When To Get Out

WHEN TO GET OUT

No, I’m not talking about when to get out of your country that (seems to be) going down the drain.

I’m talking about when to get out of your church. When should you leave your denomination? Or, for you “non-denominational” types, when to get out of your “movement”?

This is an important matter. It’s something that could be considered at any time. People leaving their church is something that happens regularly. People sometimes leave for the wrong reasons. And sometimes people do not leave when they should.

There are so many variables that need to be addressed before the discussion can really get going.

A REAL CHURCH

One such important factor, which I have seen passed over consistently in articles about leaving your church, is what defines a church. It should be obvious as the sun that before we ask “should I get out of this church?”, we should ask “am I even in a church?” As in, before you know when to get out, you should know if you’ve been in a real church at all. It seems like common sense to address what defines a church before covering reasons for and against leaving one. Those reasons would not apply if a person was not in a true church in the first place.

The Marks of the Church, in brief, are:
✅ The pure preaching of the Gospel
✅ The Sacraments rightly administered
✅ The exercise of Church Discipline (which assumes formal membership)

If your “fellowship” doesn’t have all three of those, it’s not a church. That must be made clear before the issue of leaving is considered. And you cannot leave what you are not in, meaning formally:
"Church membership – that formal, public means of expressing your commitment to a congregation and of that congregation’s commitment to you – is an important, in fact a vital, non-negotiable, part of being a Christian." (Carl Trueman)

If where you are turns out not to be a church after all, find one. If you church actually is, have you thought about what it would take for you to leave?

STICK TO THE STANDARDS

I ran across some helpful wisdom on this issue in a place I wasn’t looking for it. That’s a benefit of constantly reading solid books, by the way. Anyway, J. C. Ryle in his wonderful-you-should-read-it-every-year-book, 'Holiness,' says this:

In the last place, would you understand what the times require of you in reference to the Church of England? Listen to me, and I will tell you. No doubt you live in days when our time-honored church is in a very perilous, distressing and critical position. Her rowers have brought her into troubled waters. Her very existence is endangered by papists, infidels, and liberationists without. Her life–blood is drained away by the behavior of traitors, false friends and timid officers within. Nevertheless, so long as the Church of England sticks firmly to the Bible, the Articles, and the principles of the Protestant Reformation, so long I advise you strongly to stick to the church. When the Articles are thrown overboard, and the old flag is hauled down, then, and not until then, it will be time for you and me to launch the boats and quit the wreck. At present, let us stick to the old ship. (Kindle loc. 5578-5583)

You had better be considering the standards, that pattern of sound words that your denomination/movement subscribes (assuming that they wrote it down). If all your church has on paper as an official, binding document is a short statement of faith, then there can be a whole lot of maneuvering without any accountability. Do not think for a moment that it’s possible to not have a creed or confession. Every person and every church/denomination has one. The questions are, is it written down, and is it biblical? If it’s not written down, it cannot be tested. And if it’s not written down, no members can detect when someone has drifted from the “official” teaching upheld by that church.

Let’s adapt Ryle’s wise statement:

Nevertheless, so long as the [denomination/church] sticks firmly to the Bible, the [confession of faith/catechisms; standards], and the principles of the Protestant Reformation, so long I advise you strongly to stick to the church. When the [confession of faith/catechisms; standards] are thrown overboard, and the old flag is hauled down, then, and not until then, it will be time for you and me to launch the boats and quit the wreck. At present, let us stick to the old ship.

There is a long history of this. It’s how the Orthodox Presbyterian Church came to be, when the mainline denomination became liberal. When the other denominations (Episcopalian, Anglican, Lutheran) were throwing their confessions and doctrinal standards overboard, several of their congregations abandoned ship. And it continues, as even some “Reformed” denominations become more accepting of homosexual practice.

Like I said, this is far from a theoretical matter.

I appreciate Ryle’s mentioning of his church’s confessional document, the Thirty-Nine Articles. That’s the summary of biblical teaching that that church subscribes to. Once a church as thrown that out, it has in effect broken its own rules. The purpose of confessions is to provide the broad summary of biblical teaching. When someone asks what we believe, we don’t just say “the Bible.” The quick and necessary follow up is, “and what does the Bible teach?” Instead of reinventing the wheel every five minutes, we point to our secondary standards, that official document of the church that summarizes the Christian faith. Every minister must subscribe to it. It is the standard by which teaching is checked, in submission to the ultimate authority of Scripture. The confession of faith of a denomination/church is central to this question of leaving.

CONFESSIONAL DRIFT

An example is the denomination of the church I attended [2016—2023]. It is painfully apparent to me that there is zero enforcement of the Westminster Confession of Faith. “Well, have you explored that denomination nation-wide?” No, I have not. So how can I make such a sweeping claim?

Because the Confession hasn’t made a bit of difference in the city where I am. And if the Confession is not being enforced and adhered to, and discipline dished out according to them, at the local level, then they might as well not be there at all! If our so-called “standards” actually aren’t setting the limits on what we preach and what we do as a church, then why are they there, exactly? And why do we claim to believe them, exactly?

I call this “confessional drift.” There has been a wandering from the pattern of sound words at the local level (and even at the presbytery level). And what have been the consequences? Has there been a call back to the Standards? Has there been a reminding that we have Standards that limit what we believe and practice? Has there been discipline for those who by their words, doctrine, and practice, contradict the documents they claim to subscribe? Have pastors and elders within the denomination been held accountable for teaching and doing things that go against the teaching they claim to submit to?

No. At least, not where I am. And where I am, at the local level, the level of congregations of souls of people sitting under preaching, is where it matters.

As it turns out, the confessional drift is nation-wide. There’s no attempt to even hide the amount of women who are filling the pulpits throughout the country, for example. That “evangelical feminism” is merely one manifestation of leaving the pattern of biblical teaching we claim to believe.

IS IT TIME?

Is it time to leave? I know there are some who prefer staying to reform over separation. Try to pull it all back to where we should be. That could solve the problem, in the sense that when you start calling people out for leaving confessional faith and practice, that they will all kick you out. I would later call this "The Machen Option," after J. Gresham Machen. And it is what happened my case.

But the question is for all of you: Does your church stick to its standards?

Has the Confession been thrown overboard? It’s usually clear when a denomination does that, like what the PC(USA) and UCCP have done in recent history. There is no doubt about the apostasy of those denominations, because it was official as well as functional. And I’ll never forget this line from John Shelby Spong (Episcopal Church), when James White referenced the Thirty-Nine articles during a debate with him, he replied “We got rid of those a long time ago.”

Perhaps the condition right now is merely what Ryle described: “Her life–blood is drained away by the behavior of traitors, false friends and timid officers within.”

This is all something we would do well to think about, before it becomes an unavoidable choice. We should study well before the exam, not during it.