*Sigh*
A little background info before the meat of this post...
In 1906, the churches of the Restoration Movement that followed Campbell and Stone had a split over the use of instrumental music in worship. The Churches of Christ thought it was inappropriate to use instruments, while the Christian Churches embraced it. Today, such a dispute seems so silly to me and many others in both of those Restoration Movement tribes.
Since we are at the 100 year anniversary of the split, many leaders of both tribes have had discussions and led efforts to heal that split. I don't think any of the leaders suppose that we will remerge into one group, but we are trying to fellowship one another, ask forgiveness for many of our attitudes toward each other over the last 100 years, and focus on what we have in common: Christ.
At the recent annual National Association of Christian Churches convention, Jeff Walling, a prominent speaker within the Churches of Christ exchanged bibles with Dave Stone, a CC leader, as a sign of refellowship. In his message, Walling challenged, "Are you willing to go home and shape the future of our brotherhood for our children by reaching out because of grace to say, ‘I love you in the name of Jesus Christ, brother?’” Walling asked the crowd. “And if somebody says, ‘Well, he’s a brother in error,’ you tell him, ‘Do we have any other kind?’".
These kind of discussions have been ongoing for quite some time and are not really a newsflash. The Christian Chronicle, a CofC magazine, ran an article on this event, which described the discussion without taking a position on the issue. Here's what is shocking to me. Off on the side of the Christian Chronicle webpage is a survey.
The survey asks, "Do you support fellowship between a cappella Churches of Christ and instrumental Christian Churches?"
Here are the results as they stand right now:
Definitely 29.52% (488)
Somewhat 7.26% (120)
Neutral 2.78% (46)
Not really 7.02% (116)
Absolutely not 53.42% (883)
First of all, this survey has gotten about 10 times the response as most of their past online surveys. Secondly, I know that this is only 1600 people and can't be taken as very accurate data. Thirdly, I admit that the readership of the Christian Chronicle is probably pretty skewed and not a good reflection of the Churches of Christ on the whole.
But still, this survey breaks my heart.
How can 53% of our people think that we shouldn't fellowship other Christians because they use instruments? How can that be? I'm simply ashamed.
Even if you prefer not to use instruments, or even if you think it's somehow wrong... how do you justify not loving and encouraging and fellowshiping and walking with other Christians that disagree with you? That is simply arrogance and pride, which seems to me to be the sin that upset Jesus the most.
Rather than pulling random scriptures out of context to try to justify acapella worship, maybe we need to reread Matthew 23.
It is this group of 53% that turns the Nancy Graces into truth speakers when they say the Churches of Christ claim to be the only ones with the truth.
We are Christians only, not the only Christians.
And here's the challenge that lies before me personally: even though this kind of thing makes me so mad and disappoints me so greatly, God's grace is big enough for this 53%. The people that think we can't fellowship anyone who uses an instrument are trying to seek God. I think they are confused and even sinning in some instances on how they handle this issue, but God loves them. I know I have issues that I am confused about and that I sin in the way I handle them. But God's grace lets him see Jesus instead of me.
That's the paradox. For those that claim Christ, he claims them. It's crazy that we say others' claim to Christ is not valid when ours is just as much not valid. That's the whole point. None of us have a valid claim to Christ, but grace overcomes that.
In 1906, the churches of the Restoration Movement that followed Campbell and Stone had a split over the use of instrumental music in worship. The Churches of Christ thought it was inappropriate to use instruments, while the Christian Churches embraced it. Today, such a dispute seems so silly to me and many others in both of those Restoration Movement tribes.
Since we are at the 100 year anniversary of the split, many leaders of both tribes have had discussions and led efforts to heal that split. I don't think any of the leaders suppose that we will remerge into one group, but we are trying to fellowship one another, ask forgiveness for many of our attitudes toward each other over the last 100 years, and focus on what we have in common: Christ.
At the recent annual National Association of Christian Churches convention, Jeff Walling, a prominent speaker within the Churches of Christ exchanged bibles with Dave Stone, a CC leader, as a sign of refellowship. In his message, Walling challenged, "Are you willing to go home and shape the future of our brotherhood for our children by reaching out because of grace to say, ‘I love you in the name of Jesus Christ, brother?’” Walling asked the crowd. “And if somebody says, ‘Well, he’s a brother in error,’ you tell him, ‘Do we have any other kind?’".
These kind of discussions have been ongoing for quite some time and are not really a newsflash. The Christian Chronicle, a CofC magazine, ran an article on this event, which described the discussion without taking a position on the issue. Here's what is shocking to me. Off on the side of the Christian Chronicle webpage is a survey.
The survey asks, "Do you support fellowship between a cappella Churches of Christ and instrumental Christian Churches?"
Here are the results as they stand right now:
Definitely 29.52% (488)
Somewhat 7.26% (120)
Neutral 2.78% (46)
Not really 7.02% (116)
Absolutely not 53.42% (883)
First of all, this survey has gotten about 10 times the response as most of their past online surveys. Secondly, I know that this is only 1600 people and can't be taken as very accurate data. Thirdly, I admit that the readership of the Christian Chronicle is probably pretty skewed and not a good reflection of the Churches of Christ on the whole.
But still, this survey breaks my heart.
How can 53% of our people think that we shouldn't fellowship other Christians because they use instruments? How can that be? I'm simply ashamed.
Even if you prefer not to use instruments, or even if you think it's somehow wrong... how do you justify not loving and encouraging and fellowshiping and walking with other Christians that disagree with you? That is simply arrogance and pride, which seems to me to be the sin that upset Jesus the most.
Rather than pulling random scriptures out of context to try to justify acapella worship, maybe we need to reread Matthew 23.
It is this group of 53% that turns the Nancy Graces into truth speakers when they say the Churches of Christ claim to be the only ones with the truth.
We are Christians only, not the only Christians.
And here's the challenge that lies before me personally: even though this kind of thing makes me so mad and disappoints me so greatly, God's grace is big enough for this 53%. The people that think we can't fellowship anyone who uses an instrument are trying to seek God. I think they are confused and even sinning in some instances on how they handle this issue, but God loves them. I know I have issues that I am confused about and that I sin in the way I handle them. But God's grace lets him see Jesus instead of me.
That's the paradox. For those that claim Christ, he claims them. It's crazy that we say others' claim to Christ is not valid when ours is just as much not valid. That's the whole point. None of us have a valid claim to Christ, but grace overcomes that.
posted by Eric Livingston at
7/06/2006
4 Comments:
Eric, thanks for your thoughtful post. Keep working at it. I do think we need to just face the fact that many people in Churches of Christ have bought into heretical thinking. How is that for irony? Trust or belief in anything that replaces Jesus as the sole source of salvation, including worship styles, formats, instruments, etc., is heretical, unorthodox both biblically and historically.
I think we need the courage to tell our legalistic friends that they, thier interpretations and their practices are wrong. As a matter of fact, taking the same view of the bible as most of these folks work from, I think we could prove that to not use instruments is wrong.
At some point, we must move away from the error.
Larry, as usual, is insightful. We have lost sight of the much greater sin of pride and judgment in an attack on a lesser hermenutic issue - which we traditionally got wrong anyway.
Eric, at the church where you and I worship, we are not having these conversations because of a general interest in the gospel that transcends the issue. At least, that's my hope. We may just be ignoring the issue, hoping it doesn't rise up and plunge us into the silly schism. Seems like Jesus taught a bit about about swatting gnats and straining flies or something like that.
I take some comfort from the survey you cite. It's self-selecting and unscientific, and CC may have snagged one guy crazy enough to stay up all night hitting enter just to make a point.
Larry and Jeff,
Thanks for the encouragement from both of you. I know one day we'll get over this issue, I just hope we can soon.
It just seems that in our denomination we have beaten this horse to death - in fact we might change the expression "beat a horse to death" to "debate the use of instrumental music", as in, "Boy we sure have debated this instrumental music to death" - and so it is disappointing to see 53% of people say we shouldn't even fellowship other churches that choose to use instruments.
I hesitated to even write about this on my blog because I know I have some readers from other Christian walks, and frankly this topic is just embarassing.
If we survive as an acapella group, I hope one day 100% of us will realize that it is ok to disagree with other Christians.
So often we get caught up in trying to detrmine who is right that people go hungry, the sick are not healed, and those in prison are not visited, but we convince ourselves that were doing God's work. I beleive Jesus would point to these groups and say, " I don't care about your search for truth if you won't be a servant to my brother or sister". Have we forgotten that Jesus said, "when you minister to the least of these my brothers, you've ministered to me"?
This debate or any debate saps our strength, and takes our focus off God. In the end though, I truly believe that this debate will have some benefit for all Christians. Just as those who initiated a debate through out the centuries, God's truth finally came out, and everyone said, OH that's it"!!
Let's not grow weary in doing good and remember it is Christ's church and He and He alone is the the head!
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