The views expressed in this article are of the author only and do not necessarily represent those of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
Local and Universal: A Free Church Account of Ecclesial Catholicity
C. Ryan Fields
IVP Academic (2024). 283 pp.
In this published dissertation completed at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Ryan Fields offers his portrait of the biblical and theological marriage between the doctrine of the church’s catholicity and the Free Church tradition. As a pastor in the Evangelical Free Church of America, I can testify that this marriage is, unfortunately, too often viewed more as an arranged marriage than a love-struck, organic, and dynamic relationship. In good pastoral fashion, Fields has worked hard to stave off any separation or divorce between the local church and the universal church, exhorting us to hold fast to Jesus’s own warning: “what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Matt 19:6).
Fields begins with a short introduction that addresses the longstanding dissonance between the Free Church tradition and the church’s catholicity. Whether from an underdeveloped sense of catholicity or the potential “anticatholic DNA” (p. 2) of the Free Church tradition, which can be defined as “congregationally constituted” and “conscientiously nonconformist” (p. 17), clearly the dissonance is real. Fields opens his monograph with a bold claim: the Free Church tradition is not genetically opposed to catholicity, and more importantly, has an important contribution to make to the church’s doctrine of catholicity. By “catholicity” Fields is referring to the church’s “unified diversity through the whole of all times, peoples, and places” (p. 13).
In chapters 1 and 2, Fields gives the biblical warrant for and the theological development of the doctrine of catholicity. Biblically, Fields takes time to develop the redemptive-historical trajectory of the biblical story and the formation of a sacred people that encompasses all times, people, and places. The whole biblical story consummates in the gathering of the church from every moment and mile of creation. Doctrinally, the church has received Scripture’s witness and appropriated its subject matter in a way that yields and sets out the truths about the church’s catholicity. Fields presents a taxonomy of the church’s biblical self-assessment of catholicity that reflects the plethora of ways Scripture elucidates the doctrine, as well as those aspects of the doctrine preferentially appropriated by different ecclesial traditions (p. 65). Fields suggests that the best sense of catholicity will be an integrative one, where “as many of the aspects that have emerged over the church-historical trajectory” are prioritized and interrelated (p. 95). Such an approach makes room for—no, demands—the aspect of catholicity presented by the Free Church tradition.
In chapters 3 through 6, Fields explores and compares the doctrine of catholicity in the Anglican and Free Church traditions. Beyond noting the diversity of Anglican presentations of catholicity, one notable defining trait is the top-down notion of catholicity: the episcopate is the office that serves to protect the church’s gospel and Bible and, therefore, the church’s catholicity (p. 130). For Fields, such a definition grasps the “universal” sense of the church but can miss its equally important “local” sense. This is where the Free Church tradition helpfully joins the catholicity conversation. The Free Church traditions offers a bottom-up notion of catholicity: the catholicity of “two or three gathered” in Christ’s name (p. 184). This aspect of the church’s catholicity strengthens the doctrine’s located-ness, the church’s visible nature by means of its sacred congregational gatherings. In short, Free Church catholicity strengthens the doctrine’s sense of “local catholicity” (p. 191), which, along with the Anglican tradition (among others), is necessary to explain and understand the church’s catholicity in all its integrative fullness and beauty. It is not simply that the Free Church tradition can hold to the doctrine of catholicity, but that its unique contribution is an essential component of a truly “catholic” account. Ultimately, a Free Church account of catholicity “makes an important contribution to guarding, spotlighting, and maximizing the church’s catholicity because it locates catholicity where even two or three gather in Christ’s name: the local church” (p. 245). Just as walking requires both a left and right leg, so also a truly biblical and doctrinally precise catholicity requires both universality (e.g., unity and conformity) and locality (e.g., provinciality and diversity).
In his brief conclusion, Fields offers sage pastoral counsel to the Free Church tradition regarding the church’s catholicity. First, learn from the catholic church. As Fields explains, “we insist that the Free Church tradition . . . embrace the catholic church with the riches of its tradition and the insights that come from the myriad of other congregations . . . at all times, among all peoples, and in all places” (p. 251). Second, participate in the catholic church. Again, in Fields’ words: “A catholic sensibility must therefore not only increasingly define the Free Church tradition, but it must also impact praxis at the local church level and in the myriad of contexts in which we have been called to be witnesses of Christ” (p. 253). Finally, hope for the catholic church. Since the eschatological reality of the church consummate is the full and formal catholic church, our aspirations and hopes must match the future trajectory of the biblical story—that is, the church’s story (Rev 7:9–10).
Fields, an EFCA pastor himself, offers his own tradition a necessary kick in the ecclesial pants. I hope it is felt. This reviewer is convinced, not with every assessment Fields makes or with all of his judgments, but with the overall thrust of his argument: the church is catholic and the Free Church tradition is both a material part and a ministering partner of the church’s catholicity. This monograph was needed to make a biblical, doctrinal, and even Free Church account of the church’s catholicity. But the congregants in the average local church in the Free Church tradition may not read this book. They will continue to bristle at the word “catholic” when reciting the Apostle’s Creed (if they ever recite the creeds and confessions in corporate worship!). If I may be so bold, perhaps Fields could write something for the Free Church “bristlers,” those whose “conscientiously nonconformist” natures not only offer a necessary locality to catholicity, but who are also in need of (and a part of!) that glorious catholicity themselves. If not, may this book be read and understood by pastors who can (and must!) teach and explain its content to their churches. And may all our local churches begin to put into practice what Fields shepherds us to do: learn from, participate in, and hope for the catholic church.
Mickey Klink (PhD, University of St. Andrews) is the Senior Pastor of Hope Evangelical Free Church in Roscoe, IL. He is a member of the St. John Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
