At What Cost?

Peace within the church and unity of the brethren is not a "nice to have", it is a fundamental requirement, a non-negotiable commandment from Christ. Psalm 133:1 speaks of the joy when the brothers live in unity. We are commended to be one just as the Father and Son are one ( John 17:11-23 ) in Christ's prayers. Peter and Paul both urge us to work to a unity of Spirit, faith, knowledge and love (Ephesians 4:3; 4:13 , 1 Peter 3:8). I cannot help but believe that Christ is grieved over the divisions in His Church, especially since so much of what divides the church is due to disagreement on important but secondary questions. For example, I can drive to at least five different conservative Anabaptist local churches in less than 15 minutes that would look to the casual observer to be almost identical and yet they are distinct from one another and in some ways in competition for the same pool of members. It really bothers me that this is the case.

On the other hand, there is an awful lot of division that is unfortunate but also proper and necessary. The church in America is in the midst of a seismic event in the form of sexual ethics, especially the attempted normalization of homosexual behavior. The church has to address it and there really isn't a way to "live and let live" on this question. Either homosexuality is, as has been understood in the church for 2000 years, an aberrant and sinful behavior (assuming one identifies as homosexual based on taking action on urges rather than struggling with them in a celibate lifestyle) that must be repented of or it is a special category of specifically named sin that really isn't a sin at all. We are all sinners, even and especially those in the church, but for those with a new heart we cannot wallow in our sin and even celebrate it. You won't see, at least for now, "'Men Who Look At Women With Lust' Pride Parades". We either turn from sin to Christ and receive redemption or we remain under condemnation, turned away from Christ and embracing sin. There is no middle ground. If we had such a structure it would be a good time for a Council of Nicaea type moment so the church can go on record about this issue. Unfortunately, due in large part to the aforementioned division in the church, that is not feasible, leaving the issue up for debate from the level of large denominations to local churches and individual Christians.

I was reminded of this in a news story I saw recently relating to the Mennonite Church USA. By any measure the MC-USA represents the left-wing of the very diverse Mennonite community and is dealing with the homosexual normalization issue like the rest of the "progressive" wing of the American religious community. One regional conference, the North Central Conference of Mennonite Church USA, is stepping away from the MC USA. A representative of the very small (less than 400 total members in 10 churches), Fred Kanagy, said the following

“The NCC has come to recognize and identify ways in which MC USA has moved away from what we understand to be traditional, orthodox interpretations of Scripture from an Anabaptist perspective,” he wrote in an email. “ . . . The movement of many in MC USA in thinking, discernment and practice has created a separation, and the trajectory seems to indicate a widening divide, which we feel requires of us that we either change our convictions or change our affiliation.”

That is really the proper way of putting it. It is not the stodgy conservatives who are bringing disunity, it is those who are straying further from orthodoxy with each passing day. You might say, so what, it is only a few hundred people but they aren't the only ones. Also announcing their departure is the venerable and much larger Lancaster Conference with over 13,000 members , which according to the Mennonite World Review amounts to a loss of 14% of the total membership in MC USA. That is a major loss and I expect others to follow as Christians and local churches "vote with their feet".

This is not an unusual or rare problem. Many other "mainline" Protestant denominations have seen splits, especially in the Episcopal church in America which was the first to put forth a divorced (now twice divorced) open and unrepentant homosexual as "bishop". Individual Christians, local churches and groups of local churches alike have declared that the direction some have taken has led to an unequal yoking and they cannot maintain their affiliation. Rightly so. If we are not to associate with or even break bread with the unrepentant sinner that claims to be a Christian (1 Corinthians 5:9-13), we certainly cannot remain yoked with an entire group of people who " give approval to those who practice" sins such as homosexuality (Romans 1:32 and preceding verses).

There is a place for denominational unity I suppose but in many cases what we are seeing are local churches and individual Christians who are stepping away from denominational unity in order to remain in unity with the broader church. What seems to be occurring, as someone who identifies in many ways with Anabaptism but on the outside of the MC USA, is the same thing that happened in any number of "mainline" Protestant denominations. As their denomination moved further away from orthodoxy, they were forced to choose between unity with a denomination or unity with the broader church. In these cases they chose the more difficult and less popular route of choosing loyalty to the church universal, Biblical orthodoxy and Christ Himself rather than denominational ties. Rightly so. The path of following Jesus is pretty much never the smoother, easier path.

HT: Tim Challies

I generally have little use for denominations, even though they sometimes work powerfully for good. This issue of sexual morality is going to be one that more and more denominations are going to be forced to address. Even "conservative" denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterian Church in America are going to have to deal with individual churches who flaunt their disobedience from Scripture and their challenge of the broader denominational norms. We are already seeing a lot of this. There are many Presbyterians and Baptists who differ on church governance and the question of baptism that nonetheless have far more in common with each other than they do with fellow Presbyterians or Baptists. I think we will continue to see the rise of cross-denominational, "para-church" cooperative efforts in the years to come, if for no other reason than simple survival.

Unity is critical and the church needs more unity and cooperation but that can never come at the expense of truth.

Book Review: Simple Church: Unity Within Diversity

I have posted a few times about a writing project I have been involved in and I am excited to say that Simple Church: Unity Within Diversity releases tomorrow! It was a project a long time in the making and unlike other books from the simple/house/organic church system, Simple Church: Unity Within Diversity is intentionally focused on what we are for rather than what we are against, where and how we find agreement on critical principles of the church.

I can say I agree in principle with almost everything written and in practice with most. Certainly there are places I disagree, some pretty strenuously, but even though there are some portions that I found disagreement that is sort of the point of this book. We don't all agree on everything but on many issues, some of the most critical, we do agree and seek unity in spite of those other differences. The church as it exists right now suffers from an overabundance of homogeneity. The Reformed huddle together with the Reformed, the Pentecostals with other Pentecostals, the Lutherans with one another, etc. We tend to lump actual Christians we disagree with in almost the same category as people who don't believe at all and at the same time lurk around in echo chambers where we all talk about how much we agree about the things we agree on. Theological in-breeding is unhealthy and dangerous. It is good and healthy to examine what others think and to reexamine our positions. While I didn't find much that really caused me to question any positions I hold, it was still a profitable exercise to read and hear from others.

An honest and open discussion of the church is long overdue but too often these conversations devolve into accusations over disagreement. It is my hope that this book and other conversations like it serve as a baseline for substantive discussion. As we exit, and not a moment too soon, the era of Western Christendom, we find ourselves desperately in need of a new way to talk about the church, a way beyond more of the same and into the simple expression of community we see in the New Testament. I encourage you to give Simple Church: Unity Within Diversity a read and even if you don't agree with everything (or perhaps especially if you don't!), add your voice to the conversation.

You can also order Simple Church: Unity Within Diversity directly from the publisher, Redeeming Press!

I Am All In Favor Of Christian Unity. This Ain't It.

I have written many times on the importance of Christian unity and bemoaning the lack thereof. That should not be construed to mean an anything goes abandonment of the very heart of the Gospel. I was deeply troubled (although not surprised) by the announcement from Richard Stearns, the president  of the mammoth, ostensibly Christian charity World Vision that they would employ people in a legal "gay marriage". To compound the error his rationale for this move is (or at least should be) befuddling (emphasis mine):

World Vision's American branch will no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman.

Abstinence outside of marriage remains a rule. But a policy change announced Monday [March 24] will now permit gay Christians in legal same-sex marriages to be employed at one of America's largest Christian charities.

In an exclusive interview, World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns explained to Christianity Today the rationale behind changing this "condition of employment," whether financial or legal pressures were involved, and whether other Christian organizations with faith-based hiring rules should follow World Vision's lead.

Stearns asserts that the "very narrow policy change" should be viewed by others as "symbolic not of compromise but of [Christian] unity." He even hopes it will inspire unity elsewhere among Christians.

In short, World Vision hopes to dodge the division currently "tearing churches apart" over same-sex relationships by solidifying its long-held philosophy as a parachurch organization: to defer to churches and denominations on theological issues, so that it can focus on uniting Christians around serving the poor.

Given that more churches and states are now permitting same-sex marriages (including World Vision's home state of Washington), the issue will join divorce/remarriage, baptism, and female pastors among the theological issues that the massive relief and development organization sits out on the sidelines.

Embracing as normal what the Bible describes as sin, disordered and contrary to nature for the sake of "unity"? Let me state unequivocally as someone who yearns for genuine unity in the church: unity that is founded on a lie is not Christian unity.That policy might make sense for a secular employer but for an organization that seeks to be intentionally Christian it is a theological trainwreck.

Those who struggle with homosexual attraction and those actively involved in this sinful lifestyle deserve and demand our love. That love means speaking the truth to them, humbly as those who once were lost but now are found. Loving the sinner doesn't mean affirming their sin as OK, it means telling them of a different way. The Bible speaks very clerly on this issue in Paul's letter to the Corinthians:

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor 6:9-11)

Those who are unrepentant sinners, whether homosexuals or drunkards or thieves, will not inherit the Kingdom of God. All of those of us who are regenerate, born again Christians were once sinners like that but the key here is the past tense. We are not that way any longer. We may struggle with sin but we no longer embrace it. I doubt World Vision would hire a convicted and unrepentant embezzler to run their accounting department or a guy who shows up drunk to work to drive workers around. yet they will normalize as acceptable what the Bible calls destructive.

To put on the same level marriage between a man and a woman, an arrangement instituted by God in the very beginning, with a politically popular but Scripturally unrecognizable arrangement like "gay marriage" is the height of loving the world over walking the often lonely path of the cross. It only makes matters worse to base this soul condemning capitulation ona false appeal to "unity".

The church in the days to come must come together to stand for the Gospel. We cannot base our appeals for unity on a denial of the very Gospel that must serve as the foundation of that unity. I am not sure what motivated World Vision to make this move, whether an honest if misguided effort to embrace homosexuals or a callous and cynical move from a money driven organization getting ahead of where the culture (and the checkbooks) are headed. Regardless this is the sort sad but expected move we will see from the pseudo-Christian world of religion that permeates our society. The walk of the church when standing for the truth as it becomes more unpopular will often be lonely and even dangerous but that is all the more reason to reject calls for false unity and call on the church to rally around the truth of the Gospel.

The Limits On Unity

Alan Knox has a new chain blog, this time on the topic of relational unity. The word "relational" is critical here. A lot of Christians will acknowledge the concept of unity while by their actions practically deny that very same unity. Saying "we are one in Christ but I don't associate with you Sunday morning or cooperate with you in any meaningful sense" is a farce and sinful.

I talk a lot about unity and there are some great posts already in the chain blog. I want to add a different viewpoint having to do with the limits of unity. Can we have unity without exception? Does unity trump everything else? If not, what are the limits?

When we look to Scripture we see clearly that unity is very important, not just in theory but in reality. We see the church around the ancient world collecting funds for famine relief for churches in other regions, we see the church freely sharing with one another materially, we see Jesus praying for unity in His high priestly prayer. However we also see that from the very earliest days there were people who for a variety of reason that we are warned about and often those warnings required us to separate from people, to be dis-unified for the sake of the church. Where we run into trouble is the "when" of this issue. The sad truth is that most of what we divide over in word or deed has essentially no Scriptural basis and sometimes it seems we fail to divide when Scripture says we ought to.

I want to start by looking at some places where separation is required and the first place in Scripture that springs to mind is the opening of Paul's letter to the church of Galatia.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Gal 1:6-9)

That is some pretty strong language. Not "we should form an ecumenical council to discuss common ground". If someone, an individual or group of individuals, denies central tenets of the Gospel, replacing them with teachings that subvert the very essence of that Gospel, we cannot have unity with them. We can love them, and must. We can pray for them and ought to. Be visibly unified in the faith with them? No. This warning and the next are especially pertinent in our world today. No as far as what those central tenets are, that is a conversation for another day. Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses obviously fall outside of Gospel orthodoxy. Historically that has been true to a lesser extent with Roman Catholicism. What about Seventh-day Adventism? Again, important topics for a different day.

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, "I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty." (2 Cor 6:14-18)

This might as well have been written to the political activists on both sides of the church. I see this mostly applied in the church to marriage as a warning against "inter-faith marriage" but it clearly is a much broader command. I understand the impulse to make public signs of unity with like minded unbelievers to achieve common goals but there is a real danger of unity with those whom we are nto united in the faith with. So there ought to be clear distinguishing lines between the church and the world.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."  (1 Cor 5:9-13)

Sexuality immorality and other gross sins that fester unrepentant in the church are destructive. Paul is not saying here that they have "lost their salvation" or that people who are sinning are not believers but that they should be treated as unbelievers, denying them the fellowship of the saints and "purging" them from the church. It damages the witness of the church and causes confusion when we look past these sins. So when people are refusing to repent of their sins we must of necessity separate from them.

So obviously the Bible places limits on unity. Here is another one, a tricky one to ponder....

But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.  (Titus 3:9-11)

That is a hard one. The response to someone who is divisive is to...divide from them? In this case yes, being divisive is harmful to the church and for the sake of unity we must stay clear of people like that. Now they are plenty of people who are excessively quarrelsome in the church, not the same thing as people asking legitimate if difficult questions, and the church has an obligation to discipline and potentially eventually, to borrow an Anabaptist term, shun those who refuse to repent.

We face a major stumbling block in this whole issue of unity and limits in that we have an awful lot of trouble identifying and agreeing on what those limits mean. Most of what divides the church does not have much, or any, Scriptural support. Divisions over eschatology, music style or church governance, specifics of soteriology, traditions, denominations, etc. are common in the church but are completely absent from Scripture. I guess when you are being persecuted for the faith you don't have time to worry about secondary issues. Because we divide over secondary issues and other issues that are so silly they don't qualify as secondary we fail to clearly define what issues we should see as legitimate limits to unity.
We ought to seek unity, real and relational unity, as a top priority for the church. We should find barriers to unity and tear them down. Yet we must not mistake prioritizing relational unity with false unity, unity at all costs. Unity that compromises the Gospel is not unity we should pursue. Unity that overlooks what Scripture declares to be inviolable principles is false unity and worse than disunity. What is truly ironic is that because of our disunity we have utterly failed to have the conversations in the church that would clarify what rises to the level of an issue to divide over. Our disunity makes unity nearly impossible.

So what do you think? What are the reasonable limits of unity in the church? Where do we draw the line?

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Chain blog rules:



1) If you would like to write the next blog post (link) in this chain, leave a comment stating that you would like to do so. If someone else has already requested to write the next link, then please wait for that blog post and leave a comment there requesting to write the following link.

2) Feel free to leave comments here and discuss items in this blog post without taking part in the actual “chain.” Your comments and discussion are very important in this chain blog (both on this post and the other link posts in the chain).

3) When you write a link in this chain, please reply in the comments of the previous post to let everyone know that your link is ready. Also, please try to keep an updated list of links in the chain at the bottom of your post, and please include these rules at the bottom of your post.



—————————————————



“Links” in the “Real Relational Unity” chain blog:

1. “Chain Blog: Real Relational Unity” by Alan

2. “The Treasure of Unity ‘in’ our Relationships” by Jim

3. “So The World May Know – Observations on the Road to Unity” by Christopher

4. “Christian Unity – What it is and What it’s not” by Nathan

5. “Steps to Relational Unity” by Randi

6. “Learn to Live or Live to Learn” by Greg

7. “The Limits on Unity” by Arthur

8. Who will write the 8th link post in the chain?

Anabaptism Without The Boundaries

I had an email exchange with a friend and we sort of stumbled on a concept: Anabaptism without boundaries. To understand that you need to understand the lay of the land of Anabaptism where we live. Our immediate community has an enormous and well established population of Anabaptists, from Amish to conservative Mennonites to really conservative Mennonites to really, really conservative Mennonites to former Amish to Beachy Amish and everything in between. It is a fascinating area in that respect and we have really started to get to know the different groups. We also have seen the way that these rich traditions and unique practices can create barriers that are unhealthy and I believe unnecessary.

When I write about Anabaptism it is important to note that I am speaking of the conservative wing of modern Anabaptists. Conservative Anabaptists are usually easy to spot. They tend toward very conservative clothing, the women all cover their heads, their buildings tend to be very spartan. Having said that, the conservatives do not have a monopoly on Anabaptism. There are many people who would declare themselves to be Anabaptists that look and often believe very differently from conservative Anabaptists. The more liberal or "progressive" wing of Anabaptism is largely absent in the area where I live and carries it own set of baggage, namely that in my humble opinion it tries too hard to rebel against the rules of traditional Anabaptism and ends up abandoning any semblance of standards. I am sure that will offend some but I call 'em like I see 'em.

I consider myself to be an Anabaptist, at least in the sense of someone who sees themselves within the wide tradition over the centuries of radical reformers that have carried the name "Anabaptist". That may strike some as odd. I am not a Miller or a Yoder. I didn't grow up in an Anabaptist church. We don't really look or act much like what Anabaptists are supposed to look like. In fact I am a pretty odd candidate to identify myself as an Anabaptist having spent so much of my Christian walk in the Reformed tradition (listening to the White Horse Inn where every ill in the church could be tied back to those Anabaptists and fixed by "word and sacrament"). Regardless, when I look at what I consider the "core tenets" of Anabaptism, in other words what set them apart from the Magisterial Reformers and got so many of them killed, I find myself firmly in that camp.

What are those core tenets? To look around the world of conservative Anabaptism you might think that it was a particular style of dress and a love for baking but I prefer to look back at what got Anabaptists in trouble in the first place. I think Dave Black puts together a nice list in his essay Why I Love The Anabaptists but here is a condensed version that I normally reference:

• A simple reliance on the Bible as sufficient for matters of faith and practice
• A distinction between the church and the state
• Non-resistance esp. as it pertains to killing on behalf of the state
• Non-conformity with the world (and I would add the religious establishment)
• Believer's Baptism
• As a result of believer's baptism the church as made up exclusively of regenerate individuals with an emphasis on church discipline

That is not exactly a comprehensive list but it hits the big issues. That list alone, while it has some a few pretty distinctive teachings in our religious culture especially the non-resistance one, is not enough to create major barriers between Anabaptism and the rest of the church but in practice the gap is pretty wide and unfortunately virtually unbridgeable. This also has major implications for evangelism. Generally when someone witnesses to someone who then subsequently comes to Christ they become part of the group but for conservative Anabaptists the issue is that someone who is a new Christian is going to have a very difficult time adapting to their culture. It is a troubling situation.

That is a pretty roundabout way to get to my point but I think it is important to set the groundwork. So why is it so difficult to bridge the gap? Why do people who come from more mainstream evangelical backgrounds have such a hard time integrating into Anabaptist groups?  I think there are two major issues in play: persecution and fear.

Over the more than four hundred years since the advent of the Radical Reformation, Anabaptism has faced persecution almost continually, even in "the land of free and the home of the brave", and that persecution has made Anabaptists understandably cautious and insular. When other "Christians" have historically been the ones wielding the instruments of torture or lighting the fire under the stake one can perhaps forgive them being a little cautious.

The other factor, and the far stronger one I believe, is the fear of "liberalism" that manifests itself in viewing every other Christian who is not a "plain" or "conservative" Anabaptist as a potential heretic looking to infiltrate and liberalize the church. I understand the impulse. The news is full of stories of various groups that used to, at least on the surface, reflect Biblical teaching that have gone completely off the rails. One need look no further than a man who divorced his wife and "married" another man that is called "Bishop" in the Episcopal church. There is even some of this among traditional Anabaptist groups. What ends up being the result is an unfortunate "all or nothing" stance where non-Anabaptists are conditionally welcome but only in the most cursory sense unless they are willing to go all in with the culture and tradition. So we are left with conservative Anabaptists viewing the rest of the church with suspicion, fearful that they will sneak in and start cutting women's hair, and the rest of the church looking at conservative Anabaptists as a tourist attraction, a throwback to a bygone era, neat to look at but little else.

This uneasy state of affairs between conservative Anabaptists and the rest of the church leaves the totality of the church poorer as a result. Anabaptists have so much to teach the church about living outside of the mainstream and apart from the acceptance of the culture, a state of affairs that the entire church is going to find itself in sooner rather than later. The broader church has made, in spite of the many flaws, some real strides in evangelism and service that Anabaptists could learn from. Even more intimately the conservative Anabaptist population could desperately use some new blood but that is awfully hard when outsiders are perceived with suspicion. I still remember one evening when we were out with the family of an elder in a local Anabaptist group and my wife asked if they considered our kids someone they would be OK with their kids marrying. There was a lot of dodging and stuttering on that question but the answer was pretty clearly "no". Kind of hard to feel welcome when you are not permitted to share the Lord's Supper and your kids are viewed as unfit to marry into the family.

The challenge becomes embracing the core tenets of Anabaptism while allowing, perhaps even encouraging, others to explore what that means and how that is lived without predetermined barriers. Giving others room to grow and perhaps even giving yourself room to grow is vital for a healthy church life. While Anabaptists are not unique in their theological in-breeding (for example Plymouth Brethren on dispensationalism, Reformed churches on ecclesiology, etc.) it is certainly rampant among them. Like conservative Anabaptists we practice headcovering but a sister in Christ sitting next to us that is not covering doesn't strike me as a threat just as I don't think that a teacher expounding on libertarian free-will in salvation is cause for me to get up and leave. My brothers in Anabaptist groups need to lay off the whispered talk of churches that "went liberal" as a bogeyman to scare people. If you are teaching what the Bible teaches and allowing yourself in turn to be teachable we will all be healthier. We all have so much to learn from one another but we can't learn from those we reject nor can they learn from us.

From the earliest days Anabaptist were an evangelistic people who challenged the status quo. Being an Anabaptist doesn't demand insularity nor conformity. I would argue that it demands just the opposite.

Repent and believe..and....

And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit after you become a member of our church and start to act and look like a proper Christian. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day after the local church voted to accept them as members about three thousand souls. (Acts 2:38-41 re-mix)

Do we add an unspoken set of rules to our evangelism? Do we place additional expectations on Christians, maybe not overtly but certainly implied, that we have a particular culture that we expect them to conform to? I think that we do and I am sure I have contributed to this. To make it more confusing there are a myriad of very different church cultures from local church to local church and also by geographic region and ethnic background. In essence what we are preaching is not "Christ and Him crucified", it is "Christ and Him crucified and our church culture".

When we go to the world and preach Christ, we do so in the expectation that (whatever your soteriology) some people will respond. Those people will not be out of the box American Christians (and we probably don't want them to be!). They might be former drug users or alcoholics. They might come from broken homes. We need to give people the grace and the room to grow in Christ and support them in that process, not expect that they will conform to us in every respect before they become "one of us". Every Christian is one of us the moment they are born-again. That is not my rule, that is His.

Even people who have been Christians for a long time are going to be at different stages of their maturation in the faith. It is not like we have any consensus on...well on much of anything, but boy do we try to make people conform to us. Please note there is a difference between taking a stand and erecting a wall. I can take a stand that I think wives should cover their heads and even argue in favor of that practice without saying that I will only fellowship with families where wives cover their heads. Being willing to extend grace to others and welcome them as the family members that they in fact already are is not compromising my principled positions, it is recognizing that adoption and unity in Christ is of paramount importance.

We also need the humility to recognize that we probably don't have everything figured out quite as much as we think we do. I only need to look at my blog over the years to see that as I submit and study scripture, I find myself modifying positions. I hope that I am doing so in a way that moves away from external cultural piety and into a more authentic walk as a follower of Christ rather than just waffling.

I am not saying that doctrine and practice are unimportant. I just don't think that it is my calling or my right to dictate to people the terms under which I will accept them. In fact I am pretty sure that one of the most preeminent doctrines, a first tier, non-negotiable doctrine, is that God has ordained the conditions for accepting us and that we are obligated to freely accept those that He has already accepted.

We are family...aren't we?

I posted this tweet yesterday.

A begrudging or conditional welcome is not really welcome at all.
— Arthur Sido (@ArthurSido) June 10, 2012

What does that mean? There is a lot of background and emotion that comes with that tweet. Twitter is a poor place to make a statement but I wanted to flesh that thought out on my blog because it deserves more than a tweet. It is a common theme here but one that is so important that it really bears repeating again and again.

Take away all of the rituals and traditions and culture and what is the church? It is not a bunch of "got it together", all figured out people. The church is a collection of sinners, misfits and messed-up people from all sort of backgrounds, all with lots of baggage (some is more obvious than others but it is universal) and all on different stages in our walk with Christ. No one was born as a regenerate believer in Christ. You aren't a Christian because you were baptized as an infant (or an adult for that matter). You aren't a Christian because you dress a certain way or have gone to church all of your life or exhibit all sorts of externally pious behavior. The only thing that makes us a Christian is being born-again. That is the one thing that is universally true among the Body of Christ and always has been. The problem starts when we look around and see a bunch of other people and realize that we are all different. So what to do?

Well some 1700 years ago there was a seismic change when the church went from enemies of the state to the state religion of choice after Constantine's famous "conversion". From that point forward, for the next 1200 or so years, what was understood to be the church dealt with differences by an authoritarian forced conformity where everyone was lumped into one religious organization and dissent was ruthlessly crushed. In the 16th century things started to change with Martin Luther and the start of the Protestant Reformation followed in short order by the Radical Reformation. With the forced universal conformity broken, Christians were free to relate to one another in community in spite of, and even rejoicing in, our differences. So what we did was divide ourselves up into competing denominations and local churches that erected barriers to fellowship, leading to division and often bloodshed.

When we treat Christians from outside of our immediate "local church" as second-class citizens of the Kingdom of God, people to be approached with caution until we decide they have passed the sniff test we have devised, we make a lie of all of the places where Scripture describes us as being adopted and accepted, where Jesus prays for unity, where we read that there is one faith and one body. We say to God that perhaps He was mistaken or that just because He has accepted someone doesn't mean much to us, sort of like God is the HR generalist that does the initial screening but we reserve the right to do the final interview before accepting someone. Should our standard of acceptance really be higher than God's and by assuming that role of final arbiter are we not placing ourselves in a position of second guessing and even overriding God? I can think of few sins in the Bible that have more danger inherent in them than trying to override God.

The church is called to be disciples that make disciples that make disciples. We are not called to declare to people the terms under which we will accept them, especially since God has already made that determination. Authoritarian leadership, "closed communion", systems of "church membership", doctrinal statements and creeds, all are designed to erect barriers between one group of Christians and another. No matter how many plastic smiles we put on and polite handshakes we exchange the reality is that we are perpetuating a centuries old system that puts Christian at odds with other Christians, a system that makes people feel like second-class citizens if they fail or refuse to conform.

Oddly enough, Alan Knox posted something about this just today, Refuse to try to control others among the church. Alan says that trying to control people is not the calling of a leader and those who are leaders should instead be especially cautious about having everything their own way...

So, we only have a few choices: 1) We try to control others and make them do what we think is best. 2) We separate from those who refuse to do what we think is best. 3) We live with one another in our imperfections continuing to help one another follow Jesus Christ and mature in him.

That kind of captures it. The obvious preferred path is number three but you can run into a problem when you are willing to live with imperfections but others are not willing to live with yours. That is a recipe for an unhealthy relationship. I sound like a broken record but I am more interested in being with a group of Christians, wherever their walk with Christ, that are less interested in making sure that everyone subscribes to the same doctrinal statements or uses the same translation of the Bible or dresses the same than they are in encouraging others, ministering alongside others and loving one another.

If we are not going to treat one another like family we should stop calling each other family.

Unity As Witness. Or Not.

At the close of the Last Supper, as Jesus prepared to face the cross, He prayed what is known as His High Priestly prayer (John 17). It is one of the greatest utterances recorded in the Bible and one of His last recorded acts before His arrest and trial. As such it should hold a particular importance to us. Of course everything that Jesus said and did is important, otherwise He wouldn't have done it, but when the end was coming and He had just a few hours left with the disciples that would be the servant leaders of the new church, His words and deeds hold special importance. I want to look at one portion in particular, His prayer for unity...

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:20-21)

Ponder that for a moment. In the waning hours of His earthly ministry (and He clearly knew the end was right around the corner), how did Jesus spend His time? Well obviously He spent it with the disciples but what was He doing? Not giving them an exposition of the Five Points of Calvinism or a lecture on the importance of liturgy. He didn't have any words for them about the correct mode of baptism or the proper form of church government. No. He spent His last hours with His disciples breaking bread with them in the form of a meal, washing their feet as an example for them to imitate and in prayer for them, specifically for unity among the brethren.

I want to focus specifically on something Jesus is saying here, namely that unity is a form of witness to the world. I would point out that Jesus is not merely speaking of unity within His “inner circle” of the twelve but “also for those who will believe in me through their word”, in other words those who would in the future believe in Jesus, whether those who would believe on the day of Pentecost or a new believer who came to Christ this morning.

Jesus taught and prayed in His High Priestly prayer that as the church we are in Christ as Christ is in the Father, and through our community we are witnessing to the truth of the Gospel to the world and proclaiming Jesus as king. More specifically our unity with one another is one of the ways that people will believe that Jesus lived, that He came from the Father and was who He said He was. That is a pretty powerful and sobering statement and it really ought to be something that trumps our own personal preferences and pet peeves. Apparently it doesn’t because even among highly similar groups the notion of real, functional unity would be laughable if it weren’t such a sign of rebelliousness. We like to think that annual conventions or bi-annual conferences touting how “Together for the Gospel” we are suffices to override the fact that most of the time we see each other not as fellow redeemed sinners on a common mission for the Kingdom but as competitors who are doing something wrong on Sunday morning.

The flip side of the issue is far more troubling and often more pertinent in our day. If being one in the church is a witness to the world, doesn't it hold true that division is also a witness? Imagine that someone sincerely seeking to know Christ comes to a typical Christian and asks what they should read in the Bible. If they are like me, I would recommend the Gospel of John. Now imagine the confusion of this sincere seeker when they read what Jesus prayed on behalf of His disciples in His High Priestly prayer. Jesus prayed for one thing and those who claim to follow Him do precisely the opposite. If you needed further proof of God’s sovereign election in salvation it would be that anyone comes to Christ at all when faced with the splintering and division that the world sees when it looks at the church.

What does our division and disunity say to the world and also say to Christ?

It says we either don’t believe Him when He says that our unity is a witness or it says that we might believe Him but we don’t care, that our boundaries and creeds and denominations, our notions of doctrinal purity, are more important to us than winning the lost to Christ.

I am not sure which is worse. I do know this, in spite of the frustrating and seemingly Quixotic nature of the pursuit of Christian unity, we have no other choice. I will not be a party to the division of the Body of Christ and I cannot in good conscience sit by without doing everything I can to see the walls that divide the church torn down. I may never see even the smallest result from these efforts but I cannot do otherwise. There is nothing more important than taking the Gospel to the lost and therefore there is no excuse to not remove every barrier that we have the power to remove between the lost and the Savior.

Jesus is not a polygamist

Unity: The weird cousin no one talks about of doctrines

People are people. That might be redundant or obvious but it is also simply true. Because we are people, even after we are born-again, we still tend to act in some of the same ways that those who are not born-again do and often we don’t even notice it or see anything amiss. As Christians one of the places where we see this most often is in how we deal with differences in the church. Let’s face it, there are going to be differences. There were in the first century and there has been ever since. Sometimes those differences lead to splits, sometimes to persecution and all too often murder and martyrdom. Because we are people we tend to prefer comfort to discomfort, familiar to unfamiliar, easy to hard. Sorry to say, Jesus never promised us an easy path would come along with the life of a disciple. Differences happen and we have to deal with them.

The question becomes how to address the issues that we disagree on. This really isn’t all that complicated. There are really only two ways to deal with differences in doctrine in the church, surely with some variation but ultimately they boil down to one or the other.

The first way is the most common by far. You simply erect barriers around your church gathering, drawing boundaries to exclude others until they conform or leave. Most commonly we see this in statements of faith to clearly distinguish “this” group from “that” group along with systems of formal church membership. Unity is reduced to being unified in practice only with those who already conform to you or who will agree to conform to you. It is precisely this sort of “solution” that has led to the church being splintered into thousands of sects, denominations and local churches that not only do not cooperate with one another, they typically compete with one another, squabbling over minor points of practice and doctrine while whole neighborhoods of unbelievers go through their lives without a whiff of the Gospel.

The other way to deal with differences is to welcome one another into full fellowship and community in spite of, or perhaps because of, our differences and then in a community hermeneutic work through the Scriptures understanding that we will never come to a 100% consensus on every issue and we shouldn’t even be trying to. When the only qualifier for fellowship is being born-again, we start to experience the richness of community in Christ. Our unity in Christ cannot be secondary to our agreement on every doctrine. Certainly Scripture gives boundaries for fellowship and when someone crosses that boundary through open sin or outright heresy we need to divide but honestly very little that divides the church comes anywhere close to that level. I understand that this might be uncomfortable for us. It is of course far easier to simply surround ourselves with those we are in agreement with. I can say with certainty that Jesus places a higher value on unity than our personal comfort and I can also say that surrounding yourself only with those who agree with you, those who look and talk and think like you do, is the equivalent of theological in-breeding. I have seen this first hand in several different settings.

For example, there are three very similar groups in our area that meet separately from one another. All three are highly conservative Anabaptist groups that are in agreement on 99% of the questions, big and small, that might come up in the church. That is not hyperbole; I am dead serious about the level of agreement. I know this because we are outside of the boundaries in the same basic way in all three groups! If you were to meet and talk with a representative couple from each group I am pretty sure you would be unable to figure out which of the three groups each couple belonged to. Those are only three, I am certain there are many more just like them in the immediate vicinity. Many of these brothers and sisters, great Christians and warm loving people, have very minimal experience with the broader church outside of their circles. Because of that there are issues that tend to be considered settled in their circles generations ago that have not really been thought out well in contemporary settings. We rarely grow when we are not stretched and challenged, something increasingly unlikely to happen the more you wall yourself off from others. A Southern Baptist that only ever interacts with other Southern Baptists might be a great Southern Baptist but is likely missing some of the real richness of the church that only comes when you walk outside of your comfort zone.

Jesus is not a polygamist. He has one bride and one only. He doesn’t have five brides in this town and seven brides in that town. If we love Him we must as His bride come together in unity as the one body of Christ that Jesus died to redeem. That is really the only way to honor His sacrifice in redeeming His church.

Compulsory Homogeneity and the Lord’s Supper

Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. (1 Corinthians 10:14-17)

When we break bread, what does it mean? What does it really mean? What did Jesus think it meant and what did Paul think it meant? I cannot fathom that it was intended as a ritual nor that it was something intended to be compartmentalized one local church at a time. Most views of the Supper are far too limited, reducing it to a ritualistic event controlled by local church authorities, something internalized with the four walls of "my church" with no sense of real connection to the broader church and the Kingdom. Where I have come down on this question is that the Supper, the act of the church coming together to break bread as one people of God, speaks not just of doctrine (affirming the life, death, resurrection and imminent return of the Christ) but also of the unity in our common salvation. It is tragically not treated as the unifying act that it is.

The Supper cannot be held hostage or used as a stick to bring people into line (see my prior post Holding His Table Hostage). When we couple the teaching of Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 with his teaching on the Supper in 1 Corinthians 11, we see a picture of the one body, the church, sharing in one bread, the bread of life who is Christ Jesus. We don't each have our own personal Jesus that we share among our local church but we are all a small but precious part of the very same Body, even with those we disagree with or those who annoy us! The One that saved me is the same as One that saved every other Christian, in the same way and with the same mission. We have no right and we should have no desire to insist that others meet us where we are before sharing in the expression of the universal faith of the entire church that is the very essence of the Supper.

When we demand conformity as the price of admission for access to the Lord's Supper, we succeed only in surrounding ourselves with other Christians who look and act just like us, great for making us comfortable and secure in our traditions but not so great for fostering a true sense of unity in the church, nor for welcoming new believers into the church. As I look back, I rarely find myself challenged and stretched and growing in the faith when I was safely cocooned in a homogeneous group. Just the opposite. A group marked by compulsory homogeneity is fertile soil for the church to stagnate and slip into pride and isolationism. I believe in women covering their heads. If a sister shares the Supper with us who is not covered, does that somehow taint it for me because I am right and she is wrong? Do our disagreements trump what Jesus did and we celebrate when we break bread? No!

The Supper should be the one place where we can, if not set aside, at least suspend our personal preferences, traditions and pet peeves for the sake of our oneness in Christ. It required the death and resurrection of the sinless Son of God to bring the church into being, is it too much to ask that we get along over a shared meal? There are few acts that are more simple and basic than sharing a meal and we have managed to make a divisive, confused mess of even that. No matter who we are, where we "go to church" or even if we "go to church" at all, regardless of denomination or sect, every Christian is part of the adopted family of God and if we all partake of the one bread as one body, shouldn't that hold especially true when it comes to the breaking of actual bread?

It is the height of hubris for a poor redeemed sinner, chosen and saved by the King of the universe, to dictate terms to others who are no different, no better and no worse, before sharing the Table that the Lord Himself has set. We might hide it behind declarations of concern for "our people" or appeals to doctrinal precision standing firm against error but it comes right down to arrogance to the core, pure and simple.

Why is the church, intended as a source of support and joy, so often a source of contention and angst? Why is unity such an elusive ideal? More on that later...

Can Someone Be Wrong And Still Be Saved?

Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately immediately refused to have anything to do with him and wrote a series of blog posts to explain why he was wrong to believe as he did. (Acts 18: 24-26 remixed)

You know what is really the problem with the church? It is full of people who are just flat out wrong about stuff. Really, really wrong about lots and lots of stuff. How can these people claim to be Christians and be so utterly clueless? Makes me really wonder…sheesh!

One of the hardest things I have had to overcome is my desire to be "right". About everything. Not just the big stuff but even little ticky-tack stuff. It is absolutely a character flaw and sinful pride and it is something I struggle with all the time.

There was a time when I didn't really see this as a problem. We are called to contend earnestly for the faith after all and if that doesn't mean smiting the ignorant, what does it mean? I used to scour the interwebs for somebody saying something I could point out the flaws in and I cut my blogging teeth on the offerings of the Reformed semi-professional attack bloggers.

Those days are (mostly) in the past. I have grown weary of the constant fighting, slander and hatred. I expect that the world will hate us and persecute us but shouldn't we expect something different from our brothers, even those that are "wrong"? When Jude calls for us to "contend earnestly" I don't think he meant the online version of screaming in someone's face or snarkily cutting them down to look cool in front of the other kids. Given that I have modified many of my own positions as I have studied and contemplated, there are times  when I look back at what I wrote in the past and think that what I said then is “wrong” now. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t a Christian just because my positions were not as “nuanced” as they are today nor does it mean that I am not going to be a Christian in the future. The stark reality is that the church is full of people who will spend eternity in Christ along with me that I think are dead wrong on some stuff and who no doubt would think the same of me (if they knew me).

For example....an Arminian who belongs to Christ, even if he wrongly thinks he chose Him of his own "free will", is my brother in Christ and if he declares Christ to the lost and cares for the widow and orphan, he is someone I should try to imitate. A Calvinist who also belongs to Christ but thinks that blogging about how wrong Arminians are is the extent of his calling is not someone I care to imitate even if he can explain the doctrines of election, predestination and monergistic regeneration with the best of 'em.

I do believe that there are people who are saved that either misunderstand or even actively deny important doctrines like the Trinity. I think there are lots of people who are saved who think that a priest transforms a wafer in the Body of Christ and wine into His blood even though I think the doctrine of transubstantiation is an abomination. I think that those who apply “baptism” to infants are wrong but many of my closest friends who live praiseworthy lives also have “baptized” their children for what they believe are valid and biblical reasons and that doesn't make them people to avoid.

So what do we do with this information, how do we live in this reality where brothers and sisters in Christ are off the mark, sometimes quite seriously? The typical response is to keep them at arms length. That certainly is easiest and the most pragmatic but I am not sure how Biblical it is. The harder course is to love one another while working this stuff out. If we refuse to have any contact with those in need of correction, how does that help? If Aquila and Priscilla had refused to have anything to do with Apollos, would he ever have known the “better way”?

Ultimately I believe that God has His elect is all sorts of places and not just in "Biblical churches" that follow the "historic creeds" and hold to an "orthodox theology". One is not part of the elect because one affirms certain doctrinal statements and creeds or is a “member” in good standing in a “biblical church”. Those may be the result of being one of the elect of course. Likewise there are many of God’s elect who “go to church” in the wrong kind of church and who probably believe a lot of stuff that is wrong. When God removes the heart of stone from us and replaces it with a heart of flesh that He writes His Law on, there is not a section set aside for the 1869 Baptist Confession and because we know this, do we not have an obligation to help our brothers and sisters grow in the faith?

Again hear me out. I would hope if you have read here very long you know that I consider many doctrines to be hugely important, and getting them "right" is crucial. Just glossing over everything to get to a lowest common denominator is not healthy for the church and it must not be a method to draw the unregenerate into the fellowship by smoothing down the rough patches in the Gospel. The balance must come in being unified in word and deed with our brothers and sisters while still working out in a community hermeneutic the crucial questions of doctrine and practice. I am by no means an expert at this and I have a long way to go but I think that getting to that place should be the desire of every follower of Christ.

You don't need a church to be the church

The recent decision by New York City to ban churches from meeting in public schools has been rich fodder for culture warriors. "Our rights are being violated" they cry! That cry is often followed by "Send some money so we can fight for your rights!". They are right about the problem if we look at this from the standpoint of being Americans first and Christians second. For a religious American, this is a travesty and worthy of a great deal of hand-wringing and lawsuit-filing and nodding in righteous anger while listening to Rush and Sean. That isn't how a follower of Christ should look at it. In a Kingdom view, this sort of thing is simply irrelevant. The church ought to be about the business of Kingdom and worrying about our First Amendment rights is not even on the radar. We don't need the ability to meet in buildings and we not only don't need but probably shouldn't even want the approval of the government. As I have written many times before, the acceptance and approval of the culture, the world, the government is not a blessing on the church, it is an indictment of our unfaithfulness.

Then this morning I read an article, New York City Churches Find New Homes, that talks about how church groups in New York are adapting in strange and wonderful ways. For example, the church gathering led by the author, John Starke, has found a new place to gather...

Congregations such as First Baptist Church, which meets in the Upper West of Manhattan, are adapting not just for charity but also for the sake of the gospel. Pastor Matthew Hoskinson has planned to forfeit their Sunday school hour at 9:30 a.m. to allow for a congregation to meet during that time, even as he has arranged for another congregation to meet Saturday nights, and still another Sunday evenings.

Our own congregation has benefited from First Baptist's hospitality and pastor Hoskinson's leadership. Starting February 19, we plan to meet on Sunday evenings at First Baptist Church. This effort to welcome churches takes more time and manpower than what you might first assume.

Imagine that! Giving up a "service" time for the sake of other Christians. Next thing you know we will start sharing with those in need among the Body of Christ. Crazy socialists in New York...

This has had some predictable but unexpected blessings....

As churches race for space and labor for their constitutional rights, we have at least two strategic opportunities to adjust our expectations for what a worship gathering looks like.

First, there is a unusual unity that comes from sharing space among evangelical churches. Many evangelical pastors meet for prayer and planning service projects. These are hugely strategic and a blessing. But there is something different that happens when you have to figure out how two (or three) churches are going share space. We have been blessed by First Baptist as they help us cope during this season of shared space. They don't just want us to manage---they want to help other churches flourish.

Second, many churches now planning for evening services have already found this is a more strategic time for many New Yorkers to meet. Few skeptics in this city wake up Sunday morning eager to check out a church service. And on the Upper West Side, where our congregation meets, many family sporting events have been planned for Sunday morning. So we've grown excited about planning for these new opportunities for outreach on Sunday evenings.

Wow. So when Christians are forced to share time and space with other Christians, God opens doors for ministry opportunities? Being united with one another strengthens the entire church and advances the mission of God? The mission of God is not a zero sum game where we divide a finite pie and there are winners and losers? Weird, I should blog about that or something one of these days... Of course I don't care for the idea of churches "laboring for their constitutional rights" in a city of millions where most of the people are lost and many are poor and hungry. We have plenty of Kingdom issues to "labor for".

I left a comment on the post, replicated here...

The lesson here is that the church is far more than the meeting place. If there were no buildings at all to meet in, would the church just give up and stop meeting? Or would they just gather wherever they could, in homes, in parks, in secret if need be, just as Christians have done for thousands of years. Instead of clamoring about our "rights" and seeking legal redress for perceived wrongs, we ought to thank God for the way He uses events like this to prepare the church for a post-Christendom mission. He is building His church and the lack of formal meeting spaces or New York City rulings are not going to change that one iota.

The lack of official places to meet and the approval of the governing powers didn't dissuade the early church. It didn't stop the Anabaptists. In fact when the opposite is true, when the government smiles benignly on "the church" and Christians have an embarrassing abundance of expensive "houses of God" to meet in, the church seems far weaker and more likely to take on the form of a moral, religious civic club instead of a radical band of counter-cultural followers of Christ.

When events like this happen, instead of letting the radio talk show hosts, the professional  perpetually aggrieved money grubbers and the "culture warriors" turn this into a war, we should thank God for the chance to break down barriers, to find new ways to minister outside of our stale assumptions and traditions and remember that if we believe God is sovereign then not even the government of New York City is going to thwart Him!

Repost: How to change a culture of accepted disunity

I was thinking about unity in spite of differences this morning and thought back to a post I wrote in March of 2009, How To Change A Culture of Accepted Disunity. I grieved me then and it grieves me now that we seem to spend more time trying to find ways to divide from one another than we do trying to find ways to cooperate with one another in pursuing the command and commission of Christ. Perhaps worse is the shoulder shrugging that accompanies our disunity, like we are just saying "Oh well" to something that I am certain grieves our Lord Jesus Christ. This post was the third in a series, the first two are Sundering What God Has Put Together and The Fruit Of Sundering What God has put together and together they form some early thoughts on the topic of unity for me.

Our basis for fellowship in the church is our common salvation. That is it. We did not choose God and we don't get to choose the other people God has chosen if they meet our approval for fellowship. We are the Bride of Christ, even when we disagree vehemently with one another but we seem to think that we have license to divorce one another while keeping the same Bridegroom. This must not be so. Division in the church, even for the most pious and high-minded of motivations, serves the cause of the Enemy, not the calling of the Lord.

I guess the question comes down to this. What is our identity based on? Is it based on being "Reformed"? Is it based on our position regarding baptism? Is it denominational, "I am a Methodist" or "I am Baptist"? Or is it based on our identity in and through Christ? Unity in the church is not a nice add-on if we can work it out. It is not an option. Our willingness to be unified in spite of differences speaks at a fundamental level to our understanding of the Gospel and the resulting church. Again, if God has chosen a people from out of the entirety of humanity to purchase, redeem and adopt by the blood of His Son, then we don't get to decide who is unworthy of our full fellowship. Jesus knelt and washed the feet of His disciples, in spite of their deficiencies and errors (remember this "Get thee behind me Satan"?). Who do we think we are to tell God that we won't even associate with others that His Son died to redeem?

Anyway, take a look at this post (and the two post preceding it) and think it over...

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Talk is cheap. Complaints and hand-wringing over disunity is one thing, finding practical ways to overcome it is another. In this third and final post about unity in the church, here are some ideas I had to help us move past a culture of accepted disunity and into a culture that actively seeks fellowship among believers in spite of denominations and doctrines.

Number one, change our understanding of the church. Our view of the church has a direct impact on our acceptance of disunity. When we reduce the church to a strictly local gathering that erects barriers based on secondary doctrines and views itself as distinct from every other local church, disunity is sure to follow. Some of the notions that go along with that include the unspoken belief that if you attend a different group than the one you usually attend, you are somehow being unfaithful to your “home” church. We need to jettison this view of the church as a bowl of marbles and start seeing it as a single loaf of bread, made up of lots of different kinds of believers but all part of one united Body.

Number two, actively seek opportunities to meet even while recognizing (as has been pointed out) that you are going to have to meet people where they are. Waiting for others to come to you so you can be unified is not going to work. Unity is important and requires work and it requires sacrifice. We have hundreds of years of tradition that go back to the founding of this country, traditions that see nothing unhealthy about our division even though it runs in clear contrast to the teachings of Christ. The cultural church landscape most of us grew up with must not be allowed to continue driving our understanding of the church. We must instead take our cues from Scripture.

Number three, be willing to place unity at the same level as other doctrines. In other words, unity in the Body is something that needs to be given priority even when it runs up against traditionally divisive doctrines like baptism, church government, soteriology and eschatology. More often than not, unity takes a back seat. It is something that just happens by default after we have sufficiently divided ourselves from every other Christian who fails to adhere to our list of distinctives. Unity cannot be something relegated to the back bench because when we do that, disunity is always the result. How important we consider a doctrine will often drive our actions and as the church has demonstrated by its indifference for hundreds of years, we just don’t consider unity to be all that important and our witness has suffered immensely for it.

Number four, stop the name calling. I am not talking here about ignoring wolves among us or not calling out those who proclaim a different Gospel. I am thinking here about charges of heresy when what we are discussing fails to rise to that level. A prime example is found in the Calvinism-Arminianism debate. It is common, and I will admit to having engaged in this as well, for Calvinists to imply or outright claim that Arminianism is a heresy. I have also heard the opposite be claimed by Arminians. Many Calvinists seem to have a permanent sneer when speaking of Arminians and I have seen more than a few books and tapes being hawked that claim to debunk the “heresy” of Calvinism. As an unapologetic Calvinist I have to ask “Is the Arminian my brother?”. If he is a believer, he absolutely is my brother even if I think he is wrong on this crucial issue and I am his brother, even if he disagrees with me about Calvinism. In fact it is precisely because I am a Calvinist that I must recognize that I no more choose who is my brother than I chose who is my Savior!

Number five, and perhaps most importantly, stop being afraid of other Christians and other churches! We seem so afraid of other Christians and the churches they attend. Maybe if people from our church go to their church they will like the preaching or the music better. They may go and not come back! It is fear that drives much of our disunity, fear of one another caused by a belief that churches are called to compete with one another. If someone goes from church A to church B to serve, praise God! Find out what the other group is doing, see how you can be in fellowship with one another and encourage each other. How often do you pray for your church versus how often you pray for the other churches in town? They might not meet as you do and they may not have any interest in being in fellowship with you but many of them are brothers and sisters in Christ, no different than the people you see every Sunday or the believers we pray for overseas.

What are some other thoughts? I know I have raised this same topic in the past but it is on my mind again. The splintering of the church is simply unacceptable and every Christian, one believer at a time, needs to take concrete steps to rectify this wrong and pray for the unity of God’s people.

Leaving our preferences at the cross

I have been engaged in a pretty interesting discussion on Google+ centered around my prior post, Can We Just be Friends? It has been interesting because it gets to the very fine line between unity in spite of differences and unity in spite of heresy and sin. I think we are so used to division being "business as usual" in the church that suggestions that pehaps that division is not only not normal but even unacceptable are met with some pretty strong disagreement. We grew up in the church, whether as kids or as adults, just assuming that some people go to one kind of church and others go somewhere different and that is just normal and perhaps even healthy.

In comes a very interesing post from Michael Young, What I’ve Learned in Organic Church: The Difference Between Brotherhood and Buddyhood (this includes Sisterhood) that looks at the difference between brotherhood and buddyhood:

This is the difference in brotherhood and buddyhood. Brotherhood goes to the cross, dies to self in order to see the Lord’s goals are met. Buddyhood simply wishes to see others that I prefer to hang out with met. I’m not saying that we don’t become buddies in the church. We do. But it’s beyond that…much beyond.span>

I so get that. I think we all naturally gravitate toward those we feel the most affinity for. It is rampant in certain parts of the church, like in the Reformed wing where some Christians will drive very long distances just to meet with other Reformed Christians where they are most comfortable. Charismatics like charismatic churches. Presbyterians like Presbyterian churches. We get uncomfortable and ill at ease about change and differences to our religious routine that we end up just running in the same circles, reading the same books and blogs and doing things the same way because it is what we know and what we like.

As Michael puts it,

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this. But if organic church is to work, we must take our relationship preferences to the cross. We must let them die and allow the Lord to resurrect them.

We can’t make church work the way we want it to. We can’t meet around the fact that we are all into rock music, working out, sports, outdoor activities, hunting, fishing, surfing, or a long list of other things. We have to meet around the Lord Jesus Christ and our common bond to see His eternal purpose seen on the earth; that He would have a place to dwell, a temple made up of brothers and sisters in Christ. Without that, we become just another club. And the church of Jesus Christ is not a club. It’s something much deeper, much more grand, much more precious, and holds much more responsibility.

Taking our preferences to the cross and letting them die there. That sounds great but man is that hard! One of the hardest things about seeking a deeper sense of community is the inherent danger that when you let people in to your little world they are likely to make a mess and you might find that you don't like them or agree with them very much. On the other hand in our natural state we were enemies of God, sinners in open rebellion against Him and yet He still sent His Son to die for the sins of His elect and adopted us into His family. If He did that for us I guess we can learn to get along in spite of our differences and quirks and annoying habits!

Unity is good theology

Alan posted some thoughts in response to my post, The Assumption of Disunity, with his post Can we begin by assuming unity in Christ?. Like me, Alan sees unity in the Gospel as a non-negotiable that is demanded by the Gospel…

Think about this for a moment… What would happen if we assumed unity in Christ instead of assuming disunity based on our traditions and backgrounds and interpretations? Is that even possible? I think it is…

In fact, I want to expressly state something that I hope has been apparent through my blog posts: If I disagree with you, or if you disagree with me, I do not automatically assume that we are divided from one another because of that (those) disagreement(s). Instead, my first assumption is that we are united in Christ – brothers and sisters – whose bond is stronger than flesh and blood and able to withstand our disagreement.

Idealistic? Maybe. But, like Arthur, I believe that the gospel demands our unity in Christ, and I will seek to live in it.

That reflects where I am coming from. The Gospel demands unity. Real unity, not lip-service. You cannot say “I can’t be unified with that person because of his bad theology” because disunity is in and of itself inherently bad theology.

This is not easy for me! My natural impulse is to find something wrong with what someone says so that I can be proved right. One of the things that really appealed to me about the Reformed church culture (not Reformed theology which I still embrace, but the culture that surrounds many of those who subscribe to Reformed theology) is that smacking around other Christians is something of a favored pastime. Line by line refutations of some Arminian sap is a good and necessary use of ones time. Triumphantly posting a killer post shredding something some theological infant wrote is a source of pride and something that is celebrated and that drives page views. It also is ugly and divisive.

I am trying to move past that mindset and actively seek ways to be united with others in Christ on this side of eternity rather than deferring real unity to the wedding feast of the Lamb. The Gospel requires it and the Great Commission demands it. How can we say we look forward to an eternity with Christ when we refuse to break bread or share fellowship with those we will spend eternity glorifying Him with?

The assumption of disunity

Trevin Wax has posted a series of reviews derived from a book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism that are worth reading. The book features four representative figures from the world of evangelicalsm:

1. Kevin Bauder (Fundamentalist)
2. Al Mohler (Confessional Evangelical)
3. John Stackhouse (Generic Evangelical)
4. Roger Olson (Postconservative Evangelical)

All three speak to their understanding of what it means to be an evangelical and they also respond to what has been posted by the other authors. It is an important conversation. The term “evangelicalism” is so misused and confused that while it gets thrown about a lot, almost no one knows what it means. Within the church it means one thing within Christianity, it means something entirely different to those outside of the faith (and it means something generally negative, associated mainly with politics, militancy, money grubbing televangelists, etc.). Even within the church, there are camps that use "evangelical" as a pejorative, from being too conservative (mainline denominations) to being too liberal (White Horse Inn types).

Here are his four posts...

What Is an Evangelical? 1: The Fundamentalist View

What Is an Evangelical? 2: The Confessional Evangelical View

What Is an Evangelical? 3: The Generic Evangelical View

What Is an Evangelical? 4: The Postconservative View

The reviews are interesting and I think all four men have important points they have made (at least based on Trevin’s review). All that being said, something troubling runs through the four views: a common theme of assumed disunity. All of these conversations invariably work within a framework where the church has just decided to shrug our collective shoulders, throw up our collective hands and just accept disunity and assume it is normal and unavoidable. While the conversations revolve around defining evangelicalism, one of the key ways evangelicalism is defined is by determining who is and who is not part of this sub-group in the church.

I am not naïve. Certainly there is plenty of evidence for this being “the way it is”. The church has created all sorts of structures and traditions to exclude some Christians from full fellowship in a local body: formal church membership, denominations, closed communion. I also realize that for the vast majority of the church, this is not only just the way it is, it is perfectly acceptable or even celebrated. As the years turn into centuries and roll on by the church becomes more and more disunfied and the most common reaction is a shrug and “What are you going to do?” dismissal.

I reject this. I don’t reject it because I think it is not the reality on the ground and has been for centuries. I reject assumed disunity because it is something that the Gospel simply demands that we reject and overcome. There is simply no way to read the New Testament and come away with practices that lead to a disunified church made of up thousands of competing local churches. The New Testament spends a ton of time breaking down the walls between believers and we have promptly spent the last two thousand years building them right back up in new, innovative ways.

“Evangelical” is just another label, another divisive subgroup that distinguishes whether a fellow believer is the right sort or the wrong sort of Christian. I am not an Evangelical. Nor am I an Anabaptist. Or Reformed. Certainly I am not Emergent. I am just a Christian and I am just seeking others who have been sought out by Christ and are following Him.

What's In A Name?

The Southern Baptist Convention is considering a change to its venerable name yet again…

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention formed a task force to study the possibility of changing the name of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“The convention’s name is so regional,” SBC President Bryant Wright told Fox News Radio. “We are going to think through potential names that would better describe us without such a regional geographic limitation.”

Here is my suggestion. Drop Southern. Drop Baptist. Maybe even drop Convention.

Denominational identifiers, like local church identifiers on a grander scale, serve to divide and distinguish. We are this and therefore not that. We believe in this secondary doctrine but do not practice that secondary doctrine. We are us and you are not us. You are probably a Christian but not our kind of Christian. You can’t teach in our local church, you perhaps cannot even break bread with us, if you identify as that and not this.

The name Southern Baptist Convention carries a ton of baggage. It is “Southern”, i.e. the Southern United States, and it is “Baptist”, i.e. a specific set of secondary doctrines and practices as well as certain cultural and political expectations. I have been a member and even a pastor of several Southern Baptist churches and you can find them all over the country and all over the world. Even if you acknowledge the historically Southern heritage of the SBC and the importance of Baptist faith and practice the questions remains: Is the name Southern Baptist Convention helpful or harmful in carrying out the global mission of the church and in fostering unity and cooperation among various Christians? I think it is great for fostering uniformity and erecting boundaries, not so much for aiding in unifying the church.

Here is another example. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church or OPC for short. Founded in the 1930’s as a reaction to liberalism in “mainstream” Protestantism, the name draws a clear line in the sand. We are not just Presbyterians, we are Orthodox Presbyterians. So what does that mean for other Presbyterian denominations? They are not Orthodox? I think you can make that argument when speaking of the PC-USA but what about the PCA? They seem like pretty decent folk apart from that “baptizing” babies thing. I think they are pretty Orthodox. What about the rest of the various and sundry Presbyterian and Reformed denominations? Are they not orthodox or perhaps less orthodox than the OPC? Why not name the denomination the “We’re right and you’re wrong Presbyterian Church” or “WRYRPC”? Check out the accompanying chart and see if you can figure out the maze of Presbyterian denominationalism. If we spend more time fighting over which subset of a subset of a faith tradition is right than we do in preaching Christ to the lost and performing acts of mercy and grace, I would question just how orthodox we really are no matter what the name of a given denomination might say or which Reformed confessions we subscribe too.

I am firmly convicted that naming local churches and denominations in ways that draw lines in the sand that act to corral and divide are harmful to the church. So my recommendation to the SBC is to drop the “S” and the “B” and the “C”. “Christian” is the only title or identifier any of us should ever need or want.