Theological Musings

aw this tweet from a church pastor that I know personally.  This makes me sad on so many levels, but I will refrain from offering commentary on it. Just am curious what thoughts any of you have in response to this.  What would you say in reply? (And unlike Twitter, you don’t have to limit your reply to 140 characters if you don’t want to.)

Been Preaching for 51 years. Only 2 times felt totally satisfied. Something lacking. Spend much time thinking about it. Begins early Monday.

Until next time,
steve

his post is the fourth link in a chain blog started by Alan Knox. Alan wrote the first link, which was followed by Charlie Wallace, and most recently by David Rogers.

I won’t bore you with summaries of the other posts because you can read them for yourself (and I highly recommend you read them now, if you haven’t already). I am primarily, however, responding to David Rogers’ post…or rather, I should say, I’m attempting to continue the thoughts that David has interjected into the conversation.

David wrote about several roadblocks that he sees in the way of the concept of a “city church”. And in large measure, I agree with what David wrote. But as I read his thoughts on roadblocks, I couldn’t help but think that there was one major roadblock that he didn’t really list. (He sort of touched on this in his fourth roadblock, but I want to flesh it out a bit further.)

Without addressing this roadblock, I am of the opinion that attempting to solve any of the other roadblocks will be an exercise in futility. And in my opinion, this issue would actually take care of several, if not all, of the roadblocks David listed.

That roadblock is pride.

What prevents the body of Christ from being unified in a geographical region? Pride.

David touched on this somewhat in his comment about simple/organic/house churches dismissing the “institutional church” as irrelevant. Now, obviously, many of my readers know that I am involved in an organic church that meets house to house. And I’ve written quite a bit on that topic in the past.

My intent here is not to defend simple church against David’s comment. Because frankly, David is quite right when he highlights certain factions of the simple church adherents as basically ignoring the traditional institution. The only exception I would make to David’s statement is that, as some have already pointed out in the comments on his post, it’s hardly unique to simple/organic/house churches.

The point that I would like to make is that, regardless of the mode of fellowship (institutional, simple, etc.), when anyone shuts anyone else out, I believe that boils down to pride. And without addressing the pride issue, we cannot expect to see any genuine improvement in the area of divisions within the body of Christ.

Recently, on another blog, I read a post about the need for a certain denomination to exercise humility. The author of the post chose to use the phrase “doctrinal humility”. In a sickening twist of irony, the commenters could not get past that two-word phrase. They rushed to defend their lack of humility when it comes to their doctrine. If I may paraphrase, they basically were saying, “We have doctrine that is the most biblical of anyone’s. What are we supposed to be humble about??”

That is exactly the pride that divides. And it is by no means the domain of only one particular denomination. Who among us believes our doctrine is not “biblical”? If we believed that it weren’t, wouldn’t we rush to change it? So to argue that our doctrine, or our ecclesiology, or our system of church, or our mode of baptism, or our position on spiritual gifts is “biblical” is to miss the point.

The only thing over which we are ever instructed to separate from others on in scripture is a compromise of the message of the Gospel. And I would hasten to add that, in the context of the entire teaching of the New Testament, I believe that any separation at all is always with a hope for reconciliation.

So, for a city church to actually be able to function as a city church, there has to be humility. There has to be a willingness to say, “I believe that my convictions in {insert area of doctrine or practice} are based on the revelation of scripture, but I also recognize that those who differ with me also believe theirs is based on the revelation of scripture. Because we are both adherents to the message of the Gospel, I will not allow this area to divide us. After all, my brother or sister may actually be right, and it may be I who am wrong in this area.”

Not too long ago, I participated in a brief discussion on a blog that asked if it’s possible to fellowship and worship together with people who did not believe the same thing about certain doctrines. In the post, the author was offering his compromise, which was to say that we acknowledge a spiritual unity, yet we do not fellowship or worship together with those who believe differently. He used as an example in his post a difference in baptism. Specifically, he was writing from a “believers only” view of baptism vs. “infant baptism”. I offered the following comment:

It’s always refreshing to see other brothers and sisters thinking through these concerns, and I definitely appreciate your heart in these posts….

I think, however, that your solution of “unity in spirit, but not in fellowship” is a step in the wrong direction. And…that’s pretty much what is already going on in the body of Christ today. It strikes me as trying to have it both ways. Unity really means nothing if we can’t actually walk together, in my opinion.

Your example of infant baptism is, ironically, the one that I think is one of the easiest to reconcile. If both sides are approaching the subject with humility and grace, I see no reason why one could not fellowship with the other.

The humility and grace would mean that the one believing in infant baptism would not pressure the other to baptize his infant. And likewise, the one not believing in it would not belittle the faith of the other for practicing it.

It would seem to me that throughout the course of time together, perhaps one might be persuaded to the others point of view, but not because one is demanding it or pushing the issue.

I don’t know if I’m correct here, but it seems to make sense to me. For there to be a “city church”, this type of humility is required. Otherwise, we end up digging in our heels and closing ourselves off to the possibility that we could be wrong.

If we cannot lay down our own pride and humbly relate to our brothers and sisters in the Gospel, regardless of their beliefs about other things outside the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and our reconciliation to the Father through Jesus, there is no hope of unity. And there is no hope of a “city church”.

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Chain blog rules:

1. If you would like to write the next blog post (link) in this chain, leave a comment stating that you would like to do so. If someone else has already requested to write the next link, then please wait for that blog post and leave a comment there requesting to write the following link.

2. Feel free to leave comments here and discuss items in this blog post without taking part in the actual “chain”. Your comments and discussion are very important in this chain blog.

3. When you write a link in this chain, please reply in the comments of the previous link to let everyone know that your link is ready. Also, please try to keep an updated list of links in the chain at the bottom of your post, and please include these rules at the bottom of your post.

1. Alan Knox, City Church – A Chain Blog
2. Charlie Wallace, City Church: Meeting
3. David Rogers, Roadblocks on the Path to City Church
4. Steve Sensenig, The Major Roadblock to a City Church (this post)
   
5. Paul Grabill, The Resurrection of the City Church: Who Will Move the Stone?
6. Jon Amos, A City Church Thought Experiment
7. James Goetz, The Restoration of the City or Locality Church and Apostolic Leaders
8. Alan Knox, Unity and the Church in a City

hose of you who have been reading for any length of time, or who know me personally, know I have a strong attraction to Starbucks. We don’t have a Starbucks anywhere close, but anytime we get “off the mountain”, we try to find one and visit it.

Recently, my good friend Alan Knox wrote a very creative post about Starbucks that I would like to recommend. It’s called “A Cup o’ Joe or a Cup with Joe“. I highly suggest that you all read it. Enjoy the comment thread after it, too.

I don’t want to give too much away, but just know that you should read it, even if you don’t drink coffee (you’ll understand, hopefully). Be forewarned, though: It might be a little convicting.

Until next time,

steve

long time ago (in blog terms), I started talking about John 17 and unity (here and here). It seems that the subject of unity has popped up on a number of blogs that I read, and I wanted to share some more thoughts on that topic.

This post started as a response on a post over at The Pursuit, but I decided to just write it here instead. In one of Lew’s “Question of the Week” posts, he asked:

Why do the things that cause us to separate ourselves by denomination have little to do with what God’s Word tells us to separate ourselves from?

Recently, in response to that, a commenter wrote:

…the union of people who have conflicting ideas is really no unity at all.

I think this is 1) a red herring, and 2) a false dichotomy, and 3) an excuse for the utter lack of attempts at unity in the body of Christ.

There can be a lot of “conflicting ideas” in a unified group. The unity is not always a simple function of unity in thought (or better yet, a unity in knowledge), but rather a unity in identification.

I find my identity in Christ. Who I am is found in Christ. Anyone else who finds their identity in Christ is my brother, and I should be able to be unified with them without any problem.

What if we disagree on methods of evangelism? So what?

What if we disagree on the use of certain spiritual gifts? So what?

What if we disagree on exactly how God created the heavens and the earth? So what?

What if we disagree on exactly what/when the millenial kingdom of Christ is? So what?

What if we disagree on exactly how God has “chosen” us? So what??

That need not divide us. Unless we twist any of those things, or a million other “issues” like them, into issues of true fellowship, they are not reasons for division. And if those things divide us, we should ask ourselves: From what do we get our identity?

For example, take a look at some of the leaders of large denominations who say that they can’t “cooperate” in the work of the Gospel with those who have not been baptized by someone in their denomination. Are they really seeking unity? In my opinion, no. They are seeking to defend their particular belief system as the only true and correct belief system.

That is not of Christ. It never has been, and never will be. And it is not those outside of that denomination who are the heretics. It is the one causing division who is the heretic.

Let’s quit coming up with excuses for our division and start really accepting and loving those who confess Christ, and seeking unity with them.

Conflicting ideas? Sure. Ability to fellowship and work together despite those differences? Absolutely — because it is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Spirit that unites us.

Until next time,

steve

ell, I finally am getting around to sitting down to write some of my own thoughts on this topic. Thank you to all of you who contributed such insightful comments in response to my question.

Much of what I would like to say has been said in one form or another in the comments that were posted previously. This has the net effect of letting me know ahead of time that my thoughts won’t be overly controversial to everyone in the discussion! But seriously, it is refreshing to see such thought being given to this topic. I likely will not address everything that was written in the comments, but they are there for you to read for yourself. Instead, I want to share my thoughts, some of which will overlap the thoughts of others.

It is easy, I think, for us to agree that whatever Jesus meant when he prayed for our unity, we’re not fulfilling it. I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone who says that the body of Christ is experiencing unity at the level that Jesus prayed for. Part of this is because we don’t even agree on what the unity is supposed to look like!

Some options of interpretation that I have come across in my time of examining this passage include:

• Unity = Unanimity — Unity can only come when we fully agree on everything that is believed, practiced, taught, etc.
• Unity = Consensus — Unity means that we “agree to disagree”
• Unity = Anything Goes — Unity means that every person’s belief is valid, and we should never “debate” or try to convince others of our viewpoints
• Unity = Eschatological Perfection — The unity that Jesus prayed for is only possible, and will only exist, when Jesus returns and we are made perfect.

With that in mind, I posed the question, “What is the unity that Jesus prayed for in John 17 and is it primarily (or even solely) eschatological in nature?”

Let me first of all give my thoughts on the eschatology aspect of the question. I think determining the eschatological import (if any) helps us determine what the unity actually is. It also impacts what we believe to be our responsibility toward the unity in question.

In other words, if the unity is primarily (or solely) eschatological, we can easily assume that it is not attainable in this lifetime, and we will generally feel like it’s not even worth trying. If, however, the unity is a present possibility and reality, we will understand our own response to the prayer of Jesus.

As some have already commented, I do not believe that the unity for which Jesus prayed is eschatological. Eschatological unity is almost a given. Why would Jesus take the time to pray for what is essentially a guaranteed part of the future kingdom?

But more importantly, the words of Jesus in John 17 give us ample evidence that eschatology is not in view during this prayer. Verse 21 tells us specifically that the prayer of Jesus for unity is for this purpose: “…so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

Verse 23 expands on this by saying that the purpose of the unity is “…so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”

In my opinion, these two statements of purpose that Jesus gave for his prayer for unity remove any eschatological implication from the prayer. The purpose of the unity is to demonstrate to the world that God sent Jesus and that God loves us.

If this is correct (and obviously, I believe it is), then this greatly impacts our understanding of what that unity is and whether or not we should actively be pursuing it. Since it is not a future unity (any eschatological implications must come from outside the text), there must be a present unity for which Jesus prayed.

Within this prayer, Jesus gives some indication as to what the unity should be. Namely, it should be a mirror of the unity that Jesus and the Father share. He compares the unity of us with his unity with the Father in verse 21:

…they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us….

Would we say that the unity of Jesus and the Father is manifest in “you go your way and I’ll go mine and we won’t bother each other”? Yet this is frequently what ends up happening among Christians.

You believe in infant baptism? Then I can’t fellowship with you. You believe in speaking in tongues? You’ll have to have church across town. You believe that the Genesis account of creation is metaphorical? I have nothing in common with you.

This cannot be what Jesus prayed for.

And with that, I will have to hold off on the rest of my thoughts because I am out of time. Comments are open, and I will return with a further post at some point.

Until next time,

steve