Debate or Do
A recent friend of mine is dealing with some issues in a congregation that is overly given to debating and disputing over “the issues.” The focus of the congregation is on disagreement and doctrinal disputes. There is nothing wrong in discussing the issues, but when the focus of correctness is solely the purpose of the congregation, then the congregation has ransomed the work of God for debate. A minister, elder, congregation that seems more concerned with all the correct answers than doing the work of the Lord is similar to the lawyer in Luke 10. My friend asked me how to handle this overemphasis on doctrinal arguments. I mentioned that there is a time and place to insure correct doctrine, but our identity or Christianity is not solely done to be correct but to really “do” the work of God. Luke using the ring parallelism in Luke 10:25-28 “And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?” And he answered and said, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” And He said to him, “You have answered correctly; DO THIS, AND YOU WILL LIVE.” In the religious circles of that day there was a movement that was trying to discover the essences of the O.T. The lawyer and the Christ agree, but the difference was that it was knowledge on the debating level for the lawyer. To Christ, once the correct answer is discovered, the next step is to “do this and live.” All the knowledge of the religious disputes and debates is pointless unless we “do and live.”
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I feel sorry for your friend. I would not have the patience for Christians who simply exist to debate and get every little detail correct. Luke 10:25-28 is a good response to such people.
Rex
i participate in a celebrate recovery program at the memorial road church of christ here in OKC. and one thing i love about it is that during small groups, there is NO cross talk. you get a chance to say whatever at all and no one is allowed to respond or comment or assess or advise nor are they allowed to reference what you said during their time of sharing.
at first i wondered if these people were just a bunch of judgmentalaphobes who just didn’t want to hear someone tell them the truth. however, fairly quickly i realize how ingenious this rule was. because i wasn’t allowed to respond to anyone else, i stopped trying to assess and filter and formulate responses in my head when other people talked. and with all that mental energy i normally spent on assessing other people words, i started focusing on listening to myself–assessing and weighing and thinking through what i had said. and that’s the point!–i’m there to fix ME.
i think there certainly is a time for doctrinal dispute and even the refusal to tolerate certain positions as acceptable. however, as a general rule, instead of focusing on what can be doctrinally corrected about others, i think there is tremendous scriptural precedent to focus on what needs doctrinally corrected about ourselves. And issues of character, attitude, and practicing spiritual disciplines are every bit as much “doctrinal issues” as are worship, qualifications of elders, or the nature of Christ. Should we be concerned about false doctrine? Absolutely, i have every indication that NT writers were. However, dare i suggest, that when a person’s mental energy is largely spent on the assessment of doctrinal correctness of others, something far deeper is amiss in themselves for not spending a greater amount of energy on self-examination and personal growth.
Guy, my in-laws go to Memorial, great place. Also, you are right, there is false teachers, and the response is not to stick the head in the sand about this problem, but also we are not to be given to excessive debate. I wrote a article on this a while back from the thesis I wrote on being a minister. Rex, you are right, I loved the Luke passage in coming back to this problem. The Lawyer wants the issues and Jesus wants the actions. If you believe it, then live it. The book I am reading, on the side of the blog, is great. Super Great about this study of Jesus.
This is definitely a difficult issue. There’s a fine line between trying to maintain sound teaching and losing focus on Christ altogether. People love their religious debate, and the church of Christ is renowned for it.
Some missionaries came to Russia with this mindset, and they spread it to their converts. As a result, the Christians there literally thought that maturity in Christ was based on how well you could argue. Sad.
I think the key is to get people to focus on Christ, His Message, and His way of life. It’s important to emphasize that just having the right answers means nothing unless your actions follow. It’s sad to see churches spending gross majorities of their time debating what happens one hour a week on Sunday, and then missing the hundreds of people in their own community who are hurting and desperate for God. It’s not always a matter of rightness, but focus.
You hit the nail on the head, brother. As for me personally, when I’m in situations where it’s easy to get wrapped up in all sorts of debates, I have to bring myself back to the gospel message: I’m not good enough, but God makes me good enough because of Jesus. Love God and love people. Everything else is secondary to this.
The passage in Luke 10 debunks so much of what we think is important to being Christian and being Christ’s church. In the CoC there are so many who, historically at least, have obsessed over getting every detail right as though God is only pleased when we get it all right. I don’t want to be misunderstood as saying we can just be apathetic with truth and doctrine, not caring one iota about what we do. Such apathy is miles away from the person who realizes that he/she will never get it all right and therefore he/she stopps obsessing about it and in turn just makes a vow to Love God and neighbor.
Jesus recognizes that we will never get the law right, if we could then he had no reason for coming. But I believe Jesus is telling us to stop fretting over whether we are ever wrong on every last detail (since we will never acheive total rightness to begin with) and instead just focus on loving God and neighbor. Another words, we are being taught to love God and neighbor while accepting that along the journey of such pursuit we will get somethings wrong (and that’s ok since it is not malicious or apathetic error).
And if we still need clarification about what it mean to love God and neighbor then Jesus tells us how do correctly do worship on Sunday mornings, how to correctly organize the church, how to correctly handle every marriage and divorce issue, how to determine who we can fellowship with, how to hermenuetically interpret scripture, etc… No! Jesus tells us about a man beat up on the side of the road and then asks us who do we declare as our neighbor.
We have a long way to go!
Rex
If the churches of Christ were defined in the last century by our ability to answer abstract theological questions then we will be defined and much of our existence or potential growth will depend upon our ability to put our theology to work.
For instance, no one in the lost and unchurched world really cares if orphans and widows are taken care of by adoption or group homes supported by multiple congregations. What they do see is most Christians have done so little either way they have lost their witness and credibility to argue either point. Debates are rarely about coming into a closer relationship with God and are most often about being right. Unless we can bring ourselves out of the “issue mode”, many congregations will continue to tear themselves apart all the while thinking that they are sincerely doing what God wants them to do “Standing up for the truth”, and while they are standing up for what they so zealously believe the truth to be, a lost and dying world and generation is passing them by next door.
In the book “Good to great”, great organizations have a great amount of intense discussion, which actually provides cohesion and uses information and ideas from every perspective to come up with something really great. Arguing with good information in manner that is respectful is a natural part of good organizations. But here is the difference; attitude!
A good characterization of the churches of Christ for the last 100 years would be this “A deluded denomination lost in its own narcissistic debates”.
Many churches think they are out of the woods when it comes to the “issues”, but the truth is that they are still there under the surface. A congregation recently had on their website that they were a congregation at peace. Then a new family moved to town and wanted to start a divorce recovery ministry. Then this little congregation that thought it was at peace found it self in turmoil and split a year later. The absence of outright conflict does not mean a congregation is at peace but usually is avoiding any controversy. This is what most congregations have learned to do avoid controversy at all costs.
What an excellent blog, I’ve added your feed to my RSS reader.