Isn’t it funny how we can become the
very thing we would have criticized only a few years prior? I’m there
now. I’m a Christian wandering from church-to-church, trying to sort
out my beliefs and the future direction of my spiritual life. I
would’ve thought, “well, he’s just trying to avoid dealing with
something difficult, that’s why he’s wandering around.” I don’t know,
maybe there’s some truth in that. But, this little journey hasn’t been
particularly easy. In some ways, it would be far easier to run back to
a highly- directed church, and find comfort in numbers.
The essence of my journey has been to
apply the Berean’s eye to my belief system. And, to accomplish this, I
felt that I had step outside my system and look back at it from a new
perspective. Those of us in churches of Christ have been calling our
friends and neighbors to do this for years. We’ve called Catholics to
question the elevating of their traditions to the place of scripture;
and Mormons to examine the validity of their myths; and Methodists to
consider why their movement has drifted so far to the left over the
last few decades. And, when these challenges were issued in love, they
did a lot of good.
But we’ve had a difficult time
living
up to this ourselves. As Richard Hughes recently wrote, “the story of
the churches of Christ in the twentieth century has been its movement
from a sect to a denomination while denying the whole time that they
were either.” We think that when we’ve restored the right “pattern” of
worship, or discipleship, or world evangelism, we’ve become the
“kingdom of God today.” In other words we have no recent history, per
se. In our mindset, the history of the restoration movement goes
directly from the New Testament church to the present, nothing other
than apostacy happening in-between.
And this pattern-based paradigm is
nothing new. The Anabaptists of 16th century Europe, and then the
Puritans, and the Landmark Baptists, and the restoration movement of
nineteenth century America, all have their roots deeply entrenched in
the belief that responding to the gospel (in a pattern, if you will) is
primary, of first importance. The trouble with this, despite its
sincerity, is that in striving to respond to the gospel, it’s terribly
easy to step right over the gospel. Paul taught us that the gospel is
of first importance. A response to the gospel is just that, a response.
Understanding and believing the gospel is our first need.
When the “pattern of response” is
placed before the gospel itself a number of troubles consistently
arise. First, our pattern will be flawed, no matter how sincere or
intelligent the authors of that pattern are. The New Testament simply
isn’t written in a legal form. Our belief that it is comes from John
Locke, Sir Francis Bacon, and the rational mindset of the late 18th
century (the dirty little secret is that we are going to have to live
by faith). And then our second difficulty is the spirit of competition
that naturally arises in our hearts because of the need to prove that
our pattern is right, the one that God will bless. We end up operating
with a flawed pattern, and struggling daily with an ungodly motivation
(sounds like James and John- “who’s the greatest?”). And then, of
course, we politically rally around whomever we think has come up with
the best pattern- we become too people-centered (as opposed to
God-centered), and often basic spirituality is lost as we strive
mightily to “fix the church.” When you sit back and think about it for
a moment, it’s no wonder that we end up so out of touch with ourselves,
and yet so willing to call everyone else to come to grips with the
problems in their spiritual lives. I have come to believe that this is
why, despite all the good God does among us, we land ourselves in a
near-disaster every twenty-five years or so.
And after our last near-disaster, I
decided that I wasn’t going to wait for any of us to come up with
another new and improved pattern. I decided to go and learn from the
gospel-first folks. Yes, to stop judging them, and analyzing their lack
of repentance, and their lack of this, that, and whatever. It has
become fairly obvious to me that both trains of thought, gospel-first
and pattern-first, bring some wonderful things to the table. Do I
think that they can learn from us? Certainly. But my focus isn’t their
need, it’s my need. Me and my friends are in a mess, this I’m sure
of. And I haven’t been disappointed. The first sermon I
heard outside the churches of Christ was based in Hosea 4, regarding
legalism, and religious sin, and how the Pharisees would take some
wonderful, God-given principle and break it down into three or four
practicals, and essentially kill it. I cried like a little child
because I saw how much I had become like them. I began to see how
utterly judgmental I had become. And I began to see that the problems
that were crushing my heart weren’t the fault of the International
Church of Christ. I had abandoned God’s grace and, as Soren Kierkegaard
puts it, “God had punished me by treating me objectively.” I had used
and abused that system as much as anyone had.
My reading list over the last two
years is full of excellent material, but Martin Luther’s commentary on
Galatians has been the greatest single blessing. It’s a deep and slow
read, my version being translated into Victorian English. The
Wittenberg project has put a version online that uses Modern English. I
give you a sample from his thoughts on Galatians 1:4, “Paul sticks to
his theme. He never loses sight of the purpose of his epistle. He does
not say, ‘who received our works’, but ‘who gave.’ Gave what? Not gold,
or silver, or paschal lambs, or an angel but Himself. What for? Not for
a crown, or a kingdom, or our goodness, but for our sins. These
words are like so many thunderclaps of protest from heaven against
every kind of and type of self-merit. Underscore these words, for they
are full of comfort for sore consciences.”
My perspective on Jesus has expanded
in a way that is somewhat difficult to express. I’ve thought about this
a lot and there’s nothing simple to say. Except that His life and
mission were a lot larger than the concept that He came only to set us
an example, and become part of pattern theology. When Jesus becomes
“part of the pattern,” He becomes to us like an older brother named
Moses. I’ve been learning that He is so much larger than this, and,
ironically, smaller than this. He first came to us in a manger- a baby
in a manger. Can’t get much smaller or more powerless than that. And
much of his life, starting in that manger, was expended to romance our
hearts to him, not demand that we follow His example. He wants us
to come to Him to have life, not just set up another new system. And
then we see Him in the book of Revelation and He becomes rather large
and frightening- like the fact that he controls the Four Horsemen who
are really frightening. But all of it- the Old Testament, the manger,
and the Horsemen- are leading us to a wonderful conclusion. I’ve
slowly, but surely, begun to trust this again. And to accept, as Peter
Hiett puts it, that this crazy world is Jesus’ giant winepress, and
that He is harvesting the wine of faith and mercy, “body broken and
blood shed.”
Well, is my journey leading
anywhere
good? I believe so. Do I think that the lonely aspect will come to an
end? Yes, I think that sometime soon I will be knee-deep in phone calls
and striving to meet peoples’ needs, in any way that I’m able. But for
now, I’ve taken Martin Luther’s advice, “but we, having set apart all
our works, should give ourselves only to the hearing of the gospel.”