Does the church need a building?

Dr. S.E. Anderson is a prominent proponent of Landmark Baptist theology. He has cited 27 reasons why he does not believe in the invisible church, the denial of which is one of the main tenants of Landmark Baptist theology. You can read these 27 points in their fuller context here. A lot of the points are saying the same exact thing, so I will not be giving a response to all of them. However, I would like to post a series on some of the more valid ones. In this post we will be discussing Dr. Anderson's first point: the invisible church has no address, location, or building.

First, we should try to understand where it is folks like Dr. Anderson are coming from. To a Landmark Baptist, the physical church IS the church. The logical problems this presents are not a part of their thinking, so if I say I am a member of the body of Christ - they would assume I mean a local church congregation. So, if a church has no physical mailing address then it is not a church.

This belief is perpetuated by the idea that the kingdom of God (which would be where all us non Landmark Baptists fit in) and the Bride of Christ are two separate things. So while they accuse others of believing in two churches, they seem to believe in two bodies of Christ. This is the sort of logical fallacy I referred to in the previous paragraph. To a Landmark Baptist, the thief on the cross may have been saved but he is no longer a member of the church because the church is located spatially in time and space where you can see it. Likewise, the thief on the cross would only be a member of the kingdom of God or a guest at the wedding feast because the thief on the cross was not baptized or attending a Baptist church (which to a Landmark Baptist, would have been the church started by John the Baptist). This distinction between the Bride of Christ and the body of Christ is not something scripture even attempts to make, neither is the distinction between these and the citizenry of the kingdom of God ever made by scripture.

So, the question is does the church need a physical mailing address to be a church? I think the best way to answer this is to go to scripture. How does scripture talk about the church?

Well, we first hear talk about the church in Matthew 16:18 when Peter makes the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus then declares that upon this rock (Peter's confession of faith) He will build His church. He also promises that the gates of hell will not prevail against it. At this point, the Landmark Baptists are correct in stating that Christ promised perpetuity of the church (a very important point in their theology). However, notice that Christ said He WILL build His church on this confession of faith...not that the church already existed as a result of the baptism of John, or that John the Baptist had anything to do with the future building of the church.

We also see another problem for the Landmark Baptist in this passage, because Christ does not say that His church will be built on bricks and stones or Peter himself - but rather on the confession of faith received through the power of the gospel. Faith has no mailing address, and yet this is how Christ will build the church.

Another difficulty for Dr. Anderson would be something Paul said about his life prior to conversion in 1 Corinthians 15:9, "For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God."

Now, Paul was not persecuting a physical building. He did not go to the local Baptist congregation (assuming there was one) and begin ripping apart the steeple. What Paul did was persecute people, and partook in their murders. So, Paul seems to think that the church of God is made up of believers and not a building with a physical address.

You also find queer, non-building related language from Paul in his letter to the Ephesians such as Ephesians 5:23, "For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior." The Christ I know did not die for some buildings with mailing addresses.

Certainly, there are many passages that speak of the physical church and the physical works it is to do. The church is to have leaders, the church is where believers go to be edified, and the church is where we administer the sacraments. But, if there is only a physical building which is a church then we have to assume that it was not Peter's confession of faith upon which Christ would build His church - but rather, Christ literally meant "upon this rock" as if He were pointing to a particular stone. Likewise we would have to assume that when Paul speaks of Christ dying for the church, he meant the individual stones which he had previously been a persecutor of.

Scripture seems to think that there is more to the church than just a physical mailing address, and why Dr. Anderson cannot also see this connection is a mystery to me. So, it is not that I disagree totally with Dr. Anderson - because I gladly concede that many a visible church has a mailing address, but scripture would seem to suggest that there is an aspect to church which cannot receive letters or be built with concrete. With my sincerest apologies to Dr. Anderson, this point is totally absurd.