Editorial
Volume 27, Number 1
January/February, 1992
During the first weekend of October, 1991, a number of Brethren gathered for a two-day conference on the theme “Transition in the Church of the Brethren.” The conference was held at Bridgewater College in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. There was an honest effort to hear concerns about the changes that have taken place in the Church of the Brethren over the years, and there were explanations that attempted to state why the changes have taken place. One of the major presentations at the conference was a paper given by Vernard Eller, professor of religion at the University of LaVerne in Southern California. The main body of that paper is the article featured in this issue of the BRF WITNESS.
In a rather lengthy introduction, Brother Eller explained that students of church history generally agree that christendom divides easily into two distinct versions of the gospel. One group “uses the New Testament as a jumping-off point for churchly revisionism.” The other group “makes a seriously-intended effort at gospel fidelity.” Vernard used the phrase “radical discipleship” to describe the gospel fidelity line, and the phrase “passive blessedness” to describe those who purvey cheap grace.
Vernard explained that when we talk about denial of the philosophies of the world, some have interpreted that to mean hatred for the world, or rejection of the world. “Yet,” he said, “when the medical doctor diagnoses a patient and tells him that his smoking (tobacco/marijuana) has him fast on his way out of this life–in such case, nobody accuses the doctor of being an enemy of the patient–particularly when that doctor goes on to explain that there is a way out of the predicament.” In fact, Vernard concluded, “if our physician has any true love and concern for his patients, the one thing of which he must be most careful, is not to simply join them in the self-destructive lifestyles which are at the heart of their problems.” The fact that the doctor dares to be different is what gives him the right to counsel his patients about how to improve their health.
Jesus calls for radical discipleship–that is, for revolutionary change in our lives, and for a vibrant loyalty to His teachings. Vernard (in the essay which is printed here) names some factors that have led to a breakdown of the earlier radical-disciple (costly grace) kind of devotion to the cause of Christ which the Brethren had historically portrayed. Eller said (in the introduction to the article which follows), “For the first two centuries of its life, the Church of the Brethren did a creditable job of making its radical witness. That is to say, it did practice nonconformity to the world, being not of the world….(but) now, during our third century, we have grown tired under the strain.” For the remainder of Vernard’s remarks, read the pages which follow.
Trading Away Our Radical Disciple New Testament Witness
By Vernard Eller
For the remainder of the time, let me point out the major instances in this century where I feel the Brethren have traded away their costly-grace, radical-disciple, New Testament witness in the process of getting more comfortable in (and acceptable to) society (the worldly church as well as the worldly world).
1. OUR MOVE AWAY FROM THE FREE MINISTRY
In earlier times, leadership was raised up out of the faith-community’s own numbers. Now we import (at a salary) a professionally qualified outsider. Whether or not this simply had to happen for the sake of the church’s continuance, the move was made, not out of fidelity to New Testament norms, but as an accommodation to the fashions of the world.
In the process, there was introduced into the life of the congregation a division into two parts or branches. Now, every member is on the same footing — except for the one who is there because he is paid to be there. The great tragedy comes in the fact that now the people do not themselves have to be the Bible students, theologians, and thinkers, who through their own discernment of the Spirit, define and mold their own faith community. No, they’ve brought in a professional to take care of such matters in a typical worldly move.
2. THE THRONGING OF THE BRETHREN INTO THE SOCIAL GOSPEL MOVEMENT
The New Testament assumes that the chosen lifestyle of humanity is so utterly self-destructive that there is not a chance that society might lift itself up by its own bootstraps, turn itself around, and reform itself into social salvation. No–for either the salvation of the individual, or of society – the only possible Savior to whom we can look, is the Lord God and His Christ.
However, much of American christendom is of a quite different mind. This has been an age of incredibly naive optimism. The course of history was assumed to be that every day–in every way –all of us (along with all of society) are getting better and better. The faith to which the Brethren flocked, saw society’s lifestyle–not as self-destructive–but as self-perfecting. What Christians were to do was simply introduce the Strong Righteous Man of Galilee as leader of the world’s moral development. Our own Christian example of pious living would be God’s means of bringing in His kingdom and saving the world.
A catch of lines from the favorite hymns of the era will reveal the entirely self-confident mood of the times: “God has no hands but our hands to do his work today” (so we had better get at doing what He can’t do). These kinds of statements indicate human self-confidence. And although the Brethren came into this century with dreams about leading the world into social health and salvation, the church is presently coming out of that century at the low ebb of reputation, recognition, and acceptance on the part of the world. The moral flow of the century has been the very reverse of what we thought to give it. My point here is that our original move into the Social Gospel, rather than representing radical discipleship, was nothing more than a convenient accommodation to the optimistic world-spirit of the times.
3. TREATING LIGHTLY JESUS’ TEACHING REGARDING DIVORCE, ADULTERY, AND ALL MARITAL SEXUAL UNFAITHFULNESS
The Bible tabs marital covenant as the highest of human relationships, and the scorning of covenant is a root sin. Breaking a covenant is among the most serious of human wrongdoings.
The Hutterites, out of their radical discipleship, claim now to have lived 400 years without one incident of divorce. In a recent issue of the Fuller Seminary Bulletin there was an article by a prominent African Presbyterian pastor from Kenya. As contact person for World Vision, he is also up on the African church generally. He is 40 years old, and says that he has never so much as heard of a divorce among African Christians. The congregations are so organized as to keep an eye on the marriages in their midst. As soon as there is any sign of trouble, the church itself is on the spot to deal with the difficulty. And it seems plain that, for the first 250 years of their history, the Brethren generally could be numbered along with the Hutterites and the Africans. Our people were so thoroughly taught that divorce is simply not a Christian option, that marital problems had to be solved– not just given up on.
And it is not merely that the Brethren divorce rate has skyrocketed over the last twenty years. The skyrocketing has been concentrated in the pastoral leadership, the General Board staff, and the Bethany Seminary staff–among the very people to whom the church most looks for teaching and modeling of covenant faithfulness. Among us, divorce no longer carries any moral stigma, nor is it seen as an impediment to one’s practice in the pastoral or teaching ministries. The only explanation is that too many Brethren have deserted the radical calling of Jesus and have accommodated to the standards of the world. Our abject failure in the practice of covenantal fidelity certainly destroys the credibility of any witness we ought to be making in that regard. I trust you understand that my concern is not so much with the divorcees as it is with the fact that the church now treats divorce just as the world does– seeing it as quite normal and taken for granted.
4. DISTORTING THE PEACE WITNESS UPON WHICH WE SO PRIDE OURSELVES
We need to recognize that all of Jesus’ peace teaching is directed to His committed followers, as instruction on how they are to be peaceable and reconciling in all of their personal relationships. If you will, Jesus teaches that peace must begin at home. If we can’t manage it there, there is little chance of our accomplishing it anywhere else.
The peacemaking which we definitely do not get from Jesus is that which we are perhaps most prone to practice; namely, to come on as a worldly left-wing political cause group, denouncing the worldly powers for their violence and instructing them as to how they could live peaceably if they would just listen to us. Yet notice that, when Jesus had His chance to advise Pilate, He chose to say nothing at all. What good would it do?
So think, if you will, of two young adults from good Brethren families who are very much in love with one another, and who accordingly commit themselves with the covenant vows of marriage. But if, then, this– which should be the easiest and most elementary of all peaceful relationships–if this ends in the breaking of the marriage covenant, what grounds do we have for lecturing George Bush on how he should be able to live peaceably with Saddam Hussein? “Physician, heal thyself,” would be the perfect retort. Perhaps we need to read the whole of Luke 16:10, “Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.”
I am not saying that we should entirely drop our public peace testimony. I am asking whether we have not jeopardized our radical commitment to the Prince of Peace, by accommodating ourselves, rather, to the worldly dodge of going after the speck in the neighbor’s eye while blithely ignoring the log in our own–what Jesus explicitly identifies as hypocrisy. We have some radically obedient peace work to do at home before going public as a peace church.
5. OUR CONCERN OVER THE NUMBER OF ADHERENTS AND THE CONGREGATION’S INSTITUTIONAL SUCCESS.
It is plain that in the New Testament church, evangelism and church growth showed itself as a quest for the quality of its members’ lives, centering upon the practice of costly discipleship in daily living. Institutional success was not in the picture at all. Today, the models of church growth that are being proffered to the Brethren are decidedly not those of the New Testament. They are clearly those of accommodation to the world.
We are being told that a congregation’s way to success is to start with a powerhouse pastor who takes pains to see that everything is done his way. Allowing anything to happen outside his game plan could untrack the whole effort. Then the congregation is told to enlist everything possible in the way of modern media to advertise, promote, and sell that which this new business (churchbusiness) has to offer.
The church is told further that it must take pains to tailor its ministries to what the people want, what will meet their perceived needs, what will keep them happy. Here, it is with the church, as it is with the world–that the customer is always right–not, as with the Gospel, that it is the Lord Jesus who is always right. And obviously, the end goal of this concerted effort is the creating of a mega-church. Interestingly, early Christianity went for three hundred years without getting as much as a start toward a mega-church.
It should be apparent that all these accommodations to the world represent (as Bonhoeffer said) a turning away from costly grace in favor of cheap grace. We have relaxed our earlier tension of standing against the world, simply by accommodating to it. Yet it can be argued that, at the same time, we have compromised the possibility of our being of any real good to the world. Surely what the world needs least–is our affirmation that the way in which it is going is indeed the way of right and truth.
Just recently, there came a news story from Associated Press reporting the findings of an extensive poll on the current religious beliefs of Americans. It gets right to the nub of our argument. In the first place, it says that believers increasingly feel that “being part of a local church is not a necessity.” Secondly, the poll shows people leaning toward the idea that one person’s understanding of God is just as true as anybody else’s. In third place, 83% of the respondents say that “people are basically good,” and 63% think “the purpose of life is enjoyment and personal fulfillment.” Perhaps it is the same people (but at least the same 63%) who agree that “when it comes right down to it, your first responsibility is to yourself.” The essential contradiction between this popular view of life, and that of the radical gospel, is revealed in the words of Jesus when He said that those who become His followers are to “deny themselves” (Mark 8:34).
Notice that I have not expressed any concern about the institutional survival of the Church of the Brethren. That is the last thing I worry about. In fact, I am quick to agree that the accommodations to the world which we have already made (and are in the process of making) may well be our best means of assuring that we do survive–yet survive simply as one denomination out of the largely indistinguishable mass.
During this century the Brethren have traded away their costly-grace, radical-disciple, New Testament witness. In its place, the Brethren have become comfortable in society and more acceptable to the worldly church and the worldly world. I personally have no intention of trying to fight the move. I see it as already accomplished. As much as I hope to do, is make the Brethren aware of what they are doing as they do it.
Does this mean then, that things are all over for us? Not at all. We do not want to jump to the same foolish conclusion that Elijah adopted. Even if we never can manage to be a denomination of radical discipleship, there is nothing to stop us from being individuals, clusters, groups, and perhaps even some congregations of radical discipleship. After all, the Lord who spoke of losing one’s saltiness, also spoke the encouragement of “Fear not, little flock.” So my choice is to continue to speak to and work with the little flock within both the Church of the Brethren and other churches.
