Getting Anti-Donatism Wrong

What happens when a true principle gets wrongly applied

Article XXVI of the Articles of Religion of the Church of England. Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinders not the effect of the Sacrament

Although in the visible Church the evil be ever mingled with the good, and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the Ministration of the Word and Sacraments, yet forasmuch as they do not the same in their own name, but in Christ's, and do minister by his commission and authority, we may use their Ministry, both in hearing the Word of God, and in receiving of the Sacraments. Neither is the effect of Christ's ordinance taken away by their wickedness, nor the grace of God's gifts diminished from such as by faith and rightly do receive the Sacraments ministered unto them; which be effectual, because of Christ's institution and promise, although they be ministered by evil men.

Nevertheless, it appertaineth to the discipline of the Church, that inquiry be made of evil Ministers, and that they be accused by those that have knowledge of their offences; and finally being found guilty, by just judgement be deposed.

Donatism is a view, associated with a fourth century schismatic group, that certain sins committed by ministers make their ministerial acts, and especially their sacraments, invalid.¹ This view was eventually condemned as heretical by the church catholic; such condemnations show up in many Christian confessions and other dogmatic documents, such as Article 16 of the Church of England’s Articles of Religion (quoted above).

The theological grounds for this condemnation were supplied in particular by St. Augustine, who argued that because it is God, not the minister, who is acting in the sacraments, even sacraments presided over by wicked ministers ‘work,’ so to speak. The alternative is a vision of God’s agency in which human wickedness prevents God from showing up where he has promised to do so. Such a vision has real pastoral consequences: it would seem to force laypeople to ensure that their ministers possess a sufficient degree of holiness before receiving their ministrations. It’s easy to imagine, in such a case, always being unsure about whether your baptism really counted.²

In condemning Donatism, the church affirmed that word and sacrament function by divine, not human agency. As a result, the consciences of laypeople can be comforted with the knowledge that the failings and even wickednesses of those holding the pastoral office do not negate God’s promises. And, for that matter, the consciences of overscrupulous clergy can be comforted by understanding that their sins and failures do not prevent them from serving as messengers of the Gospel and pastors of Christ’s flock.

The church was right to condemn Donatism. Let me make this very clear: I am not a Donatist. I affirm Article 16, and my rejection of Donatism is related to a fundamental point of my soteriology, that salvation is by divine agency, not human agency.

And yet it is an unfortunate fact that true statements can be misused in dangerous ways. The truth that God hates sin can, wrongly applied, break a bruised reed, casting a wounded conscience into deep despair. The truth that our salvation is by faith and not works can, wrongly applied, lead people to scorn the zealous pursuit of holiness. And so on.

I am convinced that something similar often happens when we talk about Donatism in the church. Anti-Donatism is supposed to be about magnifying God’s gracious power and comforting the consciences of the laity or of overscrupulous clergy. I fear that in practice, however, it often functions otherwise. In practice, I have often seen it used to minimize concerns over ministerial sins, let church institutions off the hook for dealing with wicked clergy, and condemn expectations of ministerial holiness. As such, I think it perversely operates as part of what I have before called the “thin black line”, a clergy culture that is overly deferential to clerics and allergic to criticism.

Let me explain what I mean. In my experience, clerical sins and misdoings are often minimized by reminders that the ministry of wicked clergy is nonetheless efficacious. Particularly in places where priests are thin on the ground, if the choice for a parish is between having a less-than-upstanding cleric with sacraments, or sacking the cleric and risking having no sacraments, maybe (the unspoken thought seems to be) having a problem priest isn’t such a bad thing. Especially if they’re ‘otherwise a good guy’ or ‘mean well’ or ‘were really treated poorly early in their ministry, and that’s why they’re like this.’ Whether or not the specific term ‘Donatism’ is used, the idea that clergy are to be moral exemplars is often condemned as old-fashioned or unrealistic or even clericalist.

When the seriousness of clerical misdoing is minimized, efforts to push for a high standard of pastoral holiness are often accused of being ‘Donatist.’ This is especially the case in a context like mine, where approachability tends to be emphasized over irreproachability as a priestly goal. The idea (itself unobjectionable) that ‘priests should smell like their flock’ is taken to mean that any stress upon the importance of virtue for priests is pretension or ‘clericalism.’ A church that is increasingly unwilling to offer moral guidance in general finds itself unwilling to offer guidance (or exercise discipline) for its clergy beyond the general norms of behavior for nonprofit leadership or membership in the helping professions.³ And it often justifies this unwillingness with reference to upholding the church’s anti-Donatist bona fides.

In short, “the proclamation of the Gospel or administration of the sacraments do not depend on the moral qualities of the priest” can become “the moral character of the priest doesn’t matter at all, and it’s vaguely suspicious of you to think it does.”

But of course this isn’t what anti-Donatism entails at all. Article 16 makes crystal clear that evil ministers ought to be found out and deposed. How could it do otherwise, when the New Testament upholds the highest moral standards for clergy. As 1 Timothy 3 puts it, “a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money…” Or Titus 1: “I left you behind in Crete for this reason, so that you should put in order what remained to be done and should appoint elders in every town, as I directed you: someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious. For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain, but he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, self-controlled, upright, devout, and restrained, holding tightly to the trustworthy word of the teaching, so that he may be able both to exhort with sound instruction and to refute those who contradict it.” Now, I affirm that the church, in using its God-given authority to order its common life, can adapt these instructions to its context. But the general principle — that the moral life of ministers matters, and thus that the church should have exacting standards for its clergy — should not be up for debate.

It’s hard to write about this sort of thing as a pastor without sounding somewhat priggish, perhaps even like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the publican, who thanks God that he is not like others. So let me make clear here that I write this not because I think I am a superlative example of moral excellence. I don’t think this. I write this because I am convinced that it would be good for me to be part of a clergy culture zealously committed to the pursuit of holiness, rather than one that shrugs off clerical lapses as no big deal.

And the thing is, these lapses are a big deal. Not just for our own souls, but for the souls of the people we serve. I know (and I’m sure we all know) people who have left either a particular congregation or denomination or even the visible church writ large because of immoral and abusive clergy. You can say till you’re blue in the face that the truth of the Gospel message or the validity of the sacrament does not depend on the moral aptitude of the messenger, but few of us can live by syllogisms. It’s just obviously true that in practice, how the message is received often depends very much on the messenger. If you’re a fellow pastor reading this and it sort of terrifies you…well, it probably should. It certainly does me. But it’s the truth.

My hope for us clergy — my hope for myself — is that we recommit ourselves to collectively refusing to misuse anti-Donatist principles to justify our own slackness or our unwillingness to discipline our own. One way to put it, on analogy to Bonhoeffer’s discussion of justification by faith in Discipleship, is that we need to see anti-Donatism not as a premise but as a conclusion.⁴ It shouldn’t be a way to inoculate us from the beginning against concern for our wrongdoing. It should rather rather be a hard-won sense of the reality of God’s grace operating in our ministry by his power despite the agonizing contradiction between God’s unyielding commands for our holiness and our failures at obedience. It should be a means of salving anxious consciences (whether clerical or lay) rather than of anesthetizing consciences against pangs to begin with. May God make it so for us!

Almighty God, the giver of all good gifts, who of thy divine providence hast appointed divers Orders in thy Church: Give thy grace, we humbly beseech thee, to all those who are to be called to any office and administration in the same; and so replenish them with the truth of thy doctrine, and endue them with innocency of life, that they may faithfully serve before thee, to the glory of thy great Name, and the benefit of thy holy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

1. The actual historical conflict between ‘Donatists’ and ‘catholics’ in North Africa was somewhat more complex than this, but this is essentially what ‘Donatism’ has come to mean in Christian theology.

2. Indeed, something similar happens in certain forms of revivalist Protestantism in which baptism is supposed to follow a clear experience of conversion. New and deeper experiences of conversion can cast doubt upon the veracity or sufficiency of earlier conversion experiences, and so people find themselves being rebaptized again and again. In this case, of course, it’s about the reality of one’s faith rather than the holiness of one’s pastor, but either way the emphasis moves from human to divine agency.

3. Alas — how often do we seem to struggle as a church to meet even such a basic standard?

4. I should note that I’m not entirely sure what to make of Bonhoeffer’s treatment of justification here; this shouldn’t be read as an endorsement of it in its entirety, not because I reject it but because it’s something I’m still working through. But I do think that this contrast between the same principle as a premise vs as a conclusion applies well to what I want to convey about anti-Donatism.