Much of Frank Viola’s book is concerned with taking particular teachings related to the question ‘Who is your covering?’ and presenting an argument against those teachings. In his section on denominational covering, he makes the point that “When a denominational headquarters is infected by false teaching, every church connected with it falls into that same falsehood and the heresy becomes widespread”, contrasting this with what he claims is the intended “autonomous nature of every church“. I’m not convinced that his argument is entirely correct; individual pastors do not automatically accept new teaching or policies from the denominational headquarters, and supposedly autonomous house churches are linked by relationship, which is also a potential method for heresy to spread. However, I do believe that a looser relational link is more likely to resist heresy than a hierarchical structure.
Under ‘A Word on Christian Orthodoxy’, Viola writes about the value of creeds and statements of faith as a guard against heresy. They are not in themselves scripture, but can act as a useful benchmark for our teaching; if we are drifting away from them, we need to ask ourselves why. In this context is a good passage demonstrating Viola’s rejection of hierarchical systems, but acceptance of the people in them:
“Let us not forget that the very canon of Scripture that we all hold dear was both defended and formally compiled by those within institutional church structures. This latter did not prevent them from joining the voices of the apostles regarding God’s sacred oracles. (Recall that the Body of Christ includes all Christians from every age, irrespective of what local assembly they belong to.)”
I consider this a significant statement when discussing these issues. We all know people from various denominations whom we respect and recognise as a brother or sister in Christ, even if we do not agree with everything that their denomination teaches, or even they themselves teach. Mary-Anne and I know Catholics, Protestants, Seventh Day Adventists, Anglicans, members of Vineyard, BewegungPlus, Chrischona, and even some house churches 🙂 which we love and recognise as fellow believers, even though we may not entirely agree with the teachings of each of those groups. (And even where we disagree, we first need to establish who, if anyone, is wrong.)