Officially Enacting Vineyard Ecclesiology

[Jon Stovell]

Abstract:

In an effort to assist the leaders of AVCs facing theological controversies in the future, this paper proposes guidelines for determining when to develop a position paper or to pursue other forms of response. A chief goal in developing these guidelines has been to ensure that they are grounded in and directed by the Vineyard’s essential ecclesiological principles, and so the paper begins with a brief consideration of those principles as they apply to theological discernment. Building on that foundation, the discussion is directed by the following questions:

• How have Vineyard position papers functioned historically in the past?
• How do we differentiate between kinds of position papers?
• When is it helpful to use one kind of position paper or another, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of each kind?

• What alternatives are available besides creating position papers?

Finally, the paper gives methodological recommendations for how to discern the most appropriate form of response to a theological controversy in a given situation. The core proposal here is that the preferable way to deal with theological controversies in the Vineyard is via theological and spiritual direction and mentoring, with descriptive position papers as a fallback response appropriate for some scenarios, and prescriptive position papers reserved for use only as a last resort.

The full paper is attached to this post as a PDF.

[Billie Hoard]

Alternately we could just establish a magisterium

I really appreciated this paper and the attendant discussion with @Thomas Lyons. Looking forward to continuing it here!

[Jon Stovell]

Thanks, @Bill Hoard. I'm really looking forward to continuing the conversation, too.

Quick feedback or thoughts are very welcome in this topic thread, or if anyone wants to start a new one to introduce a related topic, that'd be great, too.

If anyone is interested in participating in a think tank to see if we can develop this further, please check out this topic.