The Future of the Progressive Churches of Christ: Part 10, If I Were Pope

Well, the Churches of Christ don’t have a pope, or anything close to it. And I don’t think we should. And if we did, it certainly shouldn’t be me. But if God were to make me the progressive Churches of Christ (PCC) pope for some unimaginable reason, here’s what I’d do —

* Start a theological periodical. Not too deep. It should be aimed at a popular audience, especially elders, preachers, and Bible class teachers.

This is why the Restoration Quarterly doesn’t fit the bill — it’s too high brow. And the Christian Chronicle flees theology, as does Wineskins (Lots of skins. Not much wine.)

The periodical’s mission would not be to propagandize for my views. Rather, it should be a vehicle for the exchange of ideas. We don’t need a creedbook. We need a conversation. What we believe and stand for should derive from the community’s discussions, not the ideas of some editor (or pope!)

Therefore, a worthwhile periodical would allow people to publish in disagreement with earlier articles. In fact, it should solicit and simultaneously publish opposing views. You see, the most important lesson the periodical could teach is that we can disagree, be polite to each other, listen, respond, and still be brothers.

Someone else can publish devotional or inspiration material. And my magazine wouldn’t ever publish a poem of more than four lines. But it would offer material useful for leaders who run churches. And it would present evangelism ideas.

It would, I suppose, be a lot like this blog, but with more points of view and much better writers.

* Publish some good Sunday school books. First, we’d turn out a steady stream of materials for small group studies and for adult Bible classes. But we’d quickly produce Sunday school materials for children, too. I mean, why should it be so hard to come up with next quarter’s curriculum? It’s not that we lack needs. It’s just that it’s hard to find material at the right level that we amateurs can teach from.

* Reach out to the conservative Churches of Christ. Starting a proper periodical and publishing good Sunday school material will get us well on the way. The next step would be to “debate” our friends in the CCC. Again, none of the hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric that was common in the last century. Rather, we should simply share the stage with the most prominent spokesmen for the CCC and explain politely why we disagree. Or we should publish books where the two sides swap arguments.

Somehow or other, we have to get our views into the hands of the members of the conservative Churches, in terms that explain our teaching that can be understood by the ordinary eldership. Maybe God will send us the next Walter Scott to show us how to communicate what we believe more persuasively.

* Complete the unification with the independent Christian Churches/churches of Christ (ICCCC). Rick Atchley has done marvelous, Godly work in pushing for unity between the PCC and ICCCC. But the job isn’t finished.

To truly be united, we need to know each other and work together toward common goals. But even now, I know the Baptist Churches much better than the ICCCC. I don’t know their leading preachers. I don’t subscribe to their publications because I don’t even know what they are. I know next to nothing about their colleges. I’ve read some of Jack Cottrell’s work. That’s about it.

They have lots of conventions and societies for evangelism, missions, and church plants. I know next to nothing about them. I don’t know whom to call join them. I’m not on their mailing lists.

We remain very much two fellowships. But I know the solution: we’ll tell everyone about them in the new periodical! How else?

* Join societies for evangelism. This is something the ICCCC does quite well, and they’ve grown rapidly this way. We need to learn from them and join with them. We need to resist the temptation to form our own societies to compete with our brothers.

* Unite to the extent possible with all Christian congregations. Such a unity effort — very much in the spirit of Stone, the Campbells, and Walter Scott — would distinguish unity of practice from unity of salvation. We should treat all penitent believers as brothers in Christ and cooperate with them to the extent possible.

But we can only fully cooperate with those who are (a) willing and (b) similar enough that we can share missionaries, work together on church plants, and evangelize our communities side by side. I mean, the fullest unity is achieved when we can send our children’s to each other’s congregations and seminaries.

But we can cooperate in helping the poor and helpless with all believers.

The obvious next step is to realize Alexander Campbell’s dream of unity with the Baptist Churches. There are obvious barriers, but we need to try.

Remember: Campbell’s first periodical was called the Christian Baptist. His congregation was part of the Mahoning Baptist Association for many years. On his death bed, when informed of an effort to re-unite with the Baptists, Campbell wept for joy, declaring this the happiest day of his life (Garrett, The Stone-Campbell Movement, p. 250).

The Baptists have changed a lot in the last 150 years. And they are trending in our direction (and we are trending in theirs). Many are teaching a baptismal theology hardly distinguishable from our own. G. R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament (1962) has had a significant impact. And many Baptist Churches are establishing elderships, influenced in part by Alexander Straunch, Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership (1995). And I understand that many Baptists are questioning once saved, always saved. We study Rick Warren’s books. They study Max Lucado’s.

Of course, the biggest influence in these changes is the Bible itself. You see, once more readable translations were published beginning about 35 or so years ago, individual Christians began more effectively searching the scriptures for themselves and found themselves in agreement with their neighbors.

Baptist congregations are autonomous — despite what you may have been taught. Participation in the state and national conventions is voluntary. Their decisions are advisory only. And if you follow Baptist politics, you’d know that the Baptist congregations are quite willing to disagree with their conventions when it suits them!

Now, so long as we are organized as autonomous congregations, we can never fully unite with denominations that have a presbyterian (congregations elect representations, who form a body that has authority over the churches) or episcopalian (a bishop in authority by apostolic succession has authority over each congregation) organization. But “unity” means different things for different purposes. We can still care for the poor, do relief work, and even lobby the legislature for just laws together.

* Pursue denominational unity at the local level. I’m not much for the ecumenical movement, where denominational headquarters send delegates to negotiate common positions and perhaps merge. It has largely failed.

The cynic would say that the folks in the national headquarters don’t want to lose their jobs. It would likely be more accurate to say that change best comes where the Holy Spirit is most powerful — and that is among the membership. (And they have less invested in the status quo.)

Therefore, it’s at least possible that the way to accomplish the Restoration Movement’s vision of denominational unity is to work so closely with fellow Christians at the local level that a community’s churches have more loyalty to each other and their shared mission than to their denominational headquarters.

This doesn’t mean they’ll all come to teach the same thing. But the issues that distinguish us are largely trivial. I mean, who really gets emotional over the doctrine of apostolic succession? Or over prevenient grace?

When we’re rebuilding worn out houses, tutoring children, and campaigning for justice side by side, we’ll be one. Who knows what results God will give through such efforts!

* Reform our universities. Actually, I’m very fond and proud of our universities. I just think they can do better.

We should be giving nearly free educations to kids who go into ministry or — especially! — missions. We should be flooding the world with missionaries. Instead, we strap $100,000 school debts on to the backs of youth ministers and send them out to try to survive on $30,000 a year. It’s wrong. And it’s stupid. How can we grow without a well-trained ministry?

(Pay for it by switching to NCAA Division III and ending athletic scholarships. All they do is make us just like everybody else, which is not the goal.)

While we’re at it, our universities need to offer degrees in Bible in extension locations throughout the country or by distance learning over the Internet, and thereby go head to head with the odious schools of preaching. The reason these schools succeed is because there’s a real need for training second-career preachers that our colleges don’t meet. (Too expensive, too far away, not enough night classes.)

Yes, I know this sounds like a pet peeve (it is), but growth requires trained people.

Abilene Christian has already gotten well into the missional movement, which is excellent. But we’re only maybe 1% of the way there. We need people who know how to develop low-income housing, rebuild neighborhoods, do inner city ministry, convert Muslims — we need a concentration of experts on the practicalities of doing church right. And the universities seem the natural place to accumulate the talent and know how.

But even when our schools accumulate this kind of talent, they struggle to get outside their educational box. We need to figure a way to get this expertise into the churches. (Maybe a periodical with articles on how to do these things would help?) The word has to get out — call Abilene or Lipscomb and they’ll send an expert to train you on how to do these things.

Over time, this expertise will likely move to the societies — to free-standing nonprofits supported by churches voluntarily, which, in turn, support the churches as they do these things. But we need to be building up our knowledge and experience base.

* Make our churches cooperate. I mean, I’m pope … right? I actually get paid to train cities and counties and industrial boards on how to recruit industry. Want to know the answer? Cooperate!

We have brought our American self-sufficiency into our churches. Worse yet, we’ve brought our capitalistic desire to compete into our churches. Rather than competing with Satan — breaking down the Gates of Hell — we compete with other to see who gets to be first in line to heaven. It’s dumb and self-defeating.

We don’t have a clue about how to cooperate. We have a vague sense that it might even be wrong. We need a major change in our church culture. You see, we’ve escaped much of the legalism of the past, but not the old mental habits. And changing habits that are over a century old is not easy. (It would sure help to have a magazine reminding us of this each month, wouldn’t it?)