An apology--
In the sunset of his life, Augustine decided to write an apology concerning his life and works as a defense to his detractors. The spirit of this writing is precisely an apologetic work. We are truly saturated with material in our internet age, yet we hold a faith for life that has been preserved in ancient texts and passed on from person to person.
an apology from someone not knocking it-- whatever it is. It is a challenge to honesty. A challenge to come out being nice, and not mean. The appeal is not to logic, which is prone to pride more than anything else...
I’m clearly in over my head with this topic. I have not consulted many of the sources that are definitive works on this topic. The title of this work was not chosen accidentally nor authoritatively. The author has discovered that he is an expert on no one thing. It is for the people who remember the embroiled controversy and acidic brother-bashing that raged the 1990’s. It is for the ones who even know the definition of hermeneutics. It is for the people who would be remotely attracted to such a title. This is not meant to be a manifesto that the title implies. The purpose is to advance themes of Scripture that have been left behind in preference to the ones that have become our code.
This writing is meant to be helpful, not harmful. For those who would hope to critique and criticize, you are welcome. Yet, I encourage you not to spend too much time on such things. What better shall we spend our time on? This is the theme of this. The assertion that we have left behind our first love, that we like the scribes and Pharisees have stuck to the word so much that we have forgotten what the point is.
There are many things that I will assert during the course of these writings that will surely be fodder for anyone who wishes to criticize. I invite the criticism, but I have some suggestions for filters:
Filter your criticism through honesty. Filter them through “rules common to the whole house” (reference to the last line in the introduction to C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity). Filter them through love.
There is something wrong in the Churches of Christ. The depth of the sickness is more foundational than has been asserted by others. There is a problem of retention of our youth. We have ignored George Barna, student of denominational patterns and trends, because we aren’t a denomination. One of our trusted brothers has a website survey asking why people are leaving the churches of Christ.
That Something could be:
Negativity, not positivity
Exclusivism, not accepting one another.
Selective logic instead of consistency
Debate stance instead of conversations
Judging instead of relationship
“Something wrong”- this is how Brennan Manning opened up his Ragamuffin Gospel. People are tired of hearing what is wrong and they want to hear some good news. People know something is wrong. They know what sin is because of the effect it’s had on their lives. We all hunger for grace… as an experience, not as a topic of discussion. We hunger for forgiveness to be spoken in an embrace. It’s not just a sermon topic, either.
I recall having a fear of what would divide the churches of Christ in my lifetime, like the notorious division from the Christian Church. Would it be a new “issue” that has never been a problem of fellowship before? Or would the old issues be rehashed and new lines drawn? It’s been interesting to see that there’s been absolutely no development in this area. The only frontrunner seems to be “grace.”
Reggie McNeal is one of the first people to introduce the idea that people in our age are leaving church so that they won’t lose their faith. Some may scoff this as an impossibility, but I’m here to tell you that it’s quite possible. And you who doubt are probably the ones whose churches are emptying out.
The question of hermeneutics for most who explore it is a question of origins, root problems, of fundamentals. But for this writing, the challenge is more backward—that we have a problem with the outcome, which is our attitudes and our effectiveness for what we consider our purpose in the world.
And in another way, this is absolutely not an apology at all, but a call, a cry, to my beloved fellowship to repent. To repent of the way we have treated those who thought differently than us. To repent from exclusivism. To repent from not acknowledging the Holy Spirit. To repent from a lack of love. To repent from negativity. To repent from majoring in minors.
MUSIC
If the distinctiveness of your life of faith is best expressed by something you don’t do for a couple of hours a week rather than what you do every day-- how you think, how you relate to God and others, how you present God-- then something’s amiss.
The issue addressed is a bigger one that what do we do when we come together as a church. The question is why is there a separation between our secular lives and our religious lives? No wonder the "whole lives as worship" controversy I heard in the Romans 12:1-2 from back in the 90's-- they were right... it will LEAD to THIS!
Usage of talents... what do you tell people who are only interested in music and also at the same time that they should use their talents to glorify God? There is Biblical example of instrumental music being used in praise to God, ordained by God Himself through the gifting of the Holy Spirit.
Authority- from Positional to Relational
Authority has shifted radically in our world, especially for our heritage. While the seat of authority has unofficially rested in the hands of those who edited the Gospel Advocate, Millennial Harbinger, and others. Even our controversies throughout the early and middle 20th century was guided by schools of thought represented by the brotherhood papers.
There are people who are still trying to follow in the footsteps of the great influencers in our movement by publishing papers. The scope of each journals’ readership may vary. Are churches paying them to be writers? What is the measure of success? A few of their friends telling them “good job”? There is surely a saturation of materials out there, and perhaps it is good that the “authorities”4 are being lost in a sea of information.
We are finding ourselves in a world whose best example of real Christians is actual real Christians who they know. We are being moved to actually live genuinely, humbly, openly-- instead of just demanding respect because of position.
IMITATION over INFORMATION
Information=do what I say,
Imitation= do what I do
If others were like me, what would the church look like? If we follow the examples of our preachers, would we not be lots of writing and reading, and preaching, but staying away from people?
This idea can be summed up in two phrases: obedience and enjoyment. Every Christian knows that God must be obeyed. As we mature in our walks, we begin to love to obey God because we see how good his Word is for us. We seen how enjoyable the life is through obedience. However, this is not the same order that follows for someone who is not fully matured in Christ (Luke 6:46 ?). An outsider to the faith must be shown that there is pleasure in the life that a Christian lives. Even Christians who may need instruction will not listen without perceived love from the instructor. And if the messenger is not so loving, and they are not enjoying the life, what does that say? “Do what I say so you can be miserable as me?” We Christians must be fully convinced and living out the joy of the Lord through our living.
New Denomination?
The latest buzz I’ve heard is that “progressives” are making a new denomination called “Church of Christ” and measures are being taken to distinguish between “us” and “them”—which sounds hauntingly like the Corinthian church Paulite/Appollonian controversy.
Something must be said that 1- to accuse someone of such division is a serious offense in itself. And 2- the logic that is invested into such statement is evasive. The accusation here is for starting a denomination by default, not intent, which is as ridiculous as our guilt by association error.
Flavil Yeakley in critique of Douglas Foster’s use of the term denomination toward the Church of Christ mentioned these two factors:
Organizational: A denomination is a formal organization of congregations with some kind of central headquarters that has some degree of control over the congregations.
Theological: Denominations have a ecclesiology (doctrine concerning the church) that recognizes denominational structures as being part of God’s plan for the church.5
A New Hermeneutic
Does this mean that there’s something wrong with the old one?
This is an interesting question, because it seems that everyone in our fellowship agree on what the old one is (Command, Example, Necessary Inference). The new hermeneutic has the quality of a phantom because it has not been defined either by those allegedly espousing it nor the people who are railing about how it is an abomination.
But there is no doubt that something is going on. What is that something? It is true that the world is being overtaken by new paradigms. This has always been the case! I assert that there is nothing wrong with command, example and necessary inference—even though there has never been concencus on which inferences are necessary! This formula does not come by inspiration, itself is not inspiration, nor is it explicitly stated in Scripture.
There is something missing.
The Loophole of Love
When I was in college, I was being taught that the men who were writing all the bulletin articles ripping up other brethren were technically right, but they “might” be using the wrong techniques, or may come across with a bad attitude. Something about that did not seem right. I now understand that being right in your arguments is only one thing. But if one necessary ingredient is missing, then being correct in doctrine is not really “right.” That ingredient is love.
However, the fact that I even mention love is an interesting catch in the whole logical system. I put myself in error by assuming that I know that these brothers are not doing something out of love. Love and the depths of men hearts are beyond other men, they remain exclusively the territory of God. This is the “vibe” if you will behind “not judging” in Matthew 7—don’t do it to someone else, because you don’t want people doing it to you. Every man who is accused of not doing something in love—even if he is lying in his own defense—“can” use the defense, “You don’t know my heart!”—and this be a true statement. That is the loophole of love.
There is also much that can be said about “by your fruits you will know them,” but these are never given as an excuse to judge. “Aw but we are commanded here to be fruit inspectors.” Really? How can you do that without being judgmental?
This little loophole is one part of a man’s heart, that even if he’s been evil in his doings and sayings, that one little spot may remain between him and God. That is the heart. No man can honestly impugn another man’s intentions or heart. This is the realm of grace. This is the wiggle room God has given for a man’s integrity to remain in the court of accusers—or either the realm of conviction for conscience in case he is mis-representing himself.
And haven’t we all misrepresented ourselves in some way? Harsh self-evaluation is necessary to continue with this reading.
Hermeneutic of Humility
How come we men get so proud of what we know about God? Is all of it not a revelation? Meaning that God has only revealed what he wanted to reveal to any man. We just happen to have literary record of these encounters of God. We are aware that the religious elitists of Jesus’ time, the children of Israel in Moses’ time, were all unfaithful. It seems that we like the Pharisees and Saducees, the scribes and teachers of Jesus’ day have been our prototypes: we assume that we’re not like our fathers who persecuted the prophets. We are the ones who have raised monuments to them.11 We certainly are not whitewashed tombs, we think of ourselves. We rather put ourselves on the side of Christ, agreeing with him-- but not always obeying him. We know that Jesus is the protagonist of the story, so we pull for him. We never put ourselves on the side of the antagonist… we assume that that’s not us—we are, by the way, on Jesus side!
We would all do well, as an exercise of self examination to identify with characters who are the antagonists of the stories in the New Testament Scriptures: the eldest son in Luke 15. The earliest hired workers in the parable of the workers. The targets of Jesus’ railing in Matthew 23.
Hermeneutic of Honesty
Honesty is a little more out in the open than the thoughts and intentions of a man’s heart. Honesty is not only a man’s word, but it is also the integrity of his methods. (in ref. to being right in a wrong way). If words and methods are incongruent, then there is not entire honesty.
This, too is a sticky area. A dear brother, a recovering alcoholic, once told me that he started coming back to church for a year and half before his intentions were congruent with his actions. For a whole year, he showed up in a suit, took communion, sang songs, read the Bible, but it was not because he loved God. It was because he loved himself and he had learned in AA meetings that he was destroying himself. Attending church was an act of self-preservation, which in itself, is selfish. However, he testified that it took that year and a half before he finally gave his heart back to God and started coming to services for God and NOT himself. It took HONESTY to tell such a story.
Only God knows if we’re being honest. If coupled with confession, admitting we are sinners instead of trying to make everybody believe that we’re NOT, other people will know that we are being honest, too. A confession does not honesty make.
Hermeneutic of Easy versus hard.
Jesus expects more out of those who would follow Him than any respectable church expects out of their membership. This is any church’s dilemma and also a paradox. If churches were to begin holding people accountable to the teachings of Christ instead of any traditional belief system (whether a creed written or unwritten, a “code” that the insiders know), it would be rude. Jesus’ call to discipleship is socially unacceptable, really: to invite people to “die”, to feast on his body, to “hate” your family.
There has been a replacement, a bait and switch where a code of teachings that is secured and quickly defended as “God’s will” has taken the place of the actual teachings of Christ. I’m going to refer you to the Kiekergaard quote you can look up online where he calls Christians scheming swindlers. The teachings are rather simple-- too simple to understand, too difficult to implement (without confidence in the divine).
For example, one of the primary ideas in the arsenal of Christ’s teachings are to love one’s neighbor. It is Biblically sound to say that this is one of the most important things. How well have you done this today? Do you even know your neighbors? As Jesus reflected in the parable of the good Samaritan and also in Matthew 25, we could easily be left with the impression that being good to people is the main thing.
It’s not easy to love. Love requires a lot of time, much effort, sacrifices, cost. It’s easy to love people we like, but it’s near impossible to consider loving people we don’t like, don’t know, don’t care about, or even consider to be enemies.
It’s easy to “defend the truth” in front of a bunch of people who mainly agree with your positions. What’s difficult is actually showing the kind of love that God wishes his church would be known for-- yes, even more than “distinctive doctrines.”
Hermeneutic of Narrative
What’s missing from formulated, legalized type doctrine is the holistic story that the Bible teaches. For better references on this,
See Frank Viola’s From Eternity to Here
See Chris Wright’s Mission of God
See T.Austin Sparks’ Stewardship of the Mystery, 1963 Devern Franke
Hermeneutic of Simplicity
LOGIC is held as the cornerstone of our hermeneutic. Maybe it should be faith? And maybe we shouldn't argue so much about semantics.
In Ukraine I was asked where Church of Christ came from. As I began to explain what I knew, I began telling the story of an American Restoration Movement. I was using “our” terminology like “we’re just trying to do Bible things in Bible ways” and the guy (A Baptist) looked at me strange and said, “That’s what we’re all trying to do.”
We’re NOT the International COC. We’re NOT the Boston Church.
What’s the Boston Church?
You don’t know what the Boston Church is?
No, but I know what the Boston Tea Party is.
--Actual dialogue between two church of Christ kids,
who grew up in different regions of the US.
If it takes more than one cup of coffee to explain to someone who we are, then maybe we’re talking in code.
The illogical Hermeneutic
For over 500 years, we have been applying logic to our study of scriptures and using scientific method to examine them. Logic has been a useful tool for the development especially of Protestant Christianity. But in the vein of Francis of Assissi, a renowned fool for God, we should recapture the days of blind faith and let faith come before our logic.
Our logic has made us treasure our Dave Ramsey seminars rather than give our stuff away for the benefit of the poor. We talk about stewardship but never mention foolishly investing in the poor. We have adopted a Reagan-esque trickle down economic theory for the church.
Trace the scholarship movement in church. The way that outside logic was borrowed from Greeks, from Aristotle. From Bacon. The seat of learning shifted from the monastery to the university. How logic is an instrument that once was not used in its current form today.
And we must admit, if we come to the scriptures with Humility (See John Zens writing) that we ourselves are not using logic so tightly that there are no loopholes. Matter of fact, my challenge is that when considered in logistical formulas, the new Testament does not actually make logistical sense. The things that we believe by faith are not logical—take miracles, angels, resurrection for instance. Jesus’ teachings are not logical. As a matter of fact, as Kiekergaard said, that if we are alone with the teachings of the new testament, it would simply ruin our lives.
Concerning False Teachers:
It’s not ethical to expose false teachers by any means necessary.
I know what you’re thinking—that the apostles defied even the laws of the land, even though they were supposed to be submissive because there were principles of teaching the TRUTH that were more important. (not only that, but Jesus had already told them that they would come before the councils.12) Some would compare the ways and manners of false teachers evil and should be rooted at any cost. Record them without them knowing13 and then printing the correspondence in letters addressed to the congregation.
Why should we handle things this way when we have failed so often to fulfill Matthew 5 and Matthew 18?
Interfellowshiping
Please go read the introduction of Mere Christianity and don’t come back until you do.
What do you think about that great hall? Do you believe that there are “other rooms”?
Guilt by association is still alive in our fellowship. Todd Deaver covered this well in his “Facing our Failure.” Interesting to note, this idea is not Biblical, but sanctification by association in marriage is. (1 Cor 7).
Cross pollination. The exchange of ideas. Learning from others. For an interesting treatment of the many things we can learn by learning from other fellowships, see Brian Mclaren’s Generous Orthodoxy.
Footnotes
These are footnotes that may or may not be in the text above. When I was editing, I lost the hyperlinks so if the numbers aren’t in the text, I edited that part out.
1 Romans 1:17
2 I would assert that for generations behind my own, “interpretation of the Bible” is a better phrase. For the average person, using the word “hermeneutics” requires an explanation. The definition often comes from a professional clergy, which introduces us to problems that will be addressed later.* (name where later is, when later comes)
3 Flavil Yeakley
4 In the sense of “an accepted source of information, advice, etc.” – www.dictionary.com
5 ***
6 For historical evidence on this assertion, see my thesis paper, “Polarizing Effects of the Division of the Restoration Church in Valdosta, Georgia 1888,” available online.
7 S.H. Hall quote.
8 See Casey, Harrell, Foster. For instance, Harrell’s social factors of religious divisions post-civil war=historical undercurrents, and cover stories = the “doctrinal distinctions” that are attributed and perpetuated, locking us into hermeneutical stances of the late 1800’s, as if painted in a corner.
9 Cacoc.org under history tab, for example (as of March 30, 2009).
10 In print during Central’s anniversary, and spoken from the pulpit on several occasions attended by this author (Teffeteller, Klimko).
11 Reference to Central’s myths and legends.
12 Scripture reference
13 A violation of the statute occurs when there is (1) a willful interception, (2) of oral communications uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that the communication would be in private, (3) and communication is made under circumstances justifying an expectation of privacy. Ages Group, L.P. v. Raytheon Aircraft Co., Inc., 22 F.Supp.2d 1310 (M.D. Ala. 1998). http://www.rcfp.org/taping/states/alabama.html
14 Dale Carnegie’s H2WF&IP deserves a mention with this one.
15 Reference to Smalley
16 Game theory/ love theory
17 C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
THE END
