Knox/Robinson for today

This article is an edited version of a talk given at the NEXUS conference on church in mid 2011. An extended version of this article is also available.

You might be unfamiliar with the term ‘Knox/Robinson’, but you may well have come across the substance of these two men’s teaching if you’ve ever looked into the doctrine of church.

Observers of Anglicanism in Sydney have often remarked on a confident and distinctive approach to the nature and purpose of church, led by such men as Howard Mowll, TC Hammond, Marcus Loane, Donald Robinson and Broughton Knox. The source of this approach is undoubtedly the teaching of Donald Robinson and Broughton Knox at Moore College from the early 1950s until the early 1980s, though both men denied they were teaching anything unusual and could point to others who were saying similar things.¹ For us, nearly thirty years after the last published piece by either of them, how should we respond to the theological legacy of Donald Robinson and Broughton Knox? Is it beyond criticism? Should we simply consider it a relic of our past and move on? Or is there room for a critical appreciation that appropriates their insights for a new era, without the kind of selection that distorts the entire package? This article is an abridged version of a talk I gave at NEXUS 2011; an extended version is available online at The Briefing website.

1. Dealing with a theological legacy

There are three common mistakes when dealing with the legacy of previous generations, whether it is in the area of theology or any other endeavour. The first is uncritical acceptance, where all that was said or done by the great ones who have gone before us is treated as so true and perfect that none of it can be questioned. Some theology often seems to be made of teflon—no criticism is allowed to stick. The second mistake is the polar opposite of the first: blanket repudiation. This is the arrogant preoccupation with novelty that declares “That made sense in their day but today, in a world they could scarcely have imagined, we’ve been given a much broader perspective”. You’ll recognize the sentiment, I’m sure. The third mistake stands somewhere between uncritical acceptance and blanket repudiation: a particular type of selective appropriation. Of course, all appropriation of teaching handed on to us is selective to one extent or another, but the kind of selective appropriation I’m thinking of here happens when we think we are faithfully passing on what we’ve heard and yet, by missing out critical elements of that doctrine or practice, we in fact pass on what is at best a variation—and at worst a parody—of what was said or done.

The way forward is to look more carefully at what they wanted to show us from the Scriptures, understand the context in which they were writing and the biblical theology which kept them from being simply products of their age.

2. Locating Knox and Robinson on the church

In his own assessment of the context in which he discussed the nature and purpose of church, Donald Robinson identified two major factors: the post-WWII momentum of the ecumenical movement, and the debates leading up to the adoption of a constitution for the Church of England in Australia (as it was then called) in 1962.² Both ‘movements’ were making grand claims about ‘the church’ that he and Broughton Knox believed to be seriously flawed and insufficiently disciplined by the explicit teaching of Scripture. A preoccupation with structural unity and a misappropriation of the theological dignity and the privileges associated with the local congregation of believers had led spokesmen in both movements into serious error, which (like all genuine serious theological error) carried with it serious consequences.

Robinson insisted that “theologically speaking, a body like the Church of England in Australia was simply not a church in any sense in which ekklesia is used in the New Testament”.³ So when the draft constitution opened with the words “The Church of England in Australia, being part of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church of Christ…”, Robinson protested that there had been “a confusion of categories”. Knox too called for greater theological discipline. The biblical picture of a gathering of disciples around Christ in the Spirit, attending to Christ’s word and serving each other, was being replaced by an institutional approach to ecclesiology.

So what was it that these two had to say about the nature and function of ‘the church’, and how might their insights enable us to be more biblical in our thinking and practice? Donald Robinson has insisted that he and Broughton were doing slightly different things, despite the common ground others have so readily identified. That observation alone justifies treating their contributions separately before returning to the question of Knox/Robinson for today.

3. Donald Robinson on the church

I’m going to concentrate on just three features of Robinson’s understanding of the Bible’s teaching on church: its place within a broad biblical-theological framework; the central truth of Christ’s presence in the midst of his people, whether gathered around the throne in heaven or gathered in local communities on earth; and his call for care in the use of the biblical language of ekklesia (‘assembly’, ‘gathering’, or ‘congregation’).

Biblical theology

Strikingly, Robinson’s doctrine of the church is firmly embedded in his biblical theology. He saw clearly that the rescue and restoration of humanity could only be achieved in the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the notion of ‘gathering’ has critical importance in that main theme of the Bible. God’s purposes in gathering his people are enacted in history, from the life of the nation of Israel, to the prophetic promise of a restored gathering around God’s temple on Mount Zion, to the confession of Jesus’ Lordship that unites those who come to him from Israel and from the nations. The physical gathering of God’s people has always been close to the centre of God’s purposes. God gathers his people, not just in theory, not in some ideal, abstract sense, but really in the concrete particulars of time, space and culture.

The church is where Christ is

A second feature of Robinson’s approach is the central place of his affirmation that the gathering is not just a meeting of believers with each other, but of believers together and with Christ in their midst:

The church is where Christ is. On earth, that is where two or three are gathered together in His name (Matt 18:20); in heaven, it is where He is, seated at the right hand of the throne of God and sings praise to the Father (‘in the midst of the church’, Heb 2:12). ⁴

This idea—that the church is where Christ is—is not just an incidental feature in Robinson’s understanding of the church. The church is not simply a gathering of Christians but a gathering around Christ, who is present by his Spirit and addressing his people through his word. The common criticism of the ‘Knox/Robinson doctrine of the church’ as purely horizontal, concerned only with the edification of each other, is a valid criticism only of a caricature of this position. An immense theological dignity and awesome privilege is accorded the local congregation precisely because it is Christ’s gathering of his people around himself. This means the local congregation, weak and feeble though it may seem, is immensely significant. Whatever circumstances we recognize have brought us together in a particular place and at a particular time, such gatherings are ‘convened and constituted by Christ’—the living Christ whose presence constitutes the gathering. This is why his appeal is so consistently to Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them”, and to Hebrews 2:12 with its quote from Psalm 22, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise”.

Care in terminology

Thirdly, Robinson consistently called for care in the use of New Testament terminology. In discussions of the ecumenical movement and those concerning the Church of England in Australia, he was aware of the tendency of some to apply biblical terms to entities the New Testament never envisaged:

I had no objection to the use of the title Church of England as such; it had grown up through long usage and everyone knew what it referred to. But it seemed important not to transfer to this national or denominational structure prerogatives and dignities which belonged to the ekklesia of God as that term is used in the Bible…⁵

At the time, this concern for the proper use of biblical language and concepts formed the basis of a warning:

Let us take heed that we do not despise the true ‘church of God’ (1 Cor 11:22), or give it any occasion of stumbling (1 Cor 10:32). We will certainly be in danger of this if we exalt ecumenism, or denominationalism, or diocesanism above the unity of the local church, forgetting that Jesus builds His church only where men confess Him as Lord (Matt 16:16–18:20).⁶

Just as New Testament language of ‘church’ and all associated with it cannot be used in an unqualified way of larger institutional structures, whether they be denominational or trans-denominational, without compromising the very heart of what is indicated by the language, so it ought not to be used more generally of Christians as they are dispersed in their everyday lives. Robinson insisted on a careful distinction between ‘church’ and ‘the people of God’:

‘Church’ is not a synonym for ‘people of God’; it is rather an activity of the ‘people of God’. Images such as ‘aliens and exiles’ (1 Pet. 2:11) apply to the people of God in the world, but do not describe the church, i.e. the people assembled with Christ in the midst (Matt. 18:20; Heb. 2:12).⁷

Robinson’s point was made sharper by his description of the life of the earthly church as ‘intermittent’. This stands in contrast to the heavenly church, which is gathered around Christ where he is, at the right hand of the Father.

An important distinction now needs to be drawn between the church in its heavenly aspect and the church in its earthly aspect. Not only is the church on earth multiform, that is, it may be seen wherever two or three are gathered in Christ’s name; but it is also intermittent and not continuous in character, since every meeting involves the necessity of dispersal… The Church in heaven, on the other hand, is uniform, existing only in one place, and it is a continuous assembly, offering perpetual praise as it hears without intermission the name and glory of God declared in its midst by Christ.⁸

It is important to stress here that he was not in any way discounting the significance of Christian identity and activity outside of this activity of ‘gathering’. He recognised “continuance in the relationship established between Christians by their coming together ‘in church’, but”, he argued, “such continuance is not coextensive with the activity of church”.⁹ There were and are other highly significant activities that Christians are engaged in: witness, evangelism and taking the gospel to the community stand out among them. But these ought not to be confused with ‘church’, which is something very particular: the gathering of those called by Christ, meeting with each other and with Christ in their midst in order that, as the church, they might be built in love (Eph 4:16). We will need to return to this last point as we consider the challenge of Robinson’s observation to the early twenty-first century practice of church.

4. Broughton Knox on the church

The heavenly gathering

Most of Broughton Knox’s published writing on church dates from the 1970s and 1980s, after that of Donald Robinson. While he clearly adopted much of Robinson’s exegetical argument, his real contribution lies in the way he integrated those exegetical conclusions with larger theological concerns of the character of God and his sovereign purposes. He repeatedly anchored the priority of the heavenly gathering which Hebrews 12 speaks about in the words of Jesus from Matthew 16:18 (a text he once described as “the most important passage in Scripture about the church”¹⁰):

We are participants in the group or gathering around God’s throne which Christ is forming in the presence of God. This is the basic use in the New Testament of the word ‘church’.¹¹

Jesus promised to gather his church around himself (‘at this rock’), much as in Exodus 19:4 God spoke of having gathered Israel to himself at Mount Sinai. However, since Jesus is now in heaven, seated on the throne at God’s right hand, it is there first and foremost that Jesus gathers them.¹² The church is most basically a spiritual gathering which draws its life from the work of the life-giving Spirit in the life of each Christian perso.¹³

This does not mean he devalued the earthly church in the interests of securing the priority of the heavenly church. On the contrary, he insisted that each local congregation is the necessary physical manifestation of this fellowship that we share now with Christ in heaven. This fellowship:

If it is to be expressed between ourselves while we still remain in the body in this physical world, must involve meeting… being in the heavenly church, that is to say, being in fellowship with God and one another through the gospel, involves being in fellowship with one another in a physical visible assembly or meeting. Now the heavenly and the earthly are not two fellowships, or two gatherings, one unseen, the other local and visible, but they are the same fellowship both heavenly in God’s presence and at the same time local and physical because we live in a physical environment.¹⁴

So local gatherings of Christians are not optional. Membership of a local congregation may not constitute our Christian identity but neither is it irrelevant or dispensable:

We are all in each other’s company in Christ’s presence. The Spirit of God in each of us creates this heavenly church, and draws us into each other’s company to meet with Christ in each other, to form the local gathering or church or congregation (the words all mean the same). This local church is the necessary expression of the heavenly reality. We are all together in one place because we all share the one Spirit. It is indeed the fellowship of the Spirit.¹⁵

As he spoke of us being present with Christ and each other in heaven while also being present with each other gathered around Christ in the local congregation, Knox made a critically important observation about the relation of these two biblical descriptions:

It is not future anticipation of which the writer [of Hebrews] is speaking but present reality… We are already citizens of the heavenly family. We are already in Christ; already in heaven, though still on earth waiting for the redemption of our bodies. In part, we have died and our life is hid with Christ in God; in part, we still belong on earth and need to put to death our earthly members. Through Christ we have come into the Father’s presence and are members of his household. We are already in heaven, this is our present situation not merely a future hope. We are already at present citizens of a heavenly city (Phil 3:20), a heavenly household (Eph 2:20), a heavenly church (Heb 12:23).¹⁶

So local gatherings of Christians are not simply an accident of history. Nor are they simply a pragmatic necessity, a means to some other end. No, a deeper reality, bound to God’s eternal purpose and our identity as Christ’s people, necessitates the manifestation of this heavenly reality (which is a reality now, not only in the future) in the physical dimensions of time and space.

Fellowship

One of the larger categories with which Knox was working was that of ‘fellowship’. Fellowship, or ‘relationship’, is not simply a romantic notion or a sociological category. It is, rather, the basic reality of the universe. Here Knox brought the doctrine of the Trinity to bear (long before it became fashionable to do so). As God is relational in his own being, so ‘relationality’ is a critical feature of those created in his image and finds proper expression in the Christian assembly.

God is ultimate reality and God is Trinity, three persons in one. The Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son and the Spirit is in both. Ultimate reality, God, is persons in relationship. Thus there is no experience more ultimate than personal relationship, nor more blissful, for this is how God’s being is, and God is ultimate blissfulness.¹⁷

The Father draws attention to the Son, the Son seeks the glory of the Father, and the Spirit is the Spirit of the Father and the Son. God is no narcissist; he is not turned in on himself, but each person of the Trinity finds a focus of existence and activity in the others. Selfless preoccupation with the welfare of each other—in ultimate terms the salvation and maturity of other men and women—therefore characterizes the gathered people of God:

Thus church is Christian fellowship. Like all fellowship it requires as a sine qua non ‘other-person-centredness’, that is, being genuinely interested in the other person as a person, and, in particular, as a Christian person. It will require communication, talking to each other in Christian things, in the things of faith and hope in Christ. Christian church fellowship means not only talking together, but doing together Christian things such as praising, praying, and thanking God. Our fellowship is not only directed towards God, but also towards one another, building one another up as Christians.¹⁸

Of course, in the face of the real and continuing human sinfulness, our reflection of God’s other-person-centred relations is always imperfect. Joy and suffering are most intense in the area of personal relationships precisely because relationships are so important. He wasn’t only concerned for the ‘horizontal’ approach to church; Knox never failed to emphasize the presence of Christ amongst his gathered people and the orientation of the gathering to the Lord who speaks to his people through his word. It’s not some abstract notion of God and fellowship which determines the character of the local congregation, rather it is God, the one who is concerned for the salvation of men and women and for the recreation of the world, and who has acted decisively to bring this about in Christ:

The relationship in Christ is God-facing, it is fellowship with God and his work in the world. God faces the world in saving love, and in him we face the world in saving love (i.e. in evangelism and works of charity and moral witness to the society). Christian fellowship cannot be turned in on itself, for it is the fellowship of God’s Spirit. It includes the whole world, as God does. His tender mercies are over all his works. He so loves the world.¹⁹

Denominations vs. denominationalism

It is in this wider context that his comments against denominationalism need to be understood. Broughton Knox was not against denominations:

Congregations should be in fellowship with one another. They should not act independently of other congregations. Independency is not a Christian concept. It is contrary to God’s nature, and to our nature as he created it. Independency is a contradiction of Christian fellowship. Congregations should not act without respect to other congregations. Denominational structures assist the interdependence of congregations. These links are a natural creation of the fellowship of the Spirit of God. The denomination and its officers have a ministry which is common to all Christians, that is to help, advise, encourage and exhort the congregation and its member.²⁰

Denominations, particularly where there is a plurality of denominations, can be instrumental in protecting freedom of conscience and facilitating genuine, faithful Christian fellowship in each local congregation. However, problems arise when, as happens far too often, these structures, designed to facilitate the life of the local congregation, begin to identify themselves as ‘the church’. He insisted, “denominations are not churches, but are service structures to assist congregations which are real churches”.²¹ Denominationalism is that attitude which finds an alternative focus for allegiance in the denomination itself—Knox famously wrote an article for the Australian Church Record entitled ‘The Sin of Denominationalism’. The most destructive form of denominationalism is coercion exercised from outside the local congregation in order to ensure the congregation serves the programs and policies of the denomination. Knox was emphatic on this point:

Centralised control outside the congregation extinguishes the gospel within the congregation in due course. History confirms this truth abundantly. Even the smallest degree of control has this effect in the long run, for experience shows that the centre, when given control of the congregation, over the decades increases it, aiming and uniformity and obedience. But the gospel rocks the boat of the denomination!²²

5. Knox/Robinson for today

Thus far I’ve spent the bulk of my time unpacking the key elements in the doctrine of the church as expounded by Broughton Knox and Donald Robinson because it seems to me that what we need most is a fuller understanding of what they actually taught, rather than secondary reports or parodies. However, I do want to outline five ways in which their teaching might intersect with questions many of us have been wrestling with.

Church is a quite particular activity of the people of God.

There are lots of other things we can do as the people of God, but they are not church. To confuse them with church is to lose sight of what the church exists to do. Strictly speaking, there are only two things that the church as church is said to do in the New Testament. The first is to “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Eph 4:15). Put another way, it is to be “built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Eph 2:19–22). The second is to be the instrument through which “the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph 3:10). This happens as Jews and Gentiles and people from vastly different backgrounds, social networks, age groups and personality types come together in genuine fellowship and love. So a critical question for us to ask ourselves is whether recent developments in our practice of ‘church’ promote or hinder either of these things. Is what we do when we gather really helping Christian men and women grow to maturity in Christ? For instance, the homogeneous unit principle might be an effective evangelistic strategy, but is it an appropriate rationale for a local congregation of God’s people? How does it allow a genuine oneness of mind and heart, despite our variety in background, education, skill, culture and age grouping, to attest the manifold wisdom of God?

Church is not oriented towards outsiders, unbelievers or seekers.

It is not first and foremost an evangelistic rally, nor a discussion group for comparative religion, apologetics or contemporary ethics. Church is the gathering of those who are already in Christ. It is not designed for outsiders but for insiders, even if it is always an open and public gathering that welcomes outsiders. Some of our contemporary confusion about what we do when we come together arises from a failure to observe the important distinction between being intelligible to outsiders and being oriented towards outsiders. Paul expected that an outsider might enter the assembly at Corinth and understand what was being said. But he did not expect that all that was being done would be oriented towards the outsider, calculated to remove all that might seem strange to the outsider, or even designed so that the outsider might anonymously observe and feel more comfortable. Of course we should recognize the danger of alienating those who visit our churches with obscure language, unexplained rituals, and general insensitivity or rudeness. However, the outsider is visiting or entering a fellowship with a particular character that marks itself out from other gatherings. Not all ‘strangeness’ is bad, especially when we consider how distant our contemporary culture has become from gospel priorities. The desire in some circles to transform church into something resembling other gatherings (theatres, cafes, etc.) needs a better justification than it is often given.

There is a premium on relationships.

Since God himself is deeply relational and that relationality is profoundly other-centred, and since we are created to live as his image, the relationships between those who are gathered as Christ’s people are critically important. Such relationships are not simply a means to an end and they can’t be reduced to a strategic objective. Genuine relationships take time, and the realities of loving people in the midst of this broken world means that sometimes apparently more strategic commitments need to be put aside. People must have a priority over programs. Walking with each other and helping each other grow into maturity in Christ requires more than a superficial interaction. The prominence of the language of love in the New Testament—love patterned on nothing less than the sacrifice of Christ—ought to challenge contemporary trends towards the professionalizing of ministry. This Knox/Robinson insight might in fact challenge us to be more deeply immersed in each other’s lives, in marked contrast to the superficiality of ‘social networking’. It will most certainly challenge tendencies in some circles to transform what used to be described as ‘common prayer’ into something more akin to a concert or a performance.

Don’t forget the centrepiece: we are gathered by Christ around him.

Concerns about excessive formality and a narrow focus on simply the individual and God, together with reactions against strangely inverted notions of ‘worship’ (where we are doing something for God or merit something from God), have led some evangelicals to speak about church almost exclusively in terms of our edification of each other. As a corrective in the light of these distortions, the importance of how we relate to each other is emphasized with minimal attention to the presence of Christ in our midst. Yet Knox and Robinson both spoke repeatedly of our meeting with God in his word. They both expected that God’s people would be addressed by the living God himself as his word was proclaimed in the gathering. Broughton Knox famously amended the answer to the first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism to read “the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him in the company of his people forever”. He critiqued the notion of ‘private religion’ and insisted on the necessity of fellowship. But he did not ever relinquish the centrepiece—we meet together with Christ in his Spirit and by means of his word.

Don’t despise denominations, but do not fall again into denominationalism.

The priority of the local congregation in the purposes of God does not mean we should abandon denominational association altogether. It has been all too easy to misread Knox and Robinson as congregationalism pure and simple. They saw denominations as human structures designed to serve the needs of the local congregations, and rejoiced in the evangelical heritage of Anglicanism in particular. When denominations worked well, they fostered interdependence and helped to guard the faithful proclamation of the gospel in each congregation. Yet they knew too that, due to the unrelenting human bias towards sin and rebellion, a good and godly heritage could all too easily be transformed into a focus for allegiance that rivals commitment to Christ and to those who are his wherever they may be found. Denominations can acquire a life of their own and seek to coerce all within their association to serve a central agenda. Worse still, throughout the world many mainstream denominational structures have been hijacked by liberal revisionists and so the agenda being pushed is directly counter to the teaching of Scripture (witness the state of global Anglicanism). So there is a continuing need for caution when it comes to engagement with denominational structures. They have not always served us well.

This ought to temper the current fresh appreciation of the evangelical legacy of the Protestant denominations, evidenced by new attention being given by evangelicals to the creeds of the early church and the Reformation confessions. The essential observation of Robinson and Knox that the denomination is not the church, and that confusion at this point will always undermine gospel mission in the long run, needs to be reiterated just as strongly today.

If you would like to read more by either Robinson or Knox, Australian Church Record has published Donald Robinson: Selected Works, and D. Broughton Knox: Selected Works is available from Matthias Media.