Marks of a church

The Belgic Confession gives the "marks of the Church" as "pure doctrine of the gospel," "pure administration of the sacraments," and "church discipline exercised in chastening."

I don't know how that makes you feel but it makes me feel like walking out and heading to an AA meeting. Or anyplace with warm blood running through veins. I picture a dour, bearded man scowling down at me from a 17th century portrait. (Of course, one must make allowances for cultural fads in language, and for the fact that Confessions were generally reacting against something.)

Who says these are the "marks of the Church"? What about "hotness" and "love"? God says if it doesn't have these it's not a Church, no matter how good the doctrine: he will remove its lamp stand (Revelation 2:5; 3:16).

It will be protested that the above are subsumed in the Belgic "marks" --- which reminds me of the man who quieted his wife's plea that she felt unloved by dragging his marriage certificate out of mothballs and proving his love by pointing to his 20-year-old signature.

Well, who reads Confessions anyway. But if they ever revise them, I hope they throw a few more things in. I like what Ray Stedman writes in Authentic Christianity:

Many think the mark of an authentic Christian is doctrinal purity….People who equate orthodoxy with authenticity find it hard to even consider the possibility that…they may have missed the deepest reality of the authentic Christian life.

Guess what he lists as mark #1 of a life in Christ: "unquenchable optimism." Now that speaks to me.