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Category: Church (Page 31 of 61)

Stand in the Grace of God

May 4, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We’re working through Leroy Garrett’s book “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” We’re losing members and congregations at a steady rate in this country. Some would say we’re losing, or have already lost, a great deal of credibility. As a denomination (just wanted to see if you’re paying attention) there are some changes we need to make if we’re going to remain a viable partner in the Kingdom of God. Garrett’s fourteenth suggestion is a call for all our congregations to not just believe in the grace of God, but act on it. Live it!

Stand in the grace of God.

Every member of the Church of Christ believes in the grace of God. They would all readily acknowledge that we are saved by the grace of God and not by our own works. No one among us has the slightest interest in minimizing the significance of the grace of God. However, we must stand in the grace of God, and not simply believe in it. The Church of Christ has a head knowledge of grace, but at the gut level it does not, generally, know the grace of God. It is like living in a house wired for electricity and not being plugged into the power. This is why we’re not going anywhere, we’re not plugged in.

When we consider what grace does for people, we do not appear to have “seen the grace of God,” to quote Acts 11:23, even though we believe it is around. Grace makes believers more and more like Christ, but we are not known for our Christlikeness. Grace causes them to exult in their blessings, filling them with joy, good humor, and laughter; but we are not known for those qualities. Grace makes people gracious, less critical, more tolerant and more accepting; but is this where we are? Grace is never what one deserves, but is this what we have emphasized? Grace is God’s free gift, unconditionally bestowed, no strings attached; but haven’t we attached strings?

By now you’ve noticed a couple of fairly prominent themes in Garrett’s writings: Christian unity and grace. Our misunderstandings and misapplications of both have certainly stunted our growth as a Christian movement and greatly stifled our salvation impact in God’s world.

We have such a hard time realizing that God’s gift of grace is absolutely free, that it’s completely undeserved and totally unearned. We have traditionally understood the grace of God as his gift that makes up the difference as, or after, we travel the road to eternal life. We do the good works, we pray the right prayers, we worship in the correct manner, we get baptized by the proper method, we set everything up in our churches according to the Scriptural pattern, and God’s grace closes the gap to get us to heaven. We have lived by a “God helps those who help themselves” mentality, which, by the way, goes wholly counter to everything we read in the Bible. Scripture makes it clear that “God helps those who can’t do a crying thing for themselves.” But we don’t accept that. Or, at least, we’re not living like we do.

The proper view of God’s grace will, as Garrett observes, transform us into a more Christ-like people. We will act more like our Father when we finally realize what our Father has done for us. Jesus says we are to love one another as God has loved us. That means loving one another even when everybody around you is at their most unlovable. Our Lord tells us to forgive as God forgave us. That means forgiving everybody of everything. Everybody. Everything. Forgive. Forgive. Forgive. And Scripture says we are to accept one another as God in Christ accepted us. That means we accept each other — yes, we accept all other Christians; those within and those outside our Churches of Christ — who don’t have every single thing completely figured out.

Jesus told the parable about the servant who was forgiven by his master of his great debt and then refused to forgive a fellow servant of his tiny debt, abusing that fellow servant and throwing him in jail. And we’ve been guilty of the same thing. We’ve imagined grace as something that covers us in our sins, but not in our Scriptural interpretations and doctrinal understandings. Grace covers us for things we might do out in the world, but it’s not enough to take care of us if we get something wrong in the Church. We’re not totally saved; we’re just barely saved, maybe. And everybody else is in a lot more trouble than we are!

I hold to the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi: the way we worship is the way we believe. If we view our Father as a tight fisted tyrant who’s keeping track of every single misstep, as a God who’s looking to judge and condemn, as a Lord who delights in watching us sweat it out, then that’s how we’re going to behave, too. If we view him that way and worship him that way, looking over our shoulders to make sure we’re doing everything exactly right so we can get to heaven, we’re going to treat other people the way we think God is treating us. That is not Good News. It’s not salvation.

When we “stand” in the grace of God, trusting in his goodness and mercy, then love, joy, and peace will flood our hearts. We will then be a more gracious people, magnanimous, full of life and enthusiasm, eager to praise God for his great mercy. We will take ourselves less seriously and be able to laugh at our foibles. We will not be so uptight, we’ll quit worrying, be less critical of others, more accepting, more forgiving.

Peace,

Allan

Accept That We Are a Denomination

May 3, 2012 / / 3 Comments

As we continue our chapter-by-chapter review of Leroy Garrett’s “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” we’ve reached now a funny little essay about our status as a denomination. It’s not funny “ha-ha;” it’s funny like “I agree with 100-percent of what Garrett is saying but I’m not sure how important it is in the big picture.” Writing about it in this space will help me think through it. Maybe we can do this together.

Garrett claims that, in order for the Churches of Christ to have any kind of a legitimate voice for Christianity in the future, we must:

Come to terms with our status as a denomination.

The main reason for accepting this term for ourselves and even applying it to ourselves, Garrett says, is for sheer honesty. Self-authenticity. Being honest with ourselves, being honest with one another, and with the world. We must be an honest people. Calling all other faith traditions “denominations,” but loudly and indignantly throwing our hands up in outrage and disgust when the term is used of us just isn’t logical.

To illustrate his point, Garrett asks the simple question, “What would we have to have to be a denomination that we don’t already have?”

By definition a denomination is a church with a particular name. The Church of Christ has a particular name. The Church of Christ has its own agencies such as schools, colleges, publishing houses, journals, conventions, missionary programs, and retirement plans. It has its own distinctive clergy, separate from those in other groups. It has its own definable doctrines. It has its own history and traditions that set it apart. It has its own list of churches in yearbooks and directories. The Church of Christ clearly qualifies on each of these points. So, I ask again of our leaders who keep on insisting that we are not a denomination: What would we have to have to be a denomination that we don’t already have?

Of course, this is just one result of our distorted view that we are the only true Christians and the only true Church. Thankfully, not as many of us think or talk that way as used to. But the D-Word is a strange phenomenon among our people. We won’t touch it. It’s taboo. Even the most open-minded and big-picture thinking among us won’t use it when referring to our movement.

Ah, there it is: “Our movement.” See, I do this all the time, too. The true word, the one that communicates to the world, the English word that really defines what we are is “denomination.” But I won’t use it, either. I’ll say and write words like “our movement” and “our faith tradition” and “our tribe” or “our stream of the faith.” But I won’t say “denomination.” Because I know what will happen to me if I do. I’m a gutless chicken.

It would surprise most people in our “tribe” to read this line from Alexander Campbell taken from his writings in the Millennial Harbinger in 1840:

We, as a denomination, are as desirous as ever to unite and cooperate with all Christians on the broad and vital principles of the New and everlasting Covenant.

Our founding fathers recognized early on that, in the strict sense of the term, we are certainly a denomination. To say otherwise is to be less than forthright. It’s dishonest. And people within our church families and those in the world are all equally turned off by dishonesty. It’s a stumbling block to the Good News of salvation from Christ. And we must relax a little on this.

Some would say — and, yes, I’ve heard it more times than I can count — that we cannot be lumped in with all the other denominations. We must be different. Ian Fair once told a group of us at an ACU Summit that if we were so fired up about being so different, why don’t we just bar all the doors to our church buildings and come and go through the windows?

Now, I’m not as concerned with our use or non-use of the D-Word as I am with the attitudes that determine that use or non-use. See the previous reflections on the earlier chapters that speak about our understandings of God’s grace and his will for unity among his children. We don’t have to call ourselves a “denomination” in order to be honest or spiritually mature. What we must do is stop saying with all of our words and language that we’re one thing and everybody else is not. That’s the point. It’s not so much about the word as it is about our hearts.

At the same time, Garrett offers some very helpful guidance on how to see ourselves and even speak of ourselves as a denomination in a way that acknowledges reality but still points to and prays for and works toward our God’s ultimate purpose.

A people can be a denomination as a temporary measure, looking for the time when the ideal will obtain and there will no longer be denominations but only the one Body of Jesus Christ.

A “denomination in protest” is a defensible position. We can even say that we are a denomination because we can’t help being one, and that we don’t believe in denominations as the ideal or the final end for the Church, and that we will work for that unity that will one day cause denominations “to die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the Body of Christ at large,” to quote another of our founding documents.

A denomination in protest. I can live with that. Can you?

Peace,

Allan

Abandon Our Claim To Exclusive Truth

May 2, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Thanks so much to Jim Sundberg for the fabulous work he did for us at the Great Cities Missions dinner and fundraiser Friday night at the Ballpark in Arlington. The Rangers great showed up with a whole bunch of autographed baseballs and then auctioned them off with great energy and flair. Baseballs signed by perennial All-Stars like Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, and Nelson Cruz each went for between $500 – $750. But the big money item was a ball autographed by both Nolan Ryan and Greg Maddux that brought a whopping $1,600! A night at a Rangers game beats a boring old fundraising banquet any time. But throw in Jim Sundberg auctioning off autographed baseballs and it becomes a spectacular event to never forget. As a kid in Dallas, Sunny was always my all-time favorite Texas Ranger. That spot has now been solidified forever. Thanks, Jim.

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I hesitated to review Leroy Garrett’s book “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” chapter by chapter in this space for several reasons. Chief among them is the fact that Garrett is a bit of a lightning rod in our faith heritage. His books and articles challenging us, pushing us, chastising us, have traditionally had polarizing effects. And he can come across to some as overly critical, overly cynical, and too harsh. But, ultimately, I believe the issues he raises in this compilation of essays and the conversations they provoke are way too important. It’s critical. We need to have these conversations.

Garrett’s next suggestion for saving the Churches of Christ for vital Kingdom work in the future is another angle on what is by now a familiar refrain:

We can believe we are right without having to believe everyone else is wrong.

Again, this idea that we in the Churches of Christ believe we are the only ones going to heaven dies hard. I understand not everybody was brought up to believe this. I know not every Church of Christ preacher and elder has always made this claim. But it is the way I was raised. In fact, recent conversations in my own extended family have confirmed that this position is still held quite firmly in many of our churches. I’m regularly asked by sincere and well-meaning Church of Christ brothers and sisters, “If we’re no better than the other churches, then why should we even exist?”

The thinking goes that if we surrender our claim to exclusive truth we forfeit our right to exist. If we are right — and we do believe we are — then everyone else must be wrong. If we are true and faithful Christians, then those who are different from us are not.

It is one thing for us to believe in absolute truth, which we all do since we believe in God, but it is something much different for us to presume that we have an absolute understanding of that truth. Truth is absolute; our grasp of truth is relative. One sobering truth speaks to that: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known (1 Corinthians 13:12). So, we can surrender our claim to exclusive truth (only we have all the truth) and still believe in absolute truth (which is a reality that is beyond our perfect understanding).

On the face of it, we are forced to conclude that we must abandon our claim to exclusive truth in order to be an authentic people. We have no right to exist believing that we and we only have the truth. We must admit that we are both fallible and finite, that we, like everyone else, are wrong about some things and ignorant about other things.

And yet we can believe, in common with all Christians, that we have found many precious truths that we live for and would die for.

I’m reminded of those powerful passages in 1 Corinthians 8-10 that speak to our so-called knowledge. These passages outline very clearly the mindset and attitude we are to have as we consider our own understandings of the Gospel as they relate to beliefs and practices:

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.” (8:1-2)

“We put up with anything rather than hinder the Gospel of Christ.” (9:12)

“I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.” (9:19)

“I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” (9:22)

“Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others.” (10:24)

A claim that we alone know everything there is to know about the will of God and that we alone have everything figured out and that we alone are doing everything right, or at least better and more faithfully than everyone else, goes completely counter to the above passages in 1 Corinthians and, honestly, against the whole of Scripture and the Spirit of Christ.

And, again, I’ll go back to our misunderstanding and misapplication of grace. If we ever actually comprehend that our righteous relationship with God is not a matter of our “rightness” or our worship practices or our baptism or communion theology, but a matter of surrendering to God’s merciful love and grace, we will quickly abandon our exclusive claim to salvation truth. Instead, we will praise God for his boundless mercy. We will then claim only to be a people who are continually seeking the truth as it’s revealed in Jesus. And we’ll eagerly join all those disciples of other traditions and different heritage as equals in seeking and understanding that truth together.

Peace,

Allan

Not the First Century Church

May 1, 2012 / / 1 Comment

In Leroy Garrett’s “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?”  the author makes twenty suggestions for our faith heritage if we are to remain a viable voice for the Kingdom in our increasingly post-modern, post-denominational, post-Christian world. The numbers don’t lie. We’re losing our people left and right. And some things need to change. As Churches of Christ, some things we have refused to change over the years are now coming to roost. It can no longer be ignored.

Garrett’s eleventh suggestion is that we shed ourselves of the tremendous and unnecessary burden of trying to become an exact replica of the Church of the New Testament. Not only does Garrett say it could never be accomplished; it should never be tried.

Recognize that we can’t be a first century church.

Garrett writes that a lot of our people have for decades understood the Churches of Christ to be a complete restoration of the New Testament Church in name, in belief and practice, in leadership structure and worship. Frankly, while being raised in and by the Church of Christ I, too, was taught this very idea.

It is a fiction grounded on false assumptions, such as the church of the apostles having a particular name, which it did not, and that it had a uniform organization and clearly-defined “acts” of worship, which it did not.

There is no ground for supposing that God ever intended for his Church in each succeeding century over the past 2,000 years to be a first century church, even if it were possible, which it isn’t. The evidence rather suggests that God calls us to do for our generation what the primitive church did for its generation. Nothing in Scripture indicates that the earliest congregations were intended to be models for all time to come or even in their own time for that matter. The facts of history, culture, and civilization demand that the Church of Christ of the second century would be a second century church and that the church of the sixteenth century would be a sixteenth century church. Each generation of Christians is to serve its own time, drawing upon both Holy Scripture and the experience of the Church (tradition) for its direction.

A lot of this, of course, is predicated upon the ways we view and interpret the Bible. Those who see the Scriptures as a rule book and a list of guidelines and commands to follow in order to be “right” with God will seek those patterns and regulations and strive to be “right.” Those who understand the Scriptures to be the Spirit-inspired accounts of real people being impacted by a real God and the very real ways it’s all worked out in real life will look for something else. In considering church beliefs and practices, structure and worship, those brothers and sisters look for whether those things are in tune with God’s Spirit, whether they genuinely reflect the Gospel, and whether they bring glory to God.

Instead of searching the Bible and asking the question, “Is this what the first church did?” we should be asking, “Is this consistent with the person of Jesus?” The “pattern” for the Church — and this “pattern” will never change — is the person of Christ Jesus, our risen Lord. It’s his image we see in the mirror. It’s his likeness into which we are being transformed by God’s Holy Spirit. It’s his death, burial, and resurrection that should be modeled and proclaimed and upheld in every one of our beliefs and practices. The Good News should be the lens through which we view our church beliefs and practices. Jesus’ sacrificial service should be the spirit with which we enter every elders meeting and committee hearing. Our faith is in a person, not a policy; the Church is built on a relationship, not regulations.

No one congregation in the New Testament therefore can be viewed as our pattern, nor all of them together, but out of their experiences, their strengths and weaknesses, we learn how to be his Church.

Peace,

Allan

Cease Being Male-Dominated

April 26, 2012 / / 3 Comments

Leroy Garrett’s book, “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” suggests twenty changes that congregations in our faith heritage must make if we are to remain a viable voice for Christianity in the future. In our increasingly post-denominational, post-Christian world, we’ve got to change some things, Garrett says, or we’re going to fade quickly into complete irrelevancy. Hard numbers and statistics would back up that bold claim. So we’re considering his book, chapter by chapter, and reflecting together on our future as a faithful branch of the Kingdom of God.

In Chapter Nine, Garrett addresses the sensitive issue of the woman’s role in our congregations:

Cease being male-dominated.

If the Church of Christ is to have an effective witness going into the [future], it must make some changes in reference to the place of women in the church. These changes need not be what most of its members would consider radical changes, such as having women as elders or pulpit ministers, but they must be substantial enough to reflect a change in attitude and practice. If there is a concise way to say it, it would be the Church of Christ must cease being male-dominated. Corporate worship is male-dominated, teaching is male-dominated, decision-making is male-dominated. The overall attitude is male-dominated.

It is not evident that we really believe, “In Christ there is neither male nor female,” as Galatians 3:28 urges upon us. If that truth means anything, it means that in the Body of Christ gender is not to be an issue. The Church of Christ must take steps to demonstrate that it really believes that oneness in Christ transcends gender. It means that when a member functions as part of the Body, it will not matter what sex that member is, just as it will not matter what race the member is.

Garrett goes on to suggest several things he says can be done immediately — he calls these “small steps.” He also claims that all of us can do these things at once because they “do not violate any Scripture, and they call only for an end to some of our traditions that have no validity.”

Hmmm……

That’s a huge oversimplification. Huge. However, in Garrett’s defense, he’s not interested in breaking down every single biblical passage on the matter. And, neither am I. Not today and not in this space. For the best exegesis and application of all those important passages, I’d suggest Jay Guin’s studies here.

To continue, Garrett calls for our congregations to equip and empower our women to make the announcements during our worship assemblies and to share in formally welcoming the visitors. Allow the ladies to participate in calling the church to worship. Allow the women to read the Scriptures and pray to our God out loud in our assemblies. Let our sisters serve the communion meal on Sunday mornings. Allow the younger girls to serve as greeters and pass out and collect attendance cards. Enable the women to teach. Allow them to share in the decision-making by serving and chairing church committees. And appoint women as deacons as is the example in Scripture.

Complicated. This is complicated. Not because the Bible is complicated or unclear on these matters, but because we have complicated it almost beyond hope.

Allow me to refer back to one of the things mentioned in yesterday’s post about instrumental music: This, too, is a “salvation issue” in that the ways we draw our lines and judge and accuse others reveal whether we are being Christ-like or not, whether we are acting in the spirit of the Law or the spirit of the Spirit, and whether we are considering the needs of others more important than our own.

As discussed yesterday, the ways we act and react to musical instruments and women’s roles has a lot to do with the issues themselves. But the music issue itself, the actual practice of a praise band versus a cappella, may or may not have as much to do with the truth of the Gospel as this women’s role issue might.

My understanding of the Gospel is that God came to earth as Jesus and suffered and died and was raised again to reverse the curse, to defeat sin and death and Satan and everything else that separates us from God. The barriers have all been obliterated. The things that divide are now gone. The things that separate man from God and the things that separate man from man are all destroyed forever in Christ Jesus. Reconciliation — peace, perfect peace — is the holy result: peace between man and God and peace among all mankind. No more distinctions, no more differences, no more barriers or walls. In Christ, all are one. In Christ, all are equal. That’s why the apostle Paul says what he says in Galatians 3: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

If this is a correct view of the Gospel, then our Church of Christ practices as they relate to the limitations placed on women communicates very clearly that while all are equal in Christ, some are more equal than others.

I’m not interested in pushing and arguing for women to be more visible in our worship assemblies for the sake of satisfying the people who may be complaining or leaving because the women are silenced. I would not push for Garrett’s suggestions in order to fall more in line with our prevailing culture or to simply shake things up just so we can shake things up. I am very interested, however, in practices that more faithfully proclaim the Gospel and in traditions that paint a  more accurate picture of our salvation in Christ. Our current practices of restricting women from reading or praying in our public assemblies not only rob the entire Body of passionate, heart-felt, urgent prayers and dramatic, emotional, intentional readings of the Word that we’ll never get otherwise; these practices also present a distorted portrait of the Good News. The picture that Scripture paints, from Genesis to Revelation and the maps in the back, is of a table. Every culture, every tribe, every language, every tongue all at the same table. All nations, all peoples, communing together with one another and with Christ. No social distinctions, no economic barriers, no differences between the races, and no gender issues. It’s a beautiful picture. It’s the Gospel. But it’s not the picture we’re painting when our women are not allowed to participate at that table in the same ways as our men.

The other thing I would observe is that, for the most part, that list of Garrett’s straightforward suggestions above would be rejected by the majority of our Church of Christ congregations. In the Sunday morning corporate worship assembly, most of us cannot imagine women praying or reading Scripture, making announcements or teaching or interpreting a biblical passage or serving the communion meal. Never. Not in the worship center on a Sunday morning. At the same time though — and please check me on this — the vast majority of us would agree that most, if not all, of those things are permissable and even desired in other church settings. It’s OK for a woman to read out loud a verse or two in the classroom upstairs at 9:30 in the morning, but not in the auditorium downstairs at 10:15. It’s perfectly fine for a woman to pray in our living rooms and around our kitchen tables on Sunday night in our small groups, but never in the worship center. At the youth retreat, around the campfire, at our marriage retreats and family encampments, our ladies are encouraged to lead songs and to share their views of Scripture, to pray and to tell their faith stories. But to do so in our official corporate Sunday morning venues would result in emergency elders meetings and piles of new policies to make sure it never happened again.

Now, honestly, what kind of message is that communicating to everybody? We’ve done this for so long, we’ve distinguished between worship settings for so long, we’ve drawn arbitrary lines around and through this thing for so long that a disturbing thing has happened. Most people my age and older believe that the Sunday morning corporate assembly is the “real” worship time and those other times, when the rules are relaxed, are something else. Definitely not official. Most people my age and younger believe just the opposite. They feel like the “real” times of genuine worship are in our living rooms and around our campfires, on the retreats and mission trips. Sunday morning in the auditorium, when the “rules” go into effect, isn’t real. They see it as us just trying to protect a doctrine that doesn’t exist with rules that are not in the Bible to keep everybody happy. Or from getting mad and leaving.

Just like with the music issue, we have horribly distorted the very idea of Christian worship and fed it to our people for decades. We’ve communicated that some of our worship time is more important than other worship times, some of our assemblies are more pleasing to God than others. Yuk.

I believe that most of our folks are aware of the contradictions and the inconsistencies in our practices. But I honestly believe we’ve spent so much energy and spilled so much ink in our Church of Christ history accusing and withdrawing from those who are different, most of our people are afraid to talk about these things out loud for fear of being labeled. It’s going to take strong leadership. It’s going to take shepherds and ministers who are committed to a more faithful proclamation of the Gospel and a more accurate picture of our salvation in Christ. It’s going to take a trust in God’s Holy Spirit. It’s going to take a strong faith in one another. And it’s going to take a serious and discerning eye on the future of the Churches of Christ. It’ll take all those things in order to have the conversations. But I believe that if the conversations are focused on the Gospel aspect of the issue, by the grace of God we’ll come much closer to believing and teaching and practicing the right things.

Peace,

Allan

Reexamine Our Positions on Instruments

April 25, 2012 / / 0 Comments

We’re continuing our chapter-by-chapter reflection of Leroy Garrett’s “What Must the Church of Christ Do to Be Saved?” with a move toward some very specific issues. I would remind as we get into these issues together that most people who discuss them speak in terms of “salvation issues.” Generally, those arguing for more freedom and more grace and bigger-picture thinking in these areas argue that they are not “salvation issues.” Those who argue for more rules and strict adherence to those rules claim to do so because these are “salvation issues.” Allow me to suggest that they are all “salvation issues.” My understanding of “salvation” has led me to conclude that everything is a “salvation issue.”

We get into discussions about “salvation issues” and we start ranking things in order of importance to God, in terms of what’s going to save us or condemn us. And we’ll talk about baptism and church and the authority of Scripture — sometimes we’ll even talk about worship styles — but we never talk about helping the poor or being kind to our enemies. Scripture maintains that those are actually the weightier matters. God has already spoken and made it very clear that he doesn’t give one rip about what we do in our worship to him if our lives are not consistent with his glory. If our lives are not about grace and forgiveness and acceptance and love and service, then whatever else we do with these so-called “salvation issues” simply doesn’t matter. In God’s book, salvation lies in the attitude of the heart. In God’s book, the motivations are what matter. Therefore, in my book, everything’s a salvation issue.

Where’s your heart? Are you motivated more by the Law or by the Spirit? Are your actions and thoughts Christ-like in that you’re considering the needs of others more important than your own? Do you tend to judge and condemn more than you love and accept? See? Salvation issues.

With that foundation in place, let’s consider Garrett’s eighth suggestion for saving our branch of the Christian faith:

Reexamine our position on instrumental worship.

Instead of writing this chapter of the book himself, Garrett gives us an article by Bob Shaw, a Church of Christ preacher in Alberta, Canada. Shaw preaches at an a cappella church and for 25 years fought bitterly against the use of musical instruments in corporate worship. But now he’s changed his stance. Today he sees the question of organs and guitars and drums as a matter of personal preference and congregational choice. Garrett and Shaw both claim we must all come to the same conclusion if the Churches of Christ are to be saved as a viable voice in the Kingdom.

Shaw lists eight reasons why he changed his position on instrumental music during Christian worship, some of them much better than others:

1. All biblical references to singing are addressed to the individual Christian and not to the assembled church. To be consistent, we’d have to say instrumental worship is as wrong at home and in our cars as it is in the auditorium on a Sunday morning. That’s a position we don’t normally take.

2. God is a just God. He’s not going to condemn millions of people for violating a law that’s not even found in the Bible.

3. If this were an important matter, God could have easily made it clear in the Bible. It would have only taken one line!

4. The psalms would not call on God’s people to do something that is sinful.

5. Good, honest, knowledgeable Christians do not see this issue the way we do. They respect the authority of Scripture just as much as us, yet they come to different conclusions.

6. The Bible does not clearly teach that instrumental music in worship is sinful.

7. God would not command the use of musical instruments in the Old Testament, condemn them in the New Testament, and then approve of them again in heaven (Revelation 15:1-3). A merciful and loving God would not give out instruments in heaven after condemning millions of others for using them.

8. The basic problem in all this is distinguishing between matters of faith and matters of opinion. The same argument that condemns instrumental music condemns Sunday Schools, Vacation Bible Schools, multiple cups for the Lord’s Supper, four-part harmony, and on and on. Until we realize that these are opinions over which we can agree to differ, we will continue to divide.

Again, some of these reasons are decent, some are better than others, and some of them, honestly, just don’t hold much water in a serious theological discussion. Shaw’s eighth reason there carries the most weight with me.

Here’s my personal angle on all this:

I favor the use of a cappella music in our corporate worship assemblies. I believe I will always push for a cappella , I will always teach a cappella, and I will always hold up a cappella as the best way for God’s people to sing praises to our Creator and Savior. I can definitely argue that from a historical position. That’s easy. During at least its first 700-900 years, Christ’s Church did not employ instruments of music in worship. I think I could also make a fairly decent argument theologically. There’s something about the many voices forming the one song; the many gifts, the many parts, becoming one, much like Jesus’ Church itself. Admittedly, however, I cannot make the argument from Scripture. It’s just not there.

In judging others and drawing lines of fellowship around the issue of musical instruments in worship, we have horribly distorted one of our fundamental Stone-Campbell maxims. We speak where the Bible speaks and, where the Bible is silent, we speak even more!

The “salvation issue” is in the way we label and accuse, divide and condemn, over musical instruments. The “salvation issue” is in the way we make up rules and draw inconsistent lines around our practices to protect a doctrine that doesn’t exist. It’s in the ways we interpret Scripture by one method when it suits us and by another method when it suits you. You know, the way we treat this issue communicates something to our people. It absolutely communicates. It communicates to our own people and it communicates to the outside world.

The ways we interpret the Bible and approve our policies sends the message to all who are still listening that Christianity is about following rules and drawing lines and adhering to boundaries. Never mind that the rules and boundaries make no sense. Following Jesus means following rules.

We must stop telling our people that it’s OK to worship in that way over there but not this way in here. We must stop telling our teens that it pleases God to sing that song in that room but singing this song in this room is a sin. We must stop telling one another that there’s nothing wrong with worshiping God in that style on this day but not in this style on that day. We’ve lived so long with and in our vain practices of protecting  our own comfort zones and comfort rules that many of us will insist that weddings and funerals are not worship services. When you tell me that an assembly of Christians in the worship center in which the gathered men, women, and children sing songs of praise and thanksgiving to God, prayers are offered to God in the name of Jesus, Holy Scripture is read, and a sermon is preached from the Bible is not a worship assembly because the family of the deceased brought in a violist to play “Amazing Grace,” it makes no sense! Our kids are not stupid. Neither are the people we claim to be trying to win for Christ. They see right through this stuff. And I don’t blame them.

I agree wholeheartedly with Shaw’s final plea in this eighth chapter:

I would not favor going headlong in adopting instrumental music in a Church of Christ… It is right for us to sing a cappella as a matter of personal conviction. It also preserves unity among us. It is our attitude that we must change. Our neighbors resent our unloving, unaccepting, and condemnatory attitude toward those who differ with us, even when they envy our ability to sing. We must come to see a cappella singing as our tradition, the method that is better for us, and not a matter of faith and salvation for everyone else. Unless we do, honest, truth-seeking, unity-minded brothers and sisters will continue to leave us.

I’m blessed to belong to a church family and to serve with church leaders here in Amarillo who are completely committed to our a cappella heritage. We view it as something of which to be very proud. We love it. And we’re dedicated to it. And not one of us can ever imagine that changing. At the same time, we understand that musical instruments in a sermon video, in an announcement, during a wedding or a funeral or a youth campout, or as accompaniment to some special music even in a Sunday assembly in no way compromises that commitment. In no way. We refuse to condemn those who worship with a band. We accept as brothers and sisters all those who submit to the Lordship of Jesus and are striving to live their lives in ways that bring glory to God.

Afterall, it is a salvation issue, right?

Peace,

Allan

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