There has been some discussion in the pages of CR recently about Article 29 of the Belgic Confession, and how we should understand and apply what we confess there about the true and the false church. These terms seem to create a great deal of misunderstanding in the minds of many Christians today. People are actually offended if someone says, The church to which I belong is the true church of Jesus Christ.

Some of the misunderstandings may make people wonder whether these terms are even relevant anymore. I am not at all confident that the recent discussion in CR has been all that helpful in resolving those doubts.

How should we understand and use the terms "true church" and "false church" today?

Before we discuss the terms themselves, we need to point out an error that is made all too often in connection with this article. People seem to feel as though this article gives them the freedom, or, the duty, to survey the church scene around them, and pronounce judgment on the various churches: this one is true, this one is false.

That is not the function of the article. The function of the article is to give individual believers guidelines to help them discern where Christ calls them to be when they are looking for a faithful church to join.

As I have tried to explain how we should use the term "true church," I have come to use an analogy that involves McDonald's restaurants.

It is virtually impossible for anyone who lives in our society not to know about the restaurant with the "Golden Arches."

Suppose you were going to visit a friend. Uncertain how hospitable your friend would be you pull into a McDonald's along the way, step up to the counter and before you place your order ask, "Is this the real McDonald's?" The counter person's response is, "Yes, of course."

After finishing your Quarter Pounder and milkshake you continue on your way to your friend's house. On the way you pass another McDonald's. Your reaction is to feel cheated. After all the clerk told you at the first McDonald's that that was the real McDonald's. You stop at the second McDonald's, pull up to the drive-through window and ask the clerk if this is the real McDonald's. Again the answer is "yes."

"But," you say, "I was just in a restaurant 20 blocks east of here and the lady there said that that was the real McDonald's." Looking at you as if you're from another planet she says, "They're both real McDonald's!"

In your mind there is a contradiction. Because you are unfamiliar with the concept of franchising you cannot see how there can be two real McDonald's. But neither the clerk nor everyone else in North America sees any contradiction. They are all comfortable with the concept that every McDonald's restaurant that displays the marks of a "real McDonald's" — the golden arches, Big Mac and Ronald McDonald plastic statue is equally a "real McDonald's."

To me, the term true church functions in the same way. Every church that displays the marks of the true church — the pure preaching of the Word, the pure administration of the sacraments and the faithful exercise of discipline is a true church of Jesus Christ. It is in fact THE true church of Jesus Christ. So when a person says, the congregation to which I belong is the true church of Jesus Christ, he is not making, as so many of us immediately assume, an exclusive claim. No more than the clerks at the two McDonald's have made an exclusive claim when they both say that they are "real Mc-Donald's."

The term "true church of Jesus Christ" is in a certain way a generic term. It is not bound to any federation. It is not bound to any race or country. It is not even bound to any particular confessions. Wherever it may be, whatever its history may be, if I find a church which displays the marks of the true church, it is the true church.

People misunderstand this term on both sides of the fence. There are those who apply it exclusively to their own church, and bind it to their own federation. And there are those who hear it, and hear it as an exclusive claim. I don't believe that that was the intent of the confession, nor of the churches who adopted it. There is a second question with respect to the terms true and false church. There seems to be a very common assumption about these terms, namely, that if we cannot call a church true, it is therefore false. I mention this in connection with Rev. Pols's reference to the Reformed Baptist churches. He seems to infer that if we are unwilling to say that Reformed Baptist churches are true, then we are saying that they are false. And, vice versa.

First of all, remember that the article is not intended for this kind of use, to publish an index of true and false churches. But secondly, recognize that if we are going to follow that kind of logic — namely, that a church must be one or the other, the article is rendered useless.

The confession does not force us to choose one classification or the other. The article simply says that the true and false church, as identified by the Confession, are easy to distinguish from one another. It is easy to distinguish them today as it was in 1561. But I do not think that the Confession prevents us from saying that there are churches which are neither true nor false.

This is an issue that we have faced directly. When we left the Christian Reformed Church, we did not say that the congregations that we left were false churches. We had no grounds on which to make that claim. We could not say that they met all the criteria of the false church as described in Article 29. But we left those churches because we said, "These churches, as a federation, and as local congregations, are disobedient."

Questions remain as we apply this article to our church life today. One of the questions that we will almost immediately face is this one: Does the article refer to local churches only, without regard for the federation or denomination to which a congregation belongs? Or, at the other extreme, is the question of the federation to which a church belongs in fact a fourth mark of the true church? Those things we will discuss at a later date.

For now, let us leave it at this: The terms true and false church are still relevant in 1998. We could probably say that if possible, they are even more relevant today than they were in 1561. And the duty to which Article 29 does call us, as individual members, is something that we need to take up again, in the midst of a confusing and lawless evangelical church scene. That is the duty to be certain that the churches to which we join ourselves are in fact true churches of Jesus Christ.