More Than The Essentials

We (Church of Christ/Christian Churchers) take pride in the fact that we only take a stance on the essentials. "In essentials, unity. In opinions, liberty. In all things, love." It is a great slogan, but, as is the nature of slogans, it fails to capture the complexity of the situtation. (Whether we really only take a stance on essentials is up for debate.)

On an individual level, the slogan works. We do not need to walk around judging other people based upon non-essentials.

The problem is that the church has to deal in and have unity in non-essentials. We have to agree on music style, times of our gatherings, what church finances will be used on, language of worship, whether we will celebrate our temporal kingdom on national holidays, what missionaries to support, and a multitude of other things. In order to be healthy churches, we must agree on non-essentials. The form it usually takes is that we do not struggle through the issues and just do what has always been done. This causes a church to begin doing what is not best for the community, although it might be what is most comfortable.

Every church, when it was planted, went through the struggle of making decisions on every non-essential. After five years, the unhealthy church fails to revisit those essentials while the healthy church evaluates and makes sure that they are still doing the non-essentials in a way that is best for bringing about the kingdom of God. It might be exactly the way it was five years ago, but they would have made the conscious decision to do things the same way.

We might agree that essentials are all that is necessary for salvation, but focusing solely on the essentials leads to a minimal Christianity and is impossible once we start to be involved with a community of believers. Let us get past thinking we only take a stance on essentials; in reality, we take stances as a community of believers on so much more.

Only the Essentials

Sticking to preaching, sharing, and focusing on only the core of Christianity and not straying into divisive arguments is one the hardest parts of Christianity for me to practice despite it being an essential to unity.

For example, one of the Sunday School teachers at my church always mentions how God knows the future. I find myself more of an open theist and do not agree with his approach to the foreknowledge God. Because of his approach, he comes to conclusions that I do not agree with. Some times I mention that if you take a different approach you can come to a different conclusion; other times I just sit in silence. It frustrates me that it is brought up all the time; however, in the grand scheme of things it really does not matter. You can be an open or classical theist and we can still agree on what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

"I also have a message for the rest of you in Thyatira who have not followed this false teaching ('deeper truths,' as they call them -- depths of Satan, really). I will ask nothing more of you except that you hold tightly to what you have until I come." (Revelation 2:24-25)

"Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly and turn to me again. Unless you do, I will come upon you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief." (Revelation 3:3)

I think part of my problem, if I am to honest, is that I am like the Athenians in Acts 17 that Paul shared the gospel with. I am fond of new ideas - to fond it seems. But if I am to be a person who brings about unity and experiences fellowship with those who disagree with me on a whole field of Biblical issues, I need to just focus on the core of Christianity and remain there. It's difficult because I think preaching on the core issues gets boring at times, but I need to not be this way.