In 1637, Jenny Geddes had enough. The English government had ordered the Church of Scotland to use the Book of Common Prayer in their worship services. There was more at stake than church liturgy. For England, the conformity of the Scottish and British churches was a matter of national importance, and critical for King Charles I to successfully avoid civil war. After all, the Book of Common Prayer had been vetted, and was deemed fitting for corporate worship. Certainly, it wouldn’t be sinful for a church to use it.
At least that is how the government viewed it. But for the people in the pews, there was a more important question than the orthodoxy of the Anglican Church. The heart of the matter was does government get to tell churches how to worship? Or, to say it differently, is God or government the Lord of the church?
So it was on July 23, 1637, when the Minister of St. Giles Cathedral opened the Book of Common Prayer for corporate worship, Jenny Geddes—a church goer of no social import—threw her stool at his head.
Fast-forward nearly 383 years. In 2020, at the height of COVID, the governments of Canada and the United States similarly tried to exert authority over church worship. In March of 2020, they ordered churches to close for two weeks to mitigate the spread of the virus, and nearly all churches did. John MacArthur, the pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, explained it his way: “When a hurricane is coming, you cancel church!”
When March gave way to April, and April gave way to May, and May gave way to riots, it was clear that churches were not closed because of COVID, but because of government power. When the same officials who shuttered churches encouraged people to take the streets to riot, the motivations were clear. In fact, some governments expressly allowed all “essential” businesses to re-open. That included casinos, theatres, and shopping malls. But not churches.
There is a new movie in the theatres, The Essential Church, that tells the story of three churches and how they responded to attempts by governments to regulate their worship. Fairview Baptist in Alberta, Grace Life in Edmonton, and Grace Community in Los Angeles all decided to re-open. In all three jurisdictions the circumstances were different, but all three churches met swift government response. In the case of Grace Church, the government threatened jail and massive fines. In Canada, both pastors ended up in jail.
The Essential Church ties their stories to that of Jenny Geddes and her three-legged stool. In so doing, the movie makes it clear that in the past 400 years, the players may have changed, but the government’s game remains the same. In the government’s quest for power, it disrupts society, it disrupts law enforcement, it disrupts family, and ultimately the last institution standing in its way will always be the church.
By following three very different churches, the movie succeeds at showing how the story was bigger than any one church. Whether the church membership was several dozen, several hundred, or several thousand, the big picture was the same.
The Essential Church weaves their stories together. It features the elders who debated the theology, the lawyers who debated legal strategy, and the pastors who went to jail. Voddie Baucham describes “statism,” while Ian Hamilton tells the stories of Scottish Martyrs.
The movie was compelling because it clearly explained the theological issues that were at stake. It does so in a way that doesn’t shame churches that arrived at different conclusions, but it does compellingly frame the stories around the basic question: who gets to tell churches how to worship?
I strongly encourage people to see this movie. Watching it revealed how much my memories of the COVID era had already started to shift. I had forgotten just how far into COVID it was when these churches went to court. I had forgotten the brazen government hypocrisy of having “essential marches” while banning church. When “social justice doctors” ignore medical doctors, and close churches in order to advance “health equity,” it puts churches in an awkward position of complying (and thus ceding the leadership of worship) or rebelling.
My 12-year old saw it with several of her friends. I can honestly say that it affected them. They were talking afterwards about the courage of the Scottish martyrs. They wondered why our governments lied about churches, lied about schools, and lied about the virus. The next day she asked if the governments are still lying about important things today, and how we are supposed to know who to trust.
The main take away from The Essential Church is not about COVID policy, but about courage. Watching this movie will put a marker down in your mind: be courageous in your recognition that Christ, not Caesar, is the head of the church.
The Essential Church opens nation-wide this weekend. Find a theatre near you at this link.