It is in the give-and-take of the local church that we develop what C. S. Lewis called “a taste for the other.” There we learn about obligations and debts of openness, regard, and love. There we learn about the relational imperative and the voluntary participation it inspires. Local relations help us to hallow earthly ties. They teach us much about justice, charity, freedom, truth, tolerance, patience, friendship, and sharing.
Community on the Local Scene
The local church is the basic form of the community of the saints. It is in the local fellowship that attitudes are tested, chastened, changed, trained. It is there that credibility is established and strengthened. Personhood is nurtured in the local fellowship, and contacts with others are processed and filtered to the enrichment of the individual and the group. It is for this reason, among others, that membership in a local congregation is a primary need for every Christian.
Every believer needs to find closeness and rapport with other believers. Each Christian needs to be evaluated, on the one hand, and affirmed, on the other. Each one needs to know how others see his or her life. Each one needs the experience of being thought about and regarded by another; each one needs the experience of listening and being heard as well.
Each believer needs to learn how to handle differences. There are those differences that are seen—age, customs, culture, personal development—and there are those differences that are known, such as income, education, experience, and length of membership in the group. But fellowship is deepened as the believer learns how to handle felt differences by placing attitudes, emotions, and temperament all under the constraints of love and the willingness to relate in the spirit of unity.
A local congregation can be an intricate mosaic of persons. Brought together by a mutually shared experience of faith in Christ, members in a local church need to be guided in experiencing oneness with each other. Grace, love, and acceptance can be learned where there is the willingness to be in unity.
The local scene is also important as the place where the believer encounters a group tradition. Although the local congregation is an extension of that fellowship Jesus established, and should therefore reflect the wider Church, the truth is that each gathering group tends to develop its own distinctives. Rooted in history, each congregation will develop a “group personality” and will show distinct features as an individual does. This is true with regard to traditions about worship, patterns of activity, and a distinct ethos concerning certain aspects of life. All that a group experiences becomes a part of its mind and order, and a tradition develops and deepens as these are honored within the group. Each believer needs to learn how to investigate a group tradition, how to regard it, how to be helped by it, and how to see beyond it. A proper local experience helps to this end.
A common group tradition and hope can do much to encourage group harmony. But however strong any tradition, there will be times when opinions will differ and wills will clash. There will be occasions when differences will cause a felt distance, and even disgust, which could spell danger. Personality differences are crucial in human contacts, especially where there is close living as in a family or a congregation. Individualism is like a weed; it grows fast and must be watched lest the nourishment needed by other aspects of personal life be used up and the person left impoverished.
Unity is experienced only as one successfully wrestles with selfish feelings and moves on beyond them to affirm others despite their differences. Those who are serious about unity will see to it that their will to relate is stronger than the temptation to separate.
Love is at its best when we obey its constraints and mend a broken alliance or act wisely to prevent a break from occurring. If a division does occur, and if it is permitted to last, selfishness is the inward problem. Thus the injunction in Ephesians 4:1–3. Every believer must learn how to live on community terms, and must learn how to think, act, and plan with spiritual and social togetherness in mind. The local scene helps this to happen. The local congregation is a most crucial setting for the believer to learn about unity and live by its constraints.
The Drama of Commitment
In many churches it is a matter of great import when someone is officially introduced and recognized as a new part of the group and honored as a member in full standing. Membership and recognition by the group is indeed a precious moment for any believer.
But quite beyond that official recognition the time comes when certain additional membership responsibilities are assumed. Assignment is made to some task which gives the believer a specific service to render which benefits the group in some special way. This whole matter of response between the congregation and the believer holds deep emotional, spiritual, and social relevance. There is nothing more dramatic and decisive than an action performed by a believer who has come of age, matured, and been approved for some ministry.
Involvement in Ministry
It is usually in the local church that one learns mission at first hand and finds a point at which to join hands with others for a focused action in the world.
The Lord intended that the central concerns of the Church should be handled in togetherness. The “Go therefore and make disciples” of Matthew 28:19 is in second person plural imperative, addressed to a group. This is understandable, because some things are best done together, and if not done together, they cannot be done well, if at all. The local congregation has great potential for shared mission. Under able leadership, the group should gain perspective on the need for mission, sense the need for combined handling of mission, and learn to share in supporting missions. To speak of mission and ignore the place of the local church in equipping believers for involvement in it is like trying to play baseball without a bat or ball.
It is on the local scene that the believer learns the meaning of his or her presence and gifts. Where one’s personal witness is honored and strengthened, one’s gifts are sharpened and their use further enhanced. Whether the emphasis is upon some social action, or establishing a new church, or an overseas thrust, every creative endeavor can involve the members in very specific ways. The most long-lasting ministries are tied closely to the local church.
Congregational life still forms the front line of learning as the Church advances in the world. Over and beyond all other possible groupings, the local congregation is the basic unit of the unified community.
The local congregation that experiences unity can help each member make his or her Christian presence active and felt. Right happenings in the fellowship help to prepare members for being that kind of presence. Helped in dealing with one’s own personal crises, energy, wisdom, and impetus are increased for dealing with the crises of others.
Some ministries tend to develop almost automatically and without prodding from the leadership of the local church; some other services would hardly take place, however, apart from stimulation and guidance from within the group. Meanwhile, in all instances where ministries occur, the local leadership is often important in monitoring the action, helping to assess what is done, and inspiring patience when one must keep at some task that takes longer to fulfill.
The presence and blessing of the local congregation can mean all the difference in the world to someone who is having difficulties while trying to serve beyond the church. An awareness that one is loved and supported by the group can keep a member from feeling totally thwarted or defeated. A unified backing of a working church member can keep that person persistent in labor even when the work does not seem immediately productive. The best service is rendered when believers know the group backs them up, and they see themselves as representatives of the whole church wherever they are.
The local church is crucial in providing occasions when unity can be regarded, experienced, and promoted. From the time when the new member is introduced to the larger group, down to the time of the last involvement, the local arena is an all-important one for the believer. There authority is understood and obeyed, and there activities are guided. It is in the local church that the special character and demands of unity come to practical focus.
For Discussion
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1. What is the background of the congregation to which you belong? How does its life-style resemble that of your childhood church?
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2. What have you been learning as a result of your involvement with the members of your congregation? Be as specific as you can.
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Chapter 5
Unity and Christian Growth
FELLOWSHIP is aided when we remember that we are all in process, learning and growing in the faith. We tend to be more considerate when we remember that we all live with inevitable limitations and manifold needs. Our experiences are limited. Our knowledge is limited. Our insights and understandings are limited. Our present limitations will one day end, and what is partial now will then be perfect. The grand fulfillment of life is to be expected. But for now our lives unfold by stages. As Paul put it, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways”(1 Cor. 13:11).
Life does involve us in unfolding stages. Given the right conditions, the child does become the adult. What is so in natural fact is also the case in spiritual growth, and a healthy congregational life can aid that growth and development in our lives.
Personal spiritual growth cannot take place, however helpful the congregational setting, without painful learning, persistent loving, and patient living. It is no easy matter to mature, either in life or in grace. And it is no easy matter to deal with those who lack maturity in certain areas, especially when our dealings with them excite disfavor in us against them. We can know where we have put persons in our estimation by how we feel about them in our emotions. How we act in relationships shows where we are in responsiveness. As Christians, our thoughts, attitudes, and deeds toward others speak loudly about our growth—or lack of it. The congregational setting puts it all to the test.
The maturing Christian seeks experiences of unity. The maturing believer recognizes impatience with others for what it is and works to handle it with conscious intent. The maturing believer will confess being emotionally upset but will continue to work on being related to those who excited those feelings. An understanding, caring fellowship will encourage such openness and honesty on our part; it will also seek to condition our growth to work through problems in relationships.
A strong willingness to relate is a mark of evident growth. And a strong will is needed when personal differences between members become a matter of clash. Hannah Whitall Smith left us a needed word about the work of the will in handling matters of emotional conflict. In her classic book The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, she wrote these words:
The will is like a wise mother in a nursery; the feelings are a set of clamoring, crying children. The mother makes up her mind to a certain course of action which she believes to be right and best. The children clamor against it … But the mother, knowing that she is mistress and not they, pursues her course lovingly and calmly in spite of all their clamor; and the children are sooner or later won over to the mother’s course of action, and fall in with her decisions, and all is harmonious and happy. But if that mother should for a moment let in the thought that the children were the masters instead of her, confusion would reign unchecked. And in how many souls at this very moment is there nothing but confusion, simply because the feelings are allowed to govern, instead of the will. [Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, (Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1952 ed.) pp. 85–86. Used by permission.]
In Christian experience and church life, personal feelings cannot be supreme if fellowship is to prevail. The maturing Christian knows this. Charles Wesley wrote,
Jesus, united by Thy grace,
And each to each endeared,
With confidence we seek Thy face,
And know our prayer is heard.
Help us to help each other, Lord,
Each other’s cross to bear;
Let each his friendly aid afford,
And feel his brother’s care.
Up unto Thee, our living Head,
Let us in all things grow,
Till Thou hast made us free indeed
And spotless here below.
Touched by the loadstone of Thy love,
Let all our hearts agree;
And ever toward each other move,
And ever move toward Thee.
[Charles Wesley, “Fellowship,” The Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The Methodist Publishing House, 1939) Hymn 419. Used by permission.]
An understanding regard for others is a mark of spiritual growth. This understanding regard, this outgoing concern, what Paul called love, is really the spirit by which Jesus lived and worked.
The thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians deals with that love—how it operates and why it is so essential. Against the background of common human problems Paul explains how and why this Christian love promotes excellent behavior and an understanding regard for others. The love that Paul informs us about in this chapter generates help for our impulses and hope for our hassles. Christian unity is always possible because Christian love can guarantee it when its constraints are obeyed. Love links us with what is spiritually ultimate to help us with social problems that are immediate.
In the setting of a church, love is the spiritual measure against which all the members are to be assessed. The assessment begins with our personal gifts and abilities. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (vv. 1–2). Paul’s argument is sound, and he was saying that every native capacity and every spiritual gift must pass the test of love in the way they are regarded and used. Unity is strengthened only by the right use of ourselves and our gifts, both natural and spiritual.
Love measures our ministries and our motives. It prods us to keep our movements centered and our motives clear. Love saves us from the vanity which makes us approach every congregational event and every personal possibility with the query, “What do I get out of this?”
But Christian love is more than a measure. It is a means as well. When our motives could become mixed, our attitudes troublesome, and our contacts mean, love helps us handle the strain and manage the self. Christian love enables us to manage ourselves and at the same time maintain relations with others.
What was causing the church trouble at Corinth? Why such deep friction there between the members? Why had the troubles lasted for so long? You know the answer: some believers were still selfish and ungoverned. What lay behind the cliques and the parties, the wrangling and the rioting? What made the learned ones there stand off from the unlearned? It was self, undisciplined self! What made some persons exaggerate their importance and undermine the importance of others? Why did some members absurdly continue sinning against the truths they had been taught? What made some take advantage of Christian liberty and freedom as they did? It was self, self-loving self! Why had conduct in worship services become disorderly? What made so many members so stubborn of head and haughty in heart? The answer is plain: selfishness was where Christian love needed to be. The members in Corinth needed to submit themselves to the superintending ministry of Christian love. That love would help them manage their lives and live in peace. Where the love of God is not blocked, the self is always brought under management and the group is always strengthened in fellowship.
Verses 4–7 spell out the beauty of a love-conditioned life. “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Those who trust themselves to the wisdom and working of such love discover the power and possibilities of the relational imperative.
But alas! not all have dared to trust in love and obey its constraints. Given that failure, personal problems become congregational conflicts. It happened at Corinth, making Paul, its absent leader, lament.
The Problem of Congregational Conflict
Congregational disruption is a sad and serious problem. When Paul learned that congregational unity at Corinth was threatened by dissension he wrote immediately, intent to quell the disruption. Trying to appeal to the rival parties there, Paul used strong language backed by love and apostolic authority. Several believers there had chosen sides over some issue and stood against each other, so he appealed to them all to see the absurdity of their fight. Paul summarily rebuked every partisan attitude and advised a return to harmony. “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10). Then he told how he knew about the fracas: “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brethren” (v. 11). The informants were not tattlers; they were persons of trust, concerned about unity, so Paul readily identified them.
Church disputes are sad and serious matters. Whenever and wherever they occur, prolonged quarrelings can bring a church to ruin. Paul wanted to prevent that from happening at Corinth. He reminded the members about the need for fellowship, and he outlined the fundamentals by which that fellowship could be regained and sustained. Paul used his authority as an apostle to advise adjustments because selfish attitudes threatened to divide the church.
Congregational harmony demands agreement. This is fundamental. Paul advised, “agree … be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” His call was for openness to relate and to share, in love and in the values rooted in the Christian faith. When members of a congregation will overcome selfishness they can always reduce the threat of disruption.
A congregation can have togetherness, and that togetherness will continue when there is a mutual will to continue it. When each member resists divisive attitudes and acts truthfully in the spirit of love, no suspicions will find soil in which to grow, and division will have no basis for occurring.
Paul encouraged the Corinthians to seek a community mind: “be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” He was not advising any slavish agreement, but rather a common outlook. The basis for that common outlook was in their common allegiance to Christ.
The highest use of ourselves is found in unity. A community mind happens when each member seeks the highest good of the group, convinced that a stable and creative fellowship helps one and all to be at their best.
A congregation should be a school for personal growth carrying members beyond all previous conditionings to help them learn and mature in the faith. Congregational life should lead persons out of immaturity into matured readiness to serve God and humanity.
I recall a certain night when my wife and I were visiting with a couple of friends in their home. At a certain point in the evening we settled ourselves before the television set to watch a special telecast, a documentary honoring the memory and achievements of a late noted public figure. The four of us listened with consuming interest as the narrator carried us through the life and times of that famous man. We sat enrapt as rare photographs were shared on the screen to make the story “come alive” at strategic points. But two children were in that room with us. They could not share our enthusiasm because they knew nothing of the man nor the meaning and importance of his life. Our intent watching was soon disturbed by their wriggling. We found it hard to follow the narrator’s talk as the children increasingly disturbed us with their talk. Finally, as the youngest child noisily shuffled back and forth from one parent to the other, the father spoke sharply and with authority to bring the children into line. Only then did they seem to respect what we were seeking to do.
That is also the problem with immaturity in the local church: a childish orientation to life there hinders the important things from being done. Limited and selfish outlooks must be disciplined and corrected if a congregation is to fulfill its intended role. A church owes it to all not to let its affairs revolve around a few. And no mature leader will allow immature members to selfishly block needed happenings because their orientation is carnal. Christian unity is served by honesty and discipline as well as by forgiveness and understanding regard.
The Promise of Congregational Harmony
We Christians do not learn from our own individual life alone, nor do we nurture it completely in isolation. Other believers minister to us, and we to them, and both are needed to minister to a needy world beyond the Church. Others are needed to help our understanding, share our living, and relate to our process of growth in grace. Christian unity helps us to actualize our potential through spiritual fellowship and social intimacy.
The local church stands over against us, on the one hand, and with us, on the other. This relation to other believers has a lot to do with our moral training, self-knowledge, self-definition, and self-respect. In fact, it is only in community that we learn the deeper truths about ourselves. The deepest character is a tested character, a character that arises in social contacts. Experiences of unity help each one become a “thou” to other believers. This is a nourishing interaction. Unity, in the last analysis, can be understood and experienced only as a social reality. And this cannot happen in depth without a basic personal interest and intention to be related. Disinterestedness forbids unity. Congregational living makes us face up to any selfish disinterest that would keep Christians at a distance from each other.
The local scene demands individual responses from us, and it should inspire sincere and honest ones. When we are made to feel our own sense of worth, we can stand over against the rest of the members, dependent upon them yet sharing with them what they would not have without us.
Congregational living calls us to identify with others, to be self-conscious participants with them in the process of faith. The experience of belonging begins in a private choice to follow Christ, but the effects of the experience are social through and through. Life in the local congregation helps that personal choice made in faith to achieve its maturity and sharp social thrust. In this sense being a member in unity is strategic and imperative for continued growth and competence.
Congregational life is something more than an optional matter. It is the context for community. It is an introduction to the greater fellowship. It is the place where service is learned, rendered, and received. Congregational life provides an arena for learning, love, and redemptive labor.
Congregational life at its best will provide the comfort and security of a family. It will allow for manageable units of fellowship, enabling those who need special help from each other to find and receive and give it with greater effectiveness. Most of us have discovered that we are most liked by those who have come to know us; we are best understood by those with whom we have become acquainted. After all, it is on the one-to-one level that we make friends, seek help, express dissatisfactions, vent frustrations, and build faith. This is why individual contacts in the local congregation must be protected and preserved.
Most of us have developed loyalties to some congregation, and we treasure its patterns, traditions, and personalities. Most of us value the group’s image and ethos. Sometimes we take pride in the local history, the leadership tradition, the kinds of ministry being handled, and the spiritual and social times with other members. We all know that whatever happens in the midst of our church’s life, influences us in some manner. This is inevitable when the spirit and the value system of a church group is strong The spirit of unity helps to make it all so. The local congregation can usually fulfill its role when unity influences its life and work.
For Discussion
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1. What personal attitudes of yours have been changed through your life with other believers? Have the changes lasted? If not, why not?
2. How do you react to the author’s concern that a new member be “officially introduced and recognized as a new part of the congregation”? Did this happen to you? If not, do you wish it had? If it did, then how did it enhance your sense of belonging?
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Chapter 6
Unity and the Discipline of Human Preferences
THERE ARE certain depths in spiritual unity that we cannot experience until we have disciplined our human preferences. There are such things as human preferences—our personal likes and interests—and these can help or hinder our opportunities for relating with other Christians. The willingness to discipline our preferences is one of the attractive evidences of agape love. That willingness is an aspect of Christian self-control (Gal. 5:23).
The dictionary defines a preference as “a greater liking; a first choice; a giving of priority or advantage to someone or something.” We all know the influence and importance of preferences. We know what it means to put one thing ahead of something else (as in purchasing a piece of furniture, a car, a house) and to put one person ahead of someone else (as in courtship and marriage). Preferences are primary concerns in the business of living. We know what it is to enjoy having or doing what we prefer, and we know what it is to endure not having our likes fulfilled. Our preferences bias us; that is, they slant us within, so that our attitudes, interests, concerns, and judgments about things lean in a certain direction.
Preferences are very personal matters. They are part of our personality system, and their roots extend deep into the soil that nurtured our personal growth. Preferences must be understood and valued for what they are and for what they enable us to be and do. But preferences must also be scrutinized. They must be measured and tested by something higher than our own likes; otherwise we can find ourselves living by prejudices and moving in directions that impede unity rather than assist it.
Preferences that are unexamined can be dangerous. They might be influencing us to do something that is not wise or to give priority to some concern that does not honor fellowship but hinders it. A preference is to be honored when it is just and unselfish. A preference is to be feared when it makes one judgmental and prohibitive. The imperative to love and relate bids us all as Christians to examine our preferences and keep them free from prejudice through the discipline of agape love. Only in this way can we “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).
Preferences and Personal Heritage
Many of our church-related preferences are in us by conditioning. They are “learnings and likings” which we inherited by setting and association. H. Richard Niebuhr has written quite pointedly about how heritage molds us, and how it produces consequences in us that we follow almost without thinking—until we are stirred to think about them. [See H. Richard Niebuhr, The Responsible Self (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), esp. pp. 42–68.] Growing up in some denominational setting, we tend to honor and prefer that setting and to judge all else by what it means to us. There are times, however, when we find it necessary to resist some influence from the setting that conditioned us.
Our initial freedom to relate with other Christians depends largely upon how we have learned to think, feel, and act toward them, and that learning has been done in some home and church setting. Our lives have been molded by certain models and a certain set of teachings. We interpret life by referring to what we have seen and learned. This conditioning is a part of our “fate,” as it were, and most of us finally embrace it as a part of our “faith.” All of us ought to examine the conditioning we received while growing up in some church setting. The shaping power of that heritage has worked upon us all, and that heritage has influenced us in certain values, behavior patterns, attractions, and preferences. Buried deep within us all is a deposit of influences from conditioning we received in some church. If we watch long enough, we will see something from which we cannot part and remain what we need to be. If we think deeply enough we will be prodded to modify or change some things because of better understandings. And if we deal honestly with ourselves we will see some things which must be disciplined so that we can relate meaningfully and on the right terms with others. The conditioning is there inside us, and it stays like it is until we deal with it. Our heritage is personal, deeply rooted in us. We need to examine it so that divine love can point out what we need to affirm and what we need to alter.
Areas of Preference
1. The preference to be private in our faith must be disciplined. Fellowship is a social experience, and we need it to be at our best—in faith and in every other way. Christian identity does happen through personal faith. It begins when we each sanction the will of God for our lives in a private and personal way. There is that space in us that is private territory, a place where personal freedom and individual worth are realized and regarded. There is in us all a self-conscious urge that is necessary. It is not deadly or dangerous until it selfishly resists the need to relate. The Christian is called by God into fellowship with self and other believers. The very call should excite the desire for fellowship. There is an imperative to love and relate. It is a demand to keep one’s “private realm” of concerns open to the scrutiny or support of other believers. That Christian is in trouble who forbids a direct and prolonged encounter with other believers. Those who refuse to admit or seek involvement beyond self-chosen boundaries need to examine why this is so in their life. There must be an established center from which one lives and moves and has being, but it must be a center open to the touch and truth of others or it is a selfish center. As Howard Thurman has put it, “Men, all men belong to each other, and he who shuts himself away diminishes himself, and he who shuts another away from him destroys himself.” [Howard Thurman, The Search for Common Ground: An Inquiry into the Basis of Man’s Experience of Community (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1971) p. 104.] We Christians must forever discipline our preference for privacy.
2. We Christians must discipline the preferences dictated by our particular age range. Many homes and churches are torn over tensions between young and old. Each generational grouping usually reacts in the way that time and biological factors condition them to react. The different age periods in our lives make their demands, and we sometimes become difficult to understand and love. Unity is aided when each person respects the peculiarities and interests generated by the time-period factor in our lives.
The tragic story of how a nation divided appears in 1 Kings 12. It is the story of how the United Kingdom of Israel, David and Solomon’s nation, broke into two warring factions when Rehoboam, Solomon’s son and successor, let youthful zeal influence him to choose other counsel than that offered by the older and experienced men of the court. Rehoboam was eager to make a name for himself, and he followed the sad advice of his peers, who encouraged him to rule by an even harder line than his dead father had used during his great (but problematic) reign. Rehoboam chose a severe plan, and the kingdom was severed because of it. The vigor and rashness of youth was partly the cause. Chaos can always happen when aggressive concern to make a name and establish one’s own identity in something becomes arrogant and a person disregards seasoned counsel from an older and more experienced perspective.
Churches have been divided because preferences were not disciplined. When a younger set of members assert themselves in haste, moved by youthful zeal and a spirit of independence to act on their own, a home or church can have peace and progress disrupted. Agape love encourages free discussion, a will to understand, and openness to agree in the Lord. Love cautions the older members not to live in the past, while it councils the young members to respect the perspective of age. Proverbs 20:29 deals with this: “The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their grey hair [wisdom].”
Unity is aided when the young do not push too hard and in arrogant haste. Unity is aided also when older ones know when to leave the scene of action and let younger hands take more and more of the responsibilities.
There is a biblical story that tells us about an older man who wisely did that. The story relates to the time of David’s reign. Second Samuel 19 tells us that David wanted to reward the kindness of one Barzillai who had helped him when he was fleeing from the terror of his son Absalom. Barzillai was now up in age, eighty years old to be exact, and David invited him to come to Jerusalem and live there for the rest of his life under kingly patronage and care. It was David’s offer in appreciation for kindnesses rendered. But Barzillai replied:
How many years have I still to live, that I should go up with the king to Jerusalem? I am this day eighty years old; can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks? Can I still listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be an added burden to my lord the king? … Pray let your servant return, that I may die in my own city, near the grave of my father and my mother (vv. 34–35, 37).
Then, in a gesture of great graciousness, Barzillai suggested someone else, someone younger, to have that honor: “But here is your servant Chimham; let him go over with my lord the king; and do for him whatever seems good to you” (v. 37b). Barzillai wisely pulled back from that high possibility. He mentioned age as his reason. But though he declined the king’s offer, love stirred him to name someone else who could benefit from what he had refused.
There are differences in thinking and feeling between persons at various age levels. Tensions can build up between persons when these differences are not understood and brought under the discipline of love. In promoting unity in home and church, the major concern must be a wise decision, not who will win: the stress must be on mutual regard, not on marshaling strength to force an issue. Agape love seeks to promote healthy relations. It inspires an interest to listen and a concern to do what is best for the group. The relational imperative generates an atmosphere of considerations out of which fellowship results and relationship deepens. This can always happen when each age group disciplines its preferences and does not seek preeminence.
3. We must also discipline our preferences about where we desire to serve.We are not wise enough to know where we ought to spend our lives. Paul, for instance, liked the cities. He was greatly impressed by them. He knew the uses to which such human closeness could be put. It was his custom to plant the Christian message at the heart of a populous city believing that the news would spread with greater rapidity through more persons who would be coming and going. Cities played an important part in Paul’s thinking, strategizing, and mission. Of all places in which to invest his time and labors, Paul preferred cities. [See Wm. R. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1965 reprint of the 1897 edition); idem., The Cities of St. Paul: Their Influence on His Life and Thought (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1965 reprint of the 1907 edition).]
So do many of us, too, who are city-minded. But going “into all the world” (Mark 16:15) does not allow Christians the luxury of preferences that would exclude some parts of that world. The evangelist Philip’s experience of being sent by the Lord to travel a desert road should not be forgotten. Although Philip had had extraordinary success in a Samaritan town, he was open to minister elsewhere—as on that desert road between Jerusalem and Gaza (Acts 8:26–40). If he had not been a disciplined evangelist, Philip might have hindered the salvation of that Ethiopian eunuch who was travelling there, and Ethiopia might have missed hearing the Christian witness one of her own sons would now bring. The world is bigger than the places we narrowly prefer. Disciplining our preferences is strategic in furthering our mission in the world.
4. We must discipline the preferences we have about our human groupings. This is an area of concern to be watched with care because preferences in this sphere of life are not always logical and reasonable but are sometimes spoiled by prejudices.
There is something in the gospel that seeks to transcend group categories and unify diverse groups. One of the most challenging pictures in Acts is the crowd that heard Peter preach his Pentecost Day sermon. It was a gathering of people from many parts of the then known world, a microcosm of a diverse humanity. That story about the Pentecost happening is the first instance the New Testament gives to show the universal character of the gospel and its effects. While all too many readers of Acts 2:1–11 settle upon the “mystery” of unlearned languages being spoken in impromptu fashion by Galilean disciples, a great marvel indeed, the greater marvel is that a universal group heard and saw the phenomenon and was impressed to believe the gospel and spread its claims when they returned to their home bases. That Pentecost story tells us about the marvelous beginning of Christian fellowship on a worldwide scale. The list of nations Luke gives in Acts 2:9–11 should be read with that in mind.
God does regard human groupings, and so should we: God made them and uses them in his will. There is something to be said for human groupings. There are strengths in a common tradition and a common culture which make a people one culture. Each group has “intelligible actions” which grow out of its own tradition, and those meanings have an inner significance from which strength for life can be derived. Each human grouping has some distinctives not available elsewhere in just the same way. All human groupings have distinctives that they wish to preserve. All human groupings have distinctives that they should preserve, distinctives which give meaning to the group as its members review their “story” in the drama of life.
It is one thing to be at home in one’s own human group (languagewise, colorwise, or whatnot), but it is quite another thing to let that grouping be one’s limit or boundary. Groupings can aid us, but they can also cripple us if the mind-set and life-style they promote are influenced by prejudices and pride. As Christians, we must be willing to be led beyond our own familiar group so that we can touch those who are in other settings.
The Book of Acts shows us this result on many of its pages. In Acts we see evangelism happening because Christians did not keep the gospel message within their own group but dared to speak and share it beyond their “primary circle.” Consider the cultural differences reflected in the story in Acts 8:26–40 of Philip’s ministry to the Ethiopian eunuch. Or one might recall the account of Peter’s experience with Cornelius the Roman centurion (Acts 10). Both of these stories relate how the wider world was being touched by the gospel message. These episodes of contact and witnessing all point to the appeal the gospel message held for all. As for that eunuch to whom Philip witnessed, he was from Ethiopia, an extremely distant territory. The story leaves out much that we wish we knew—the man’s name, age, and actual rank in the hierarchy of Queen Candace. But the story does tell us the important things: the man was a proselyte to Judaism; he was returning to his country after attending the national feast at Jerusalem; his mind was questioning and his heart was hungry as he read from the Scriptures; Philip the evangelist helped that eunuch find help. Philip did what he did because he was a man of the Spirit who had disciplined his preferences and could relate to persons from settings other than his own primary group. Paul was that kind of Christian, too. The New Testament calls upon all believers to be open in this way, obeying the constraints of love to build a fellowship that does not exclude but claims all as one family in Christ.
Our preferences for some familiar group can be kept under management by a strong ethic for relating. Paul lived by that ethic. He expressed it like this: “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more” (1 Cor. 9:19). Then follows his confession about how the principle operates in everyday life. Paul explained that he tried to meet each person or group on their own ground:
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews; to those under the law I became as one under the law—though not being myself under the law—that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law—not being without law toward God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I do it for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings (vv. 20–23).
It was a positive approach to handling his preferences. Paul succeeded because he disciplined his preferences. He related them to the absolute of love as seen and known in Jesus Christ. Paul always accommodated himself to promote fellowship in grace. As one writer has expressed it, “A believer in this gospel does not belong particularly to any group but can belong to all; so that he is at home wherever he is and at the same time is a stranger even when he is at home.” [William F. Orr and James Arthur Walther,1 Corinthians: A New Translation, Introduction and Commentary (“The Anchor Bible”) (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1976), p. 243.] That is to say, Paul’s preferences were ordered and informed by a higher principle—not of expediency but of necessity. And what is more necessary than sharing with others the experience of grace? This will to relate for sake of the gospel was Paul’s overriding allegiance. The relational imperative had mastered his preferences and he had examined and dismissed his prejudices.
It seems that Simon Peter had a harder time disciplining his preferences as a dyed-in-the-wool Jew. The story about his deep prejudices against contact with Gentiles is told in vivid detail in Acts 10:9–35. That chapter tells how Peter was stirred to rethink his position, and how he finally declared his freedom from the narrow outlook of his understanding. An imperative from God to change his views shook his sensitivities, and Peter realized that he now had to go beyond previous customs and social barriers, and that he must thereafter look at others through the eyes of God, who does not judge them as without merit or standing.
Was it his natural hastiness to speak or was it warmly received spiritual insight at work in him when “Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him’ ” (Acts 10:34)? The question must be asked because Galatians 2:11–14 tells us that Paul later “opposed [Peter] to his face, because he stood condemned” (v. 11) for being into his emotions again and standing as apart from Gentiles, even though those Gentiles were believers and fellow members of the Church. Peter had been in table fellowship with those Gentile brethren in Antioch for a time, but when hard-line Jewish advocates came from Jerusalem and insisted that a strict difference must be made between Jews and Gentile believers, Peter lapsed back into his previous separatism. Paul viewed that lapse as a denial of the unity the gospel effects. So Paul spoke up and rebuked Peter for his favoritism, fear, and failure. Separate tables was not the way to show fellowship. Paul was saying that no Christian is a second-class citizen in God’s Church.
Prejudice is not an easy enemy. Nor is an emotional preference. In fact, when any preference has become so important that deep emotion is stirred when it is not honored or satisfied, then that preference has become as forceful as an active prejudice—perhaps it really cloaks a prejudice.
Clifford Curzon, noted English pianist, tells of his student days under the teaching of Master Artur Schnabel. One of his classmates was observed one day as being unusually argumentative while Schnabel was offering some musical directives. The whole class waited to see how the teacher would handle that student. Schnabel remained calm. After the class period ended, some of the students rushed over to Schnabel and marveled about his calm, mild manner while under that barrage of dissent from a student. Schnabel remarked, “But it was my duty to remove his wrong ideas as patiently as I could.” [See “Artur Schnabel: A Tribute by Clifford Curzon,” in Cesar Searchinger, Arthur Schnabel: A Biography (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1957), pp. viii-ix.] The student had considered only himself; Schnabel had considered all things. Schnabel then added that it is a teacher’s work to open doors and not just push students through them.
That is what happens in the Church under Jesus. He opens doors for our learning and life, but he does not push us through those doors. We must enter with free surrender of our obedience. Jesus patiently seeks to remove our wrong ideas and deep prejudices; he helps us to discipline our emotional preferences so that we can be witnesses for change and agents of reconciliation. We who are taught, then become teachers. And that is what Christian witnessing is all about: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:19a). This task calls forth our obedience and depends upon our willingness to discipline our preferences about human groupings.
We should not overlook the important part the Apostle Paul played in helping members of the early Church to see how wrong some of their ideas were with respect to each others’ ethnic and cultural differences. Time and again he tried to remove those ideas as patiently as he could. He treated the theme of human equality over and over. He wrote about the oneness of human conditioning under sin (Rom. 3:9, 23), the oneness of human opportunity for salvation (Rom. 5:18), an equal facing of judgment in the presence of God (Acts 17:30–31) and, as a creative benefit of faith, a oneness and equality in Christ. As Colossians 3:11 tells it, “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.” The phrasing of the statement might be a literary echo of the Athenian poet Menander (342–292 B.C.) but the concept itself suggests that ethnic, racial, and cultural differences are not to be viewed as a barrier to human community. Paul insists that such accepted classifications could continue to be descriptive, but should never be proscriptive. [On views of mankind during the Roman Empire, see H. M. Baldry, The Unity of Mankind in Greek Thought (Cambridge: 1965); A.N. Sherwin-White, Racial Prejudice in Imperial Rome (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1970), esp. pp. 62–101; Frank M. Snowden, Jr., Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1970), esp. pp. 169–215.] He knew that the differences could stir preferences, tensions, and prejudice on occasion, thus his prescriptive to look beyond them.
Agape love claims us for a radical movement of fellowship, sharing, and witnessing. It is a movement that can extend the boundaries of the self, one’s orientation, and one’s heritage. Obedience to love can modify our conditioning, helping us to move from selfishness into deep concern for others who also belong. This would bring our lives into agreement with the imperative to relate.
It cannot be said too often that the relational imperative is what saves us from the prison of our preferences and resurrects us from the graves of our prejudices. The only way to widen and fulfill ourselves is by relating to what is wider than ourselves. Fellowship with all diversities in the Church will help that process take place. There are qualities and experiences which we can have only through relating. The relational imperative seeks to guarantee that these qualities and experiences will be ours.
Preferences and Priorities
Human preference is a freedom and privilege of great magnitude and frightening seriousness. The disciplined use of a preference is highly necessary because of how it can affect us and others touched by us. But any freedom must be disciplined to be fulfilling, else that freedom will lead us into frustration. Discipline is crucial to the proper uses of freedom.
Christian love helps us to discipline ourselves and use our freedom without strict reference to our own personal concerns. Love helps us to order our preferences by higher priorities. A sense of freedom makes us feel private and personal; the spirit of love helps us act with a sense of relation. Love steadies our spirits and gives integrity to our movements and motives. Our freedom is our very own, and yet, it is never completely private. Although our freedom is personal, love helps us to keep it from being self-centered. In this way our preferences can escape being prejudices.
For Discussion
Howard Thurman has referred to the diversified expressions of Christianity as indicative of the “adjectival character” of the present form of the Church, suggesting that “there is no such thing as a church, as such, without denominational description—it has to be some kind of church—Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, or what not.” [Howard Thurman, Footprints of a Dream: The Story of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples (New York: Harper, 1959), p. 54.] Thurman was pointing out what we all readily recognize, that since antiquity the Church has been met and experienced through some particular organizational tradition, and that Christian believers usually learn about the life and meaning of the Church in connection with some denominational family or denominated form. In very few instances, if any, has the Christian message been carried and promoted by any group without its members making some reference to their doctrinal understanding of it, their primary base of operation (headquarters), and the legal name under which they make their witness. It is for this reason, among others, that one must speak of denominational families and denominated forms or emphases when describing the present form of the Church in history.
This fact of denominational families and denominated forms is one of the most familiar facts in religious life. It is also one of the most questioned and problematic of contemporary religious concerns. It is a familiar fact because we are all involved in some organized body or group pattern of church life. The fact is questioned because alert Christians feel uneasy when trying to associate the nature and meaning of God’s true Church with the limitations evident in any one denominational structure or style of Christian life and work. Thus the problem we see in denominational families and diversified forms in the Church. We all know that there is something problematic about institutionalism. We all know that there is something unworthy about bureaucracy and competitiveness within the Church family. And we all know that there is something unnecessary about being at cross-purposes because our smaller group labels and orientations to the Church differ.
It is for these and other reasons that we must reexamine the boundaries posed by denominational differences and distinctions in the attempt to understand and live out the imperatives of Christian unity.
The Problem of Boundaries
Membership in denominational families has made Christian believers far more conscious of separate traditions than of the true nature of the Church. Strongly drawn denominational lines have encouraged separateness among believers; those formally-fixed boundaries have hindered a holistic view of the Church. Although the patterns of church separateness often have strong reasons behind them, and those reasons have been traced and assessed in well-documented histories, the boundaries between the separated church groups have occasioned many prevailing problems. Denominationalism has caused some deep fissures between Christians. It has conditioned a lingering polarization among them.
Winfred E. Garrison recalls a certain Sunday afternoon in Oxford in 1937 when, with two friends, he made a call on an elderly couple who were lay leaders of a small and very exclusive communion. Garrison’s coming with friends had been promised in advance. So the three were welcomed with expectancy and understood hospitality. But Garrison confessed that a touch of disappointment was soon evident to him, however, when the lady learned that the visiting preachers were not from her group. Said she, “We thought you might be some of the brothers.” He told her that they were, “though in a wider sense than she meant.” [Winfred E. Garrison, The Quest and Character of a United Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1957), p. 5] That woman and her husband knew about Christian unity but had practiced its constraints only within a narrow setting. That has been a prevailing fact in the life of many believers because of separate group boundaries.
Joseph H. Jackson tells about the upbringing he had as a young Christian, and how his constricted views hindered any sense of relation with Christians outside his denominational heritage. Jackson explained:
Rudyard [Mississippi] was a Baptist community; most of the large rural district churches and those in the small towns of Coahoma County were Baptists. My community represented orthodox Baptists, and I was taught and learned early to believe that the Baptists were the only true religious body. All the rest were wrong … . I learned to think that Baptists had no dealing with other religious groups or denominations. We did not go to their churches. They were not welcomed to ours … . The case for the exclusiveness of the Baptist Church seemed so clear and so simple that we wondered why people were so sinful and so stupid as not to accept the fact that Baptists were a chosen people of God. We were a chosen people of God. We were intolerant of all other religious groups and treated them at times with open hostility. [Joseph H. Jackson, Many But One: The Ecumenics of Charity (J. H. Jackson, 1964), p. 167. Used by permission.]
But as he continued in the faith Jackson learned to live with a wider perspective. By means of contacts with other believers, attending conventions that cut across denominational boundary lines, and through experiences as a delegate to ecumenical meetings, Joseph H. Jackson saw increasingly that the tight boundaries drawn earlier in his mind were not in keeping with the spirit and concerns of Christian unity. “There experiences taught me tolerance and led to a search into the meaning of other religious points of view and other Christian positions.” [Ibid., p. 168.] Jackson escaped more and more of the sectarian outlook as he learned and experienced love beyond the boundaries. He has gladly confessed that “A part of Rudyard has been modified and changed, for in this pilgrimage other saintly souls aside from those in the Baptist denomination were discovered. The voices of saints and heroes of the Cross who march under other denominational banners have been heard.” [Ibid., pp. 172–73.] All this happened in him without any loss of the religious certainties that Christian life in Rudyard had given him.
By experience I know that a man within the ranks of his own denomination can grow to respect and to appreciate the religious values in others without in any way losing his personal faith and fervor. It is through this kind of appreciation and this kind of fellowship and understanding based on an eternal faith that the Kingdom of God will yet come. [Ibid., p. 175.]
The Background of the Boundaries
The situations of separateness between believers have a background in history. Most denominational histories report some situational conflict in a parent group that needed to be resolved. Because there was no mutual regard between the persons involved, or because there was no basic agreement on the issue in question, it seemed easier to separate than to prolong the struggle. Most often this is how some new group began leaving the parent group, or was expelled from it, for cause.
When such stories in the denominational histories are sifted, three major problems emerge as background occasions for a new group to start its own life and seek its own future. One major problem is spiritual apathyA second major background problem is ambition. Some groups crystallize around someone who fulfilled the desire to gain power and control, for one reason or another, and a separate group life results under new leadership.
A third background problem that provokes the will to be separate from a parent group is felt alienation. Some within the larger group make other members, who differ in some way or respects, feel unwanted, unwelcome, and alienated. This forces those who are considered “different” to feel so detached that they finally withdraw.
The situational problems treated in the many denominational histories are indeed more complex than this simple analysis suggests, but these three major background problems will adequately focus attention upon the settings which have occasioned group separateness. It helps to place denominationalism in perspective as regards some background conditions and concerns.
An illustration is in order about reactions against apathy which finally resulted in a denominational group. I refer to how Methodism began as a movement within the Anglican Church (Church of England).
John Wesley was an ordained Anglican preacher. He honored the strong sense of apostolic rootage that the Anglicans boasted, but he was strongly displeased that they did not attend to the New Testament insistence upon personal conversion and for holiness of character and behavior. Thus his work, which began an evangelical movement within the Anglican Church. Theologian Martin Schmidt has explained the impact of that evangelical movement among Anglicans at that time: “The evangelical movement exercised at least a silent protest against the official representatives of the Christian faith. Its note of challenge made this inevitable, and John Wesley was the last man to weaken this.” [See Martin Schmidt, John Wesley: A Theological Biography, Volume 2, Part 1 (Nashville: Abindgon Press, 1972), p. 127. Trans. from the German by Norman P. Goldhawk.]
The Anglicans labeled Wesley an enthusiast, and all that this then connoted was fastened to his lay followers. Criticism, slander, and opposition made his work much harder. But Wesley was convinced that becoming a Christian demands the experience of personal conversion, and he worked to bring persons to that kind of faith and experience by forceful preaching and clear biblical instructions about the Christian life. His evangelistic activism and emphases clashed with the usual emphases and procedures of the Anglican way with members. Given such pressures, Wesley occasionally explained himself to interested persons. In a letter to one of them is found that now famous statement about how Wesley viewed and regarded his ministry as a gospel preacher. Wesley affirmed,
I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty to declare, unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation. This is the work which I know God has called me to; and sure I am that His blessing attends it. [Ibid., p. 131.]
His methods were not traditionally “Anglican” so some leaders resented them and attacked him. They criticized the open-air preaching, his letting lay ministers preach, and the several societies he organized for Christian witness and nurture. Some who had been apathetic about the simple gospel were certainly not apathetic in reacting against Wesley. They made him suffer for his differences, but Wesley was determined to resist what he saw as an apathetic state of spiritual life in the Anglican Church of his time.
History has confirmed that John Wesley was not sectarian in spirit, that he was no schismatic, no division maker. Until his death he resisted persistent efforts by some of his loyal supporters to break away from the Anglican church. Although Wesley did consider the Anglican church “poor [and] desolate,” he died believing that God would visit his people in mercy to revive them. [Ibid., see p. 280, note 21 for the source of the quoted words.] He refused to separate himself from that church and sought, until his death, to bring the Church of England to a state of vital religion by which to fulfill its spiritual task.
Wesley legally incorporated his lay movement in 1784, but this was to ensure its continuance, not to separate it from the Anglican church as a competitive denomination. A final separation did take place after his death, but Wesley himself resisted that action throughout his ministry as leader of the Methodist movement in the Anglican church.
John Wesley was concerned about the total Church, its life and its task. He taught his lay preachers to work with the “Catholic or universal Church” in their view, meaning, he explained, “all the Christians under heaven.” [Frank Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1970), pp. 283–84.] Interestingly, the expression Wesley considered the best, and used most often when referring to the total body of Christians, was “the Church of God,” a designation which he noticed Paul used in Acts 20:28 and other passages. [Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England, pp. 283–84.]
When Methodism came from England to America in the 1760s its message strongly appealed to blacks as well as others. Blacks were among those who contributed finances to build the first Methodist “meeting house” in New York City. [See Harry V. Richardson, Dark Salvation: The Story of Methodism As It Developed Among Blacks in America (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Co./Anchor Press, 1976), p. 43.] They wanted to have a share in the project because they felt a part of Methodist life. Francis Asbury observed that interest among blacks, both slaves and freedmen, and he spent considerable time and effort working among them during his tours. [See L. C. Rudolph, Francis Asbury (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), esp. pp. 183–85.] But while Bishop Asbury and some other whites worked closely with black believers, and apparently without bias due to color or conditions of servitude, some other Methodist leaders and local societies here and there made distinctions which finally disrupted the previous pattern of unity between white and black Methodists.
The classic instance of felt alienation grew out of the restriction Richard Allen, a black freedman, encountered while attending a service in St. George’s Church, his home church, in Philadelphia. Allen had been a member of St. George’s Church for some time, and was accorded local preaching privileges. But one day he was mistreated when the church sexton tried to force him and two other black members there to sit in the gallery rather than where they had usually been free to sit. The report is that St. George’s Church had become increasingly popular among blacks, with more always attending, and some white members raised objections against an increase in the black presence there. The white church leaders decided to restrict blacks to the church gallery.
In November 1787, on the Sunday after the announcement was made to the church about this change of seating, Allen and his group did sit in the gallery, but in the front, not in the back as the sexton directed them. During the time of prayer, as Allen and the others were kneeling, one of the trustees came and forcibly pulled one of the black members from his knees to make him move. The black man protested, and asked to be left alone until the prayer had ended, at which time he would move without any further disturbance. The white trustee beckoned for assistance to make him move then. That confrontation was more than Richard Allen and his associates would allow themselves to suffer. They all left that service never to return. Allen reported, “We all went out of the church in a body and they were no more plagued with us in the church.” [Charles H. Wesley,Richard Allen: Apostle of Freedom (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1969 rev. ed.) p. 53. See also Richardson,Dark Salvation, pp. 62–84; Carol V. R. George, Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Emergence of Independent Black Churches. 1760–1840 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), esp. pp. 3–115.] That was the situation out of which the first independent black church body in America resulted, the group that organized separately in 1816 as the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Similar independent developments among black believers followed in other denominational groups where increased feelings of alienation occurred. The prevailing pattern thereafter was either an all-black church body or, as among black Baptists at first, all-black regional associations and conventions. The causal situation in most instances was social frustration due to conditions of unfair treatment. Where blacks had no rights, they saw no prospects. In separate denominations they acted to assert their own dignity of experience and to protest alienation of themselves by others. Benjamin E. Mays has thus commented, “The black church is mainly a child of rejection by white Christians.” [Benjamin E. Mays, “The Black Experience and Perspective,” in American Religious Values and the Future of America, ed. by Roger van Allen (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), p. l 18.]
The black denominations arose as did many white groups, as protesters—Protestants, but on a social rather than a doctrinal front. This set of facts helps to explain why it was that up to ten years ago about 90 percent of black American Protestants were members of all-black denominations. In 1977 about one of every six American Protestants was black. [See Martin E. Marty, “The Protestant Experience and Perspective,” in van Allen, American Religious Values and the Future of America, p. 41.]
Both spiritual and social reasons have inspired several separate denominational systems. H. Richard Niebuhr, however, has insisted that more systems grew out of social conflict than spiritual protest. Niebuhr saw more social factors at work in denominational backgrounds than any other factors, at least on the American scene. [See H. Richard Niebuhr,The Social Sources of Denominationalism, ed. by Russell E. Richey (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1977), p. 22] According to his analysis, alienation due to class, color, race, and so forth, has caused more separateness among Christians than spiritual protests against apathy.
For Discussion
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1. The author has discussed several areas of personal preference and the need to keep them disciplined by Christian love. Which preferences in your life have been the most problematic to handle? How did you handle them? What (or who) helped you?
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2. Have you discovered any prejudices in your mind and heart? Did you understand why they are there? Are you willing to deal with them in order to dismiss them?
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3. How biased are you about church matters? Have you ever stopped to think and pray about what is primary and what is peripheral in religious life? Taking this approach will help you to see how unimportant some conflicts are between believers.
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Chapter 7
Christian Unity and Denominational Concerns
WHEREVER ONE meets the Church across the world, there is that familiar and enduring fact of denominational distinctions among its members. Although the Church is a spiritual fellowship in which Christ is the central and uniting figure, we all experience that fellowship in connection with some denominational or denominated group. This has been the case for several centuries of church history.
That brief excursion into the history behind the shaping of Methodism will help some to understand more about how that denomination emerged in history. It is a prime instance of how a denomination arose due to religious reaction against spiritual apathy. Passing over instances of ambition as the start of any organized group, it is in order to illustrate the rise of a denomination due to felt alienation.
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1. Do you believe that denominated church families should continue to exist? If not, how would you suggest that they be handled? If they were not to continue, what system would you advise to relate Christians for cooperative work across such a vast world?
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2. Take a church hymnal and locate at least four of your favorite hymns. Do some research to learn as much as you can about each of the hymns (hymnwriter, background, message). As you do your work you will find that hymns are the best transdenominational witnesses at work in our churches. Try to list some reasons why this is so.
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