From the Vault: Waves of Change

I wrote this in my journal on Wednesday, August 3, 2011 at 12:22am. I was 32 and a youth minister in Texas at the time of this writing. I feel like most of my ministry from that point on has been to help those in the Churches of Christ navigate those waters of change. Be blessed!

Theologian Miroslav Volf, in commenting on the recent death of Osama Bin Laden, said,

“We are right to feel a sense of relief that a major source of evil has been removed. But we should reflect also on the flip side of that relief: the nature of our fears. As the King hearings and state-level anti-Sharia bills indicate, many people in our nation find themselves under a spell of a "green scare" analogous to the red scare of the 1950s. But fear is a foolish counselor, and our war in Iraq--unnecessary, unjust and counterproductive--is evidence of this.”

In elaborating on Volf’s thought, Brain McLaren, said,

“Fear is a foolish counselor, and it is also an addictive one. As the work of Rene Girard and others makes clear, our national anxieties love to vent themselves on some monster, real or imaginary. We can unite our party, if not our nation, around common aggression against shared fear – even if we can’t unite them around a common vision around shared values.

We have seen that throughout history a common enemy unites a nation and gives a focal point for a country to aim its critical eye towards. When the external pressure has subsided, a nation tends to focus its critical energies inward looking for that next conspiracy, villain, or enemy.

Well, I am not here to talk about politics or the history of Western Civilization. I do not have a horse in those races. I would like to give attention to the Church, and in particular, the churches of Christ.

For decades we set ourselves up as purveyors of truth. We claimed to be the incarnation of the 1^st century Church. We were the ones that were right. We were the ones going to heaven. We were the holy, set apart, chosen protectors of the pure Christian message.

Our enemy was one in focus. Anyone who stood against the essential doctrines of the Church was deemed wrong. And because everything was an essential doctrine to us, anyone not found under the sign, “Church of Christ” on a Sunday morning was said to not be following the truth.

We created publications to report on who was following the truth and who had strayed. We built preaching schools to educate young preachers on the proper interpretations of the Bible. We held Gospel meetings where we would debate, and sometimes demean, preachers from other denominations over the issues of baptism, the Holy Spirit, and women’s role in the church.

We were united around a common vision that everyone else was wrong and we were right. We built our foundation with this central belief. But something very interesting has been happening in recent years. Some of the things that we held as doctrinally essential, we don’t hold as essential anymore. We have started to believe that the use of musical instruments in worship, the workings of the Holy Spirit, and women’s role in church are, as we have affectionately called them, “non-salvational issues.”

We are no longer held together by this overarching belief that we are right and everyone else is wrong. It seems we are starting to realize that we may have been wrong about a few issues in the past. So we are starting to see guitars in the worship gatherings. We are seeing women standing up and leading prayers or passing the communion plates. We are seeing Christians taking communion other days then Sunday. We are witnessing people raising hands and clapping during worship. We listen to people stand and give testimonies about how they witnessed to their next door neighbor. No longer do I hear the debates of the point at which someone becomes a Christian or how much they needed to know before they made that commitment. To be honest, I am not hearing a lot of “Why we are right and everyone else is wrong” preaching from the pulpit.

Now I could go on and on about the benefits of this new found freedom and liberation we are feeling in our denomination. But the question I have is, “Where do we go from here?” What’s next for the churches of Christ? If our common enemy is gone and we are becoming more ecumenical in our approach, what is stopping us from falling into the community church movement? What brings identity to our movement? What will bind us together in the coming years?

We are witnessing the emergence of a post-denominational world. With the benefits I also see where the lines are going to get blurred and things are going to be a huge adjustment for those of us who have only known the Christian landscape in light of the denominational drawn lines.

Will doctrine matter in this new world? Is there anything that is worth going our own separate ways about? What will bind us together as a community of faith? With everyone having their own interpretation of Scripture, which one will prevail?

I have many questions about this coming age of Christendom. But, as it pertains to the churches of Christ, we must be prepared to help our fellow Christian, maneuver these waves of change.