I have remarkable friends. Remarkable because they are intelligent, good-looking, serve people, love God, and seem to get a kick out of me. They also ask great questions.
One of the questions I often hear my remarkable friends ask is “Why does everything have to be about being Anabaptist?”
Much of my generation is tired of the “us” vs. “them” mentality of the Anabaptist church. In fact, I believe it’s one of the primary reasons young people choose to leave. Too often, the focus is on our differences from the rest of the evangelical world and why they are wrong and evil and how we should keep away from them. That gets exhausting for young believers who simply want to follow Christ.
Not that long ago, I was discussing this with one my remarkable friends. I was telling him about my passion for Anabaptists to do better at producing quality resources so that we don’t always have to go elsewhere for good books and small group studies when he brought up the question, “Is it wrong that we go elsewhere? Why is it so important that we always be learning from Anabaptists? Can’t we also learn from others?”
As we talked about denominations and how sad it is that the church of Jesus Christ is divided in so many ways, I began to wonder if we’ve been looking at this the wrong way.
You see, I’ve heard people argue that because there aren’t denominations in the Bible we shouldn’t have denominations today. So they go and start an independent group. What happens, though, isn’t that we solve the issue of denominations, but that we gain another denomination. Another conference. Another group who think they’re right and everyone else is wrong.
What if it is not God’s intention that we get rid of denominations, but that we begin to see each other as a part of His larger body and learn to work together?
I think of the New Testament. From that, we try to create a “biblical church”—something that lives everything the Bible teaches, I guess. But which church are we calling “biblical”? The church at Ephesus? Rome? Corinth? We have the privilege of reading over the epistles and seeing the whole picture of the Bride of Christ. Every one of those churches had major differences and major issues. Just like our denominations.
As far as I know the word denomination never appears in scripture, but the attitudes and issues that brought about denominations do.
Most of Paul’s letters were to bring a certain church back on course, help them regain their focus. I don’t see Paul or anyone else trying to build one big monstrous, everyone-gets-along-and-agrees, perfectly “Biblical” (whatever that means) church. I’m afraid the very idea that one church should inhabit all the qualities of mature Christianity is nothing short of human idealism and is completely unbiblical. The closest thing Scripture has to that is Philippians. Paul does not reprimand the church of Philippi in any way that I know of, and we can learn a lot from that powerful little book. But does that mean none of the other churches were Biblical?
I don’t think so.
Your church is more biblical than you think. And denominations are more New Testament than you might have guessed.
The problem isn’t that your church has so many shallow issues or that we have so many different stripes of churches. The problem is that we don’t see each different church as part of Christ’s bride.
There is one body. And as Paul wrote to the church at Rome, this is how we are to live in that body:
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them. . .” (Ro. 12:3-6 ESV emphasis added)
He goes on to describe how that body relates. A person who is a part of the body of Christ will have genuine love, hate evil, cling to good, live with passion for the Lord, be constant in prayer, bless those who persecute, overcome evil with good and so much more.
If someone has confessed that Jesus is the Christ (Anointed Son of God) and believes Him to the point that his lifestyle is changed from a bent toward evil to a longing for good, he is a part of the body of Christ. (Check out the book of 1 John)
We have made the mistake of thinking that because someone struggles to obey in the area we feel is most important they are not a part of the body of Christ. But just because my one son struggles with instant obedience more than my other son doesn’t mean that he’s not my son. Neither does it mean that he is holier, because he struggles with whining and complaining about things.
Perhaps my boys are too young to draw totally relevant parallels, but the truth is still there.
Denominations are formed from camping around a particular command and exalting it as more important than the command someone else exalts.
We’re all one body. We’re just different parts of that body.
What if we began to see each denomination as a unique personality with God-given gifts and opportunities? What’s more, what would happen in our culture if Christians quit fighting and competing against each other and instead banded together to accomplish Christ’s commission to us for this earth?
When we branch off and start another “biblical” church, we’re only feeding the broken system. What if we transcended above the issue of comparison and began living out what it means to follow Christ right where we are? And what if we did that in the context of other churches who confess Christ as the son of God and seek to please Him?
That doesn’t mean there won’t be conflict. It certainly doesn’t mean there won’t be disagreements. But could we respect each other and love each other enough to pray together? To extend a helping hand in an area we are strong in and they are weak in? To receive their helping hand in our weak areas?
It doesn’t even mean we have to sing together every Sunday. But it does open up the potential of being able to sing on Sunday without competition in my heart for the Baptists across the street, or pious feelings for the Evangelical Free members who aren’t dressing real modestly. (Did you know pride is hated more in Scripture than immodesty? Not that we can all run around naked. But why don’t we deal with our sins?)
If we see each other as one body and different members of that body, the question then becomes are we doing what we were made to do? Because Scripture takes no effort to explain who exactly is the foot and who is the mouth, I don’t think we need to figure out who should be doing what. Rather, I suggest the focus should be on doing everything we can to build up the body of Christ and disciple all nations.
Is the Anabaptist church doing everything it can?
Why don’t we have more resources available? And I’m not just talking about resources for our quaint churches in the hills of Pennsylvania. Why don’t we do what we can to make quality resources available to as many people as possible? No this is not the secret key to being most effective, but it is an area we don’t do well in that would increase effectiveness.
I have an idea about what holds us back and I’ll write about that next week. But first I hope it’s clear that I am not suggesting this because I think it’s wrong that we have to go elsewhere for our resources. This is not about competition nor is it about promoting one denomination over the other. The goal is to follow Christ through His Word and to share our interpretations and applications in order to learn and grow from each other. It is tremendously sad when we cannot learn from our brothers and sisters of other denominations.
So before we go raw-raw about getting more Anabaptist resources out there to stop the infiltration of reformed theology, understand that this is for the purpose of serving each other.
As much as I may disagree with reformed theologians, I can learn from them. They can learn from me. And we can learn from you.
We’re not in competition. We’re harmony. Working together to build up the body of Christ and disciple all nations.
