s house.” After all, “the poor are not slow to see who are wanted in such churches, and who are not.” [12]
Through such systems, the Presbyterian Church in 1862 found itself in significant danger of apostasy. To McIlvaine, those whose theology “is considerably inferior to that of the Presbyterian Church" but who “do succeed, by whatsoever means, in reach the poor with their gospel” are in far less danger than Presbyterians.
If the Presbyterian Church were to reclaim its Divine mission to the world, McIlvaine believed it must become a “true, healthy, and self-propagating spiritual life,” where the rich and poor, high and low, educated and blue-collar, meet together before the Lord in the worshiping assembly.
Does McIlvaine’s judgment still stand? If it does, then we might need to consider the cure:
The preaching of the gospel, the prayer-meeting, and all the ordinances of religion, must be adapted to the intellectual and spiritual wants of the lowest. The true and adequate remedy cannot come from any other source than the great Head of the church interposing in behalf of his beloved poor. He, therefore, is to be sought unto for direction, with fasting and humiliation, with strong crying and tears.[13]
In a later essay, I will elaborate on McIlvaine's four practical solutions for Presbyterian churches to begin reaching the poor. Until then, I hope you will join me in earnest prayer and dependence on the Lord, that he might give all his churches, Presbyterian or not, a deep conviction to gather up the Lord’s flock, which is to be found first of all among the poor and despised in the world.
[1] Joshua Hall McIlvaine, “Review of The Relation of the Church to the Poor,” The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review XXXIV, no. 1–4 (1862): 623.
[2] “It being admitted that it is the duty of the church to preach the Gospel to the poor, it must also be admitted that any church which fails to bring the Gospel to bear upon the poor, fails in its duty to Christ. It refuses or neglects to do what he has specially commanded; and sooner or later its candlestick will be removed out of its place. In spiritual things at least, those who fail to communicate fail to possess. A candle under a bushel soon goes out.” Hodge, Charles Hodge, Preaching the Gospel to the Poor, Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 (1871), 83.
[3] McIlvaine, 601.
[4] McIlvaine, 602-603.
[5] McIlvaine, 603-604.
[6] McIlvaine, 604-605.
[7] The office of deacon.
[8] McIlvaine, 606-608.
[9] Following McIlvaine’s argument from Scripture, he spends about two pages briefly summarizing the witness of church history in their regard for the poor. While I do not cover that argument here, it is a necessary consideration. If you are interested in this history, see Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity, especially chapter six.
[10] McIlvaine, 611-614.
[11] McIlvaine, 615.
[12] 618-621
[13] McIlvaine, 623.