One Faith, One Body, No Lines

There is one faith and one body, but God does not see the denominational lines that we have drawn. Just because one worships at a church that has a book of doctrine (that you might or might not agree with) does not exclude that person from the body of Christ. Likewise, just because one worships at a church that does not have a book of doctrine does not mean they are automatically part of that body. A church without a book of doctrine like our churches still have a lot of unwritten doctrines that are extra-scriptural. God is glorified in the lives of faithful Lutherans and he is glorified in the lives of faithful Nazarenes just as he is glorified in the life of a faithful non-denominational Christian.

Everyone usually goes to the church that they think are doing things the best and have the best grasp on Scripture. But for pride and self-glorification, people argue that their sect is the best and put others down rather than try and build one another up. This is nothing new. It was happening in Corinth.

Paul addressed it in 1 Corinthians 1.

"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas"; still another, "I follow Christ."

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."

Those who claim to follow Christ alone can be just as divisive as those who claim to follow Christ the way Luther did, the way Wesley did, or the way that any other human did. It is arrogant to think that we follow the Scripture alone without any influence from our forefathers. I read the Scripture the way that Alexander Campbell taught that Scripture should be read, that is a different way than the way that Martin Luther or John Wesley read it. But that does not mean that my faith is far greater than a Lutheran, a Methodist, or a Nazarene. My intellectual pursuit of the faith might be different, but we will not be judged by our intellectual pursuit. Rather, we will be judged by whether we have a heart that is totally surrendered to God.

Isaiah 29:13 states:

"The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."

Israel was God's people. There was no group that was more God's than them, but they were still out of step with God. Their title or ethnic origin had nothing to do with whether they were right with God; God wanted their hearts. Likewise, God wants our hearts, anything short of that is not enough. We can give him our hearts whether we are in a Catholic church or in the middle of the woods alone. The key to the healthy Christian life is that we realize nothing but total surrender of our heart makes us right with God. There are acts of the faith that we will participate in when we surrender, but I do not think that God looks down and decides who has given him their heart based upon what church they attend or how they read the Scripture.

The law stated and Jesus repeated, "But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul."

Anything less than our whole being surrendered to God does not make us right with Him, not the name of the church we attend nor the lack of formal doctrines and creeds.

The sectarian lines that we have drawn in the sand wash away in God's eyes. Being part of one sect or another does not outweigh a heart that is totally surrendered to God.

So let us not be like those who divided the church by claiming to follow Christ, Cephas, Apollos, or Paul. Let us follow Jesus with our whole heart, not being judgmental, and loving those that we encounter every day. Let us help everyone we encounter to take their next faith step, whether that is their first or the next one after a life of total surrender of ninety years.

Following God to the Best of My Ability Versus Expecting Others to Follow God Like Me

Each of us should be following God with complete sacrifice, but our journey of sacrifice is limited by what we understand that God wants from us. If you think the command to the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor is a command to all Christians, then you better sell all your possessions and give them to the poor. If you think that the command to the rich young ruler was a command specifically given to that one man with the understanding that Jesus' command to that ruler does not apply to all Christians, then you do not need to sell all your possessions and give them to the poor. Sorry is the man who believes the command to the rich young ruler applies to all Christians, yet he does not sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. Each of us will be held accountable if we do not live out the faith as we understand it.

We begin with prayer and dealing honestly with Scripture. However, even two people who deal honestly with Scripture might not come to the same conclusion on what Scripture means based on their understanding of the context of the situation or the experiences of their lives that the Scripture is inevitably filtered through. That does not mean that there is not absolute truth. What it means is that we currently "see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12). If Paul's knowledge was limited, then it would be arrogant to assume that our knowledge is perfect. Paul's conclusion is the key. "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13). In the end, the most important thing is that we are people of love.

We need to follow the truth as we understand it to the best of our ability and not be judgmental to those who are following the truth in the way that they understand it. We should not ignore others who follow differently, nor should we bash them, whether to their face or in our fellowship circles. "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently" (Galatians 6:1a). In light of Paul stating that we do not fully know, we also must deal gently with those who are struggling to live out the faith as we understand it. We deal gently because we must not be arrogant or prideful about our understanding of the truth. In the end, we might realize that we are the one with the inaccurate understanding when we confront a brother in sin. The key here is that we actually have a gentle conversation with our brother. We do not ignore our differences, but we deal with one another gently in the hope that the end result will be that we are both built up in Christ.

Paul does give the warning, "But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted" (Galatians 6:1b). When dealing with a brother's sin, we must be careful that we are gentle and open to the fact that we might have the wrong understanding, but we also need to remain firm in the faith as we understand it.

Paul made the point in his letter to the Romans that people will be judged based upon their faithfulness to the knowledge they have (Romans 2:5-16). Earlier, in the first chapter, he set out that everyone should have a basic knowledge of God through nature. We can automatically say that those who do not believe in God are not our brothers or sisters in Christ as there is no excuse for a lack of belief in God. After believing in God, we will be judged based upon the knowledge we have. This means that the man who does not know he should be baptized as an adult will be judged based upon his knowledge and faithfulness to God in areas that he does know. This means that often brought up mythological man living in the center of Africa who never has heard the Gospel will be judged based upon his faithfulness in the knowledge he does have. This means, for those who believe that speaking in tongues in essential to salvation, that those who do not speak in tongues are fine with God as long as they are faithful in what they believe God expects of them. We must deal with one another gently, in love, with the possibility that we might be wrong yet always remain firm in the truth as we understand it.

As teachers, we are to help transform people's understanding of what God expects of them into action. It is not healthy for a person to believe God expects something of them, yet they refuse to live it out. We are also in the important yet precarious situation of shaping people's understanding of God. I can guarantee that we will teach errantly at times, but we need to teach to the best of our ability with the understanding we now have.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Allelon - Part 3

Based on our personalities, I think we often gravitate towards one major program that a church offers. Then “church” turns into that specific thing and we equate our church experience with the quality of that program. For some it is about education. So if the Sunday School program is not very good, they look for a place that their intellect can be challenged. For others, the focus of church is the preaching. So if the preaching is boring or not inspiring, they may look elsewhere for a better preacher. If the songs and instrumentation are not to your liking you will go to a church that does it your way. On and on we could go with program after program through the different aspects that make up church. But that is not church.

Don’t get me wrong – we should strive for excellence in programming. We should do things as well as we can because we are doing it for the Lord. But when programming takes precedence over people we are not doing church. Because the church is not about education, preaching, singing, tithing or the Lord's supper. It is about "one another". So when you get offended at something and decide to change churches or even worse, mount a subversive vendetta against that person or program, understand that is not a program or a building that you are hurting. It is a human being. It is a person. Because after all, the church is made up of one another.

And if we choose to isolate ourselves, this action doesn’t just hurt the church, it hurts you too. Why do we perpetuate a feeling of solitude by stopping the very thing that could provide a feeling of belonging? We get frustrated or feel slighted which breaks that unity and decide we will show them by not coming anymore. Then we miss out on the encouragement of the church and the church misses out on the encouragement we offer. To rephrase the quote from the Lost clip, “If the church is not one another, then we are all alone.”

God is calling the Church to so much more.
As more and more of us find it easy to become isolated;
As more and more of us seek to receive without any commitment;
As more and more of us view the church as focused on programming just for us;
God is calling the church to be focused on one another. To be a place of acceptance for all who walk through the doors. To be a place of encouragement in a world that tries so hard to beat us down. To be a place full of people who put one another’s needs first and our own needs second.

If the church is not about one another, then we will be all alone.

Allelon - Part 2

Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess.” In other words, if we say that God is love, and we believe that we are to love, then let’s hold on to that hope that the world can become a better place. Let’s not get sidetracked and derailed by our selfishness and self-absorption. The next verse explains how this is accomplished: “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.”

Often we do things without thinking through the repercussions. But the Hebrew writer tells us, “Think carefully; think it through.” The Message version says, “Let’s see how inventive we can be.” It takes a lot of thought to create and invent something. And when it comes to spurring people on to love and good deeds, it will take a lot of thought and consideration. After all, we are fighting against our selfish natures and it is difficult to get one another to do things that are unnatural.

It takes creativity to get some people involved. It takes inventiveness to show to some people how much they are loved and how special they are in God’s eyes and in our eyes. Some have retreated so far into themselves that they have difficulty opening up. But we need to make the effort to find out how to get in their world, understanding that we may never penetrate it completely.

It is a difficult process, but when we accomplish it, when we connect with them, this amazing thing occurs – the New Living Translation calls it an “outburst of love and good deeds.” As a teacher, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing the lights go on in the students’ heads, and they sit up and can’t wait to blurt out the answer. They are gushing and the joy is shared between both the student and the teacher. Well that is the picture that is painted here. As we spur one another on and motivate one another into love and good deeds we all reap the benefit. We all share in the joy of the outburst.

But in order for all of this to happen, we have to be committed to one another. We have to have the mentality that no matter what the cost, we will see to the betterment of one another. And it begins by meeting together. That is why verse 25 says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Just coming to church doesn’t automatically result in unity and togetherness – but it sure seems like a good start. Unfortunately, we live a consumers’ world. There is always something being touted as better and cheaper. Did you have a bad experience at a restaurant, well guess what – there are 4 different restaurants within a half mile that you can try. Did you get snubbed by the Circuit City salesperson? Well Best Buy is ready to have your business. One of the biggest buzz words in marketing is “Product Loyalty.” Companies spend inordinate amounts of money to make you loyal to their product. That way, even if you have a bad experience, or you find a comparable product that is cheaper, you will still come back to them.

Fewer and fewer have that loyalty to the church anymore. Our loyalty is to ourselves. And so we are not really committed to the church and to one another. I can hear the TV add right now:
“Did you have a bad experience at church? Did you hear a bad sermon? Did you not like the songs? Did you feel snubbed? Did someone offend you? Well good news – there’s another church around the corner that that might suit you better.”
This is not the attitude of allelon. This is not the commitment needed for a church to grow.

Allelon - Part 1

Have you ever felt alone? Have you ever felt all alone?

Sometimes we feel alone, even when surrounded by people. We may pass by people and get a smile or a wave. Maybe even a “How are you?” But there is no connection. There is just more isolation. And perhaps just when you make the attempt to reach out, it doesn’t go very well and so you retreat back into the loneliness. Depression is one of the biggest problems in our nation. I think it is because people feel cut off and disconnected from the rest of the world. Though we are surrounded by people, we are not surrounded by genuine, authentic relationships. We feel all alone.

But that is not the way God created us to be. God did not create us to merely survive on our own. God created us to thrive with one another. One of my favorite TV shows, “Lost” portrays this quite clearly. Complete strangers have been thrown together when their plane crashes on a deserted island and they are left to survive. In the episode “White Rabbit” from Season 1 Episode 5, the whole thing falls apart. There is infighting, squabbling over resources, and a complete breakdown in the order of things. At the end, Jack comes and saves the day. He ends with his famous quote: “If we can't live together--We're gonna die alone.”

I can think of little worse than dying alone. No one there to hold your hand. No one there to comfort you. All alone. No, we take great pains to keep this from happening. The fact is, we need each other. Even the most self-sufficient person in the room at some time needs something from someone. We think that following Christ is a thing we do on our own. We talk about a personal relationship with Christ. We talk about our personal faith. We’ve so individualized our Christianity we’ve missed out on the fact that being a Christian means being in a relationship not just with God but with one another.

And so we come to the title of the post. It is one word – “allelon.” One word, but it is packed full of meaning. It is a Greek word that literally means “one another.” But inherent in this word is the idea of mutuality. The idea of reciprocating. This is the opposite of a parasite. A parasite just leeches off the host, never giving anything back. But in a mutualistic relationship the organisms give and take as each seeks to make the other better. Think of the Bee and the Flower. The flower needs pollination and the bee needs food for honey. Both provide a resource and a service to help the other.

That is the picture of what the church should be – allelon – giving and sharing, but also receiving as we have the need. This word is used 100 times in the New Testament, most often as part of an instruction about how this thing we call the church should work. Things like loving and serving one another seem obvious. But how about being devoted to one another and accepting one another and teaching one another. These are the sorts of things that are imperative if we want to live together. If we want to flourish. If we want to be the kind of people God created us to be. If we want this to be the kind of church that grows.

But being these kind of people and this kind of church is much easier said than done. We have what Paul calls “the selfish nature.” It is that thing inside of us that thinks of ourselves first and then maybe looks out for others. We are self-absorbed, inwardly focused people. Don’t believe me? Next time you have a chance make a conscious effort not to talk about yourself. How long can you go without saying “I” or “me”? How long can you go with out complaining about something? How long can you go without talking down about someone else? If we didn’t have ourselves to talk about and we didn’t have whining and we didn’t have others’ messes to gossip about, what would fill our conversations? Maybe the sorts of things that could truly help each other to grow.

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.

Unity Speech

Inspired from yesterday's entry, here are some follow-up quotes on unity and diversity. They are given as thought provokers not as truths necessarily.

"Where all think alike, no one thinks very much."
- Walter Lippmann

"Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day."
- Anonymous

"God creates men, but they choose each other."
- Niccolo Machiavelli

Unity vs. Diversity

***Special entry courtesy of Jason Vance***

As a church we always strive for unity. This is no simple task when the Kingdom of God is made up of an extremely diverse people (ideally). However, when something is difficult to attain, we are often tempted with simplified alternatives. Sometimes we even convince ourselves they are the same thing. Then we start striving for this substitute rather than the original goal. If you simplify unity it can sometimes look very similar to a homogeneous group. The logic goes something like this:

1) Unity is the goal.
2) It is much easier to be unified with people who are exactly the same.
3) Let’s make everyone in the church exactly the same.

When you do this, you lose another very important aspect of the Kingdom. Diversity cannot be sacrificed for unity. The very fact that we can have unity amidst diversity is what makes the church’s unity unique. When you lose the diversity, you have gained a type of unity, but at a cost that makes it blend in with the world. Ironically enough, I found the type of unity I think the church should strive for in a secular organization.

I have the privilege of working with AmeriCorps members all over the state of Michigan that serve Habitat for Humanity. (AmeriCorps is similar to the Peace Corps, but it is in America. Basically, people sign up for a year and serve their communities in various non-profit organizations.) In my time spent with them (less than a year), I have gained a clearer picture of unity, than I have from a lifetime of being in the church. In this group, there are people anywhere from 18 years of age to my grandfathers age; African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Caucasians; people right out of college, just retired, and some who can’t find a job; staunch democrats, die hard republicans, and even politically apathetic. And in all of these categories, there are also many different personalities and walks of life each of these people have been through. To put it simply, this group of people has diversity that the church could learn from!

A few weeks ago Habitat for Humanity of Michigan’s AmeriCorps group went on a retreat to reflect on the year and discuss things that went well and what could be changed to improve the program. As we were canoeing down the Ausable river, we would occasionally stop and discuss different aspects of the program. That is when it hit me. Someone made the comment that, “This is what I imagine Heaven will be like; a group of people with abundant differences, but all working together.” It truly surprised me when I realized a government funded program may be a better witness to certain aspects of God’s Kingdom than His own church. We had this incredibly diverse group and yet we were all doing the same thing (at Habitat, not the canoeing). There is a problem in every community that every person in this group recognized and decided to do something about. We had some extreme differences that came out in conversations (especially religious and political), but we put all of those differences aside to come together for a common goal. Some of those differences even affected how we did our common goal (especially the political opinions that affected how this program is funded). But we just focused on the task and let side issues stay on the side.

In the church there are numerous things people disagree about. We often let those things sneak onto center stage and blur our vision about our real task. These “side issues” are usually the ones we try to get everyone to have identical opinions about. I know there will always be arguments about what is essential and what is non-essential, and we will probably always have groups of people doing things for God’s Kingdom in different ways they think are better. But if we can remain unified despite all of our differences, we will be a much better foretaste of the Kingdom to come. The church should be the shining light of committed people with a likeminded goal. We should not be afraid to have different opinions and different ways of doing things. I am not talking about universalism, but I am talking about the type of freedom and love that allows for differences while striving toward a common goal.

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.

A Reply to "A Failed Attempt at Unity - The Restoration Movement"

It is our hope that this blog becomes like the newsletters of yesterday (except without any related costs) in which readers write letters to us and conversations are started that lead all of us to be more fruitful. We have posted a new link in the bottom of the right column. It says, "If you have a question or a suggestion for a journal entry, please feel free to email us." Feel free to use it.

John Nugent replied to my posts "A Failed Attempt At Unity - The Restoration Movement" (Part 1, Part 2).

You may disagree with Campbell that the "intellectual" project he launched is not viable today, nor was it ever. But you make it sound like he was an ivory tower guy who needed to pull his head out of the clouds. I don't get those same vibes. What we see Campbell NOT doing (during a day when every one else was) is importing a finely tuned philosophical system that is beyond the reach of the common man and making that a prerequisite for doing theology. THAT approach is intellectual unity at its purest. Instead, Campbell took habits of thinking and reading that were gaining widespread, indeed worldwide, acceptance by the masses and putting them to work with Scripture alone. This was theology for everyman, and the average Joe found Campbell a thinker he could finally relate to. Of course, when what one reads of Campbell is his most intellectual work, one is tempted to think his project was a purely intellectual one, but all it takes is a brief sit-down in front of the massive collection of Millennial Harbinger volumes to realize his project was a grassroots, church life focused project. In fact, I think our movement's primary contribution to ecumenical conversations is its ecclesial flexibility and openness. While others spend an excessive amount of time speculating about Trinity and transubstantiation, our people were saying "what would it look like if we did communion like this?"

You insist that unity is achieved through shared "actions" not intellectual processes. That's exactly what Campbell was doing. The Church had three major shared actions among all denominations: Lord's Supper, Baptism, and Bible Reading. Campbell focused on these. When it came to hermeneutics, Campbell sat down with average Joe who always felt unworthy to read the Bible because he could never understand the deep theological prerequisites necessary for a valid reading. Campbell's advice to him was: "You read the newspaper, right? Well, read your Bible that way. And another thing, be sure to humbly receive it as God's word and do what it says." Of course, when Campbell had to justify this approach intellectually before intellectuals he speaks to them on intellectual terms, but don’t mistake these contextual conversations for an intellectualist approach to the Bible because that is not what Campbell recommended.

Regarding the project of identifying interpretive methods today and using them to unite, I think there is plenty of helpful fodder out there. Obviously you don't begin with highly contested methods that have not gained unity. You begin with methods that are gaining unity. It is not clear to me that the watch-a-movie-and-read-whatever-you-want-into-it" approach is fostering widespread agreement. Those producers may be gaining widespread exposure and they may have groupies in every state, but the masses are not buying it. That is not the way they read the paper or want people to interpret their speech actions. It's not what their college profs teach and Hollywood hardly represents the heartbeat of America. It represents the heartbeat of the entertainment world. Campbell was building off of a much more widely popular approach.

Narrative theory, on the other hand, is gaining momentum today. We are beginning to agree that dissecting a text as if it was a corpse to get at the root of every jot and tittle intention of the author is no longer the best way to read a book, although it may be helpful in a supplemental way. Rather we find it much more appealing to enter into the narrative world of the project, to provisionally accept some of its borderline presuppositions, and to try to hear the message conveyed by the work as a whole. We are agreeing that the forest needs as much attention as each individual tree. Many people would hear that and say, duh, that's common sense. My response is: Exactly! But that's not how they read the Bible. They microanalyze every phrase and get stuck at every one-liner that is hard to swallow and they miss the story. They obsess about theories of inspiration, composition, and authorship. The Bible has become a book not to read and enjoy but to read and defend. This is partly because of how Scripture is taught in Colleges. I am calling for a shift away from obsessing about introductory issues toward entering the narrative world of the text. A hermeneutic of unity teaches our students that what matters about Scripture is the message God is communicating through it not who wrote it, when, and with what degree of divine influence.

I am not convinced Campbell is as easily defeated as the strawman he is set up to be. Campbell did not avoid all that was extra-biblical. He never sought to. He sought to marginalize what was extra-biblical. There is a big difference there that many people overlook. Campbell had a higher view of opinion than most people's brains today can handle. He could just as easily worship with a deist as a strict trinitarian because he refused to make their metaphysical speculations a matter of fellowship. What he sought to do was push extra-biblical topics out of the spotlight. They were not to be topics for preaching. We must preach the Gospel that unites. There will have to be conversations about what extra-biblical aspects of church life need to be dealt with (carpeting, A/C units, church camps, etc), but we do not pretend our ideas about these things are so strong that they should be the subject of our unity gatherings and Bible studies. It's not either we do extra-biblical things or not, but how much emphasis we place on them.

Similarly, Campbell did not believe that God stopped revealing himself in Deistic fashion. No one who's read him much accuses him of being deistic. Rather, he affirmed that what God has revealed to different individuals or even churches post-NT is not going to be the basis of worldwide Church unity. So God may convince Church X through a vision to start a homeless ministry on corner Y, but that revelation is binding on that Church alone, not all churches everywhere. What God revealed in Scripture is different, according to Campbell. What he revealed there is for all people everywhere. They will not apply it in the same way in an effort to be sensitive to their context, but it remains normative as a guide to their conduct. Campbell is willing to say, “God convicted you to do A, great! But be careful not assume that because he convicted you to do so that his will is for everyone to do likewise.” It does not surprise me that when God wants to get a Catholic’s attention, he gives them a vision of Mary. It does not surprise me that when he wants to grip a Pentecostal, he afflicts them with tongues. God meets people where they are. But Catholics are mistaken when they use such experiences to confirm the timeless validity of their Marian dogmas and Pentecostals are misguided to make tongue-speaking a necessary sign for genuine conversion. It is not clear to me that Campbell is saying anything more than don’t do this – if we make these mistakes our division will increase.

A Failed Attempt at Unity - The Restoration Movement (Part 2)

Part one is here.

The main problem I struggle with in dealing with the thoughts of Alexander Campbell is that I am enthralled by the idea that we should speak only on thoughts that the Bible is clear on and remain silent on the rest. I wish it was possible, but I just cannot see it as being so. Whenever we decide to step away from the intellectual and put our beliefs into practice, we will inevitably be doing things in an area of that is extrabiblical. When we take action on whether to hire a minister or not, to have a building or not, to give money to a certain cause or not, we make a stance on something that is not an essential in the Bible, yet they are all areas that we must take a stance on. Intellectual unity on the essentials by itself cannot not bring about genuine unity.

In order to take Campbell's approach one has to take a near-deistic approach to Christianity. Let me label that approach “Biblistic” if you will. In this approach God quit revealing truth to people at the time of the writing of Revelation or whatever book one would argue was the last written book of the Bible. In this belief Campbell came closest to replicating for biblical studies what Bacon did for science. But the biblistic approach is extrabiblical in itself by making the statement that all revelation is done. Campbell's approach has to be wrong because it is self-contradicting and not internally consistent.

Campbell's attempt at unity was genuine and well meant, but it failed. His approach will always fail no matter what generation attempts to mimic it unless Christianity were limited to being a purely intellectual endeavor. It is necessary for every generation to adopt extrabiblical practices in order to properly demonstrate the gospel to our culture. Doing church in a house almost seems simplistic enough that we can avoid extrabiblical actions, but simple church even has many extrabiblical actions. Extrabiblical actions cannot be avoided; we must be responsible and sensitive to insure that all of our extrabiblical teachings and practices are beneficial to the body of Christ rather than divisive.

A reply to my thoughts by John Nugent is here.

A Failed Attempt at Unity - The Restoration Movement (Part 1)

I read parts of Christianity Restored by Alexander Campbell earlier this year.

My initial thought in reading the book was that Alexander Campbell threw away all of the established creeds and created a creed that was much more complex in what could be described as a “hermeneutical approach” creed.

Here are two defining quotes:

"Our opposition to creeds arose from a conviction, that whether the opinions in them were true or false, they were hostile to the uniion, peace, harmony, purity, and joy of christians; and adverse to the conversion of the world to Jesus Christ."

"All the differences in religious opinion and sentiment, amongst those who acknowledge the Bible, are occassioned by false principles of interpretation, or by a misapplication of the true principles. There is no law, nor standard--literary, moral, or religious--that can coerce human thought or action, by only promulging and acknowledging it. If a law can effect any thing, our actions must be conformed to it. Were all students of the Bible taught to apply the same rules of interpretation to its pages, there would be a greater uniformity in opinion and sentiment, than ever resulted from the simple adoption of any written creed."

Campbell then goes on to explain his hermeneutical principles for eighty-five pages. Instead of having a ten point creed, he produced an eighty-five page psuedo-creed. It was his firm belief that one must share hermeneutical methods in order to come to the same conclusions. I think he was somewhat correct in his belief that a unity could be achieved if we all shared the same hermeneutical methods; however, that unity would not be a genuine unity. It would be an “intellectual unity” that scholars could share but it would not unite the masses.

Alexander Campbell believed that intellectual unity would bring about a genuine unity; however, history shows that we can be intellectually divided and still have Christian unity or we can have intellectual unity and still be divided. I could beat my head against a wall trying to convince someone to intellectually agree with me. It would be more fruitful to get them to participate with me in action. Unity starts with sharing actions rather than sharing intellectual processes. Shared hermeneutics would result in a shared theology but that does not always translate into a shared spirituality. If we share actions, our differing theology might not matter all that much.

A friend of mine wrote: “Rather than ask how 18-19th century methods of reading ancient texts may guide the church's reading of Scripture, we might ask what contemporary methods are bearing fruit analyzing ancient texts and how such methods may be used to foster a shared hermeneutic for today.” The problem is that modern methods vary as the wind and location of the circumstances the scholar finds himself in. It seems that – at least in secular fields, particularly literature – the original intent of the author is irrelevant next to the interpretation of the reader. People seemed to be enthralled with movies like The Fountain where the writer/director refuses to tell what the point is and proclaims that everyone's interpretation is valid. This modern day approach cannot bring about a shared hermeneutic that would result in an intellectual unity.

Campbell's approach which was not even successful is no longer even practical. Unity will only come through humble communities of believers listening to the will of God.