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Before we can love our enemies as we are called to by Jesus, it would be a fabulous idea if we could first figure out how to get along with our brothers.
Would you want to accept an invitation to dinner from someone you know mistreats their family either physically or emotionally? How about if they were constantly bad-mouthing them behind their back? Would you feel comfortable having your kids spend the night with a friend whose mother and father fight every night?
Then why would someone who is not a Christian, accept an invitation to be a part of our Christian family, when they see abuse and backbiting among Christians? Especially when Christians as a whole claim to be above such behavior?
And for the purposes of this article, the abuse I speak of is not on an individual level (although this happens frequently as well) but rather congregationally. The churches of Christ are NOT a denomination. Ha ha. Well, yes technically this happens to be true. We do not have a governmental body telling us what our official church positions ought to be. We "respect" congregational autonomy (excuse me a minute while I get a glass of water before I choke to death).
Ok I'm back. Where was I? Oh yes, autonomy. We all are aware of the wars and battles fought between congregations of the churches of Christ. And now in 2006, with a renewed effort towards unity with the Christian churches, we have pulled even more congregations into the fight and because of this, the conflict has potential to become even hotter.
But it doesn't have to be. Consider the following story:
Every year when I go home for Christmas, my extended and immediate family loves to sit around and have lively discussions or debates about anything and everything from politics to the latest happening with the Dallas Cowboys and, yes, even the Bible (though sessions with extended family usually turn into "liberal" bashing rants at which time I find it convenient to go into my customary turkey comma for a few hours).
In past years, however, since the completion of my formal Biblical education and the beginning of my younger brother's graduate studies, my immediate family (my brother, my father and myself) have sat down and had more in-depth and rational theological discussions.
This past Christmas, the three of us threw down on the issue of musical instruments and the possible unity movement with the Christian churches. We all conceded that unity with the Christian churches IS a positive thing, however once we got down to the details of discussion musical instruments, worship principles, and the Bible, we diverged. Initially, I thought it was going to be my brother and me against our dad, however our discussion turned out to be a veritable Mexican standoff with none of us really agreeing or disagreeing fully with the other two.
The arguments for or against instruments are irrelevant to this article. The point is, as we got up from our discussion, no one convincing ANYONE fully of their viewpoint, we smiled and headed off to dinner as ordered by the boss lady (grandma). As we were grinning impishly, eagerly shuffling towards the feast, my dad smiled and said something that really stuck with me:
"You know what? If we were not family members, but instead just brothers in the church, I don't think we'd still be talking to each other right now."
How sad.
And yet, if we are going to call ourselves a family of Christ we MUST capture this same attitude of disagreement on trivial matters. That's not to say that issues like this DON'T matter, or that we should NOT discuss or even argue about things like whether to worship with instruments or not. But we must re-capture the attitude of love and unity that Jesus prayed for in the garden just before his trial.
Nothing could separate my family from it's love and unity because it is rooted in the love and unity of Christ. My father raised us to be independent thinkers. He reasoned to me later that he cannot be disappointed that we turned out the way he intended, even if that meant we disagreed.
I think if you could see my family, I feel confident you would feel comfortable eating with us. Growing up, my friend's parents never had cause for concern about them spending the night. We invite you (grandma, we may have a few visitors next year!).
Let's capture this spirit in and among our congregations. We claim to respect the church autonomy of our brothers. In a sense, we were raised that way. Let's not be disappointed with each other when we actually act autonomously, AND most importantly:
Let's eat.
Dan Hurley is a graduate of Abilene Christian University with a B.A. and an M.A. in ministry studies. He currently serves as the youth minister for the Northern Light Church of Christ in Maple Grove, Minnesota.
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