Under Siege: The Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace

I confess that I am distressed by my ineffective, feeble “effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Ephesians 4:3)  Division over political, social, and economic issues seems to be damaging the country and overflowing to rend the Church. I am struggling with how to respond faithfully to the way these divisions have brought Christian unity under siege. While differences of opinion are a universal part of the human experience, in both political and spiritual realms, many have observed a significant increase in zero-sum binary thinking in the country that seems to be infecting the Church as well. “Us vs. Them” thinking that divides into two competing camps, spawns further fragmentation as differences within the camps also splinter and cripple each of them.

This divisiveness is threating the oneness of the Church.  I sense it is our time of trial from which I pray daily to be delivered, as Jesus taught. I have been well aware for some time that the petition “lead us not into temptation” in the Lord’s Prayer may be better translated “do not bring us to the time of trial,” as the NRSV renders it. (I did reflect on that at http://nstolpepilgrim.blogspot.com/2018/04/lead-us-not-into-time-of-testing.html.) As I use the Lord’s Prayer to prompt part of my daily prayer routine, I have been conversing with God more and more about what seems to me to be the present time of trial for the Church. In these conversations I have become increasingly convinced and concerned that our time of trial is in maintaining “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

I sense a growing chasm between those who call for biblical justice and compassion for the weak, poor, and marginalized people among and around us and those who call for patriotism and support for a pride-filled vision of the nation as a Christian responsibility. I am well aware that this shorthand greatly oversimplifies the complex constellation of issues and principles involved, but I do believe most of us recognize which one is “us” and which one is “them.” I also want to be clear that my agony here is not so much over the division and fragmentation in the country, though that is important, as it is about how this seems to be contaminating and dividing the Church in the US. My sense is that our unity in Christ is under siege. Not only do I feel personally powerless to address it, despite my best intentions, I feel sucked into its vortex.

Though it was not included in the liturgy at the time of my 1975 ordination in a non-denominational congregation, I have committed myself to the pledge to maintain the peace, unity, and purity of the Church that is common to ordination vows in many traditions. Keeping the delicate balance of peace, unity, purity is not easy. Often those who insist they are protecting purity do so at the expense of peace and unity. Often those who put the priority on peace and unity are vulnerable to compromising purity. Part of the challenge is that while we might all affirm peace, unity, and purity, definitions of each can vary widely, especially about what standards of purity entail.

Disagreements that threaten the unity of the Church go back to the New Testament time. Romans 14:5 gives this instruction for handling disputable issues in the Church, “Let all be fully convinced in their own minds.” One of the challenges of becoming “fully convinced” is that you start to think everyone else should be similarly convinced, especially if you are convinced those who disagree with you are a threat to the purity of the Church. I examined this in “My Conscientious Objector Journey and Witness” at http://nstolpepilgrim.blogspot.com/2018/06/my-conscientious-objector-journey-and.html. I am struggling with how I can “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” when the chasm between what Christians whom I love and respect seems to be widening rapidly over deeply held positions that seem irreconcilable and essential to the purity and witness of the Church in our time.

My ordination standing is with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), though I have served and fellowshipped with a wide variety of Christians. Barton Stone, one of the founders of the movement that became the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), said, “Let unity be our polar star.” And Thomas Campbell, another founder of that movement, wrote, “The church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” The core commitment to the unity of the Church has not prevented sometimes grievous divisions in that movement, and some would say unity has come at the expense of purity. I won’t delve into that any further except to note that some retellings of the history of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) points with satisfaction if not pride to the fact that they did not divide over slavery or the Civil War – War Between the States as did other major denominations, some of whom did not reunite for a century, and then with some rancor and other divisions.

I am in no position to critique those who made these decisions a century and a half ago. However, having lived and served in Texas for seventeen years, I have also learned that the Civil War – War Between the States and slavery are still viewed quite differently by many than the presuppositions among northern folk with whom I have spent most of my life. That war is often cast as defending one’s home from outside, confiscatory aggressors more than about slavery or even preserving or seceding from the Union. Robert E. Lee is revered and respected (I was taught respect for him in public school in California in the 50s and 60s as well.) while Abraham Lincoln is considered suspect and not highly ranked among US Presidents. I am not going to try to argue the interpretation of this history, but only ask if there were not moral issues at stake at the time that threatened the purity of the Church, even as unity was preserved in that church context.

In his prayer in John 17, Jesus prayed not just for his disciples but for us, “those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (vv. 20-23) The core of Jesus prayer for us is that we would be one, just as he was one with the Father, and that oneness would bring the world to believe that the Father had sent him. Jesus’ prayer suggests that the divisions among those of us who follow him are harmful to the mission of inviting the people of the world to believe that the Father sent Jesus.

I am not interested in some arcane debate over how God answers any prayers, much less this prayer of Jesus. However, the history of divisions among those who have followed Jesus through the centuries suggests we ourselves have been an impediment to the Father’s answer to Jesus’ pray for us to be one.

In Acts 15, they made a good and important start when they decided not to have two churches: one for Jews and another for Gentiles. Instead, they clearly opted for unity that brought together Jews and Greeks, slave and free, male and female, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian and Scythian; for all are one in Christ Jesus. (Romans 10:12; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Galatians 3:28; Colossians 3:11) After the time of the Apostles the Gospel spread and considerable theological variety emerged. After Constantine made his rather distorted version of Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire, there was a political push for unity under the rubric of One Empire. Some of that did clean up the confusion of heresies but introduced government force to insist on doctrinal conformity which spawned problems that I think would better have been worked out with open dialog within the Church. Be that as it may, the Great Schism of 1054 divided the Church into East and West, largely over power. The stirrings of dissent had been growing for some time when Luther’s actions in 1517 launched the Reformation. This bred not only Roman Catholic and Protestant and Eastern Orthodox churches, but the Reformation splintered into many competing groups, especially in the United States. The Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy at the beginning of the 20^th century divided Protestants of all traditions into two camps, who sometimes treated each other viciously.

I was raised and educated in a solidly evangelical context (Bethel College of St. Paul, MN and Wheaton Grad School of Wheaton, IL). I served much of my ministry career in mainline congregations (some but not all self-identified as evangelical in flavor). I have had three Roman Catholic spiritual directors and participated in a Roman Catholic community (L’Arche Daybreak in Richmond Hill, Ontario). With considerable benefit, I have drawn from Eastern Orthodox spirituality. I have had substantial interaction with people of Anabaptist tradition and now my wife and I fellowship with both a Mennonite and a non-denominational congregation. This has given me a sense of the bridging some of these historic divisions in our time, which I feel I have been able to participated in to some measure. This has been a source of joy and hope for me.

Against this backdrop, the schism I perceive to be widening in our time is acutely painful for me. It seems to be cutting across the grain of the more recent experiences and expressions of unity in Christ that I and others have been appreciating. Threatening invectives are being hurled across the ever widening gap, accusing those on the other side of not being true to Christ. The principle of being convinced in your own mind and still welcoming those of a different opinion as kindred in Christ is crumbling from both sides. “How can you call yourself a Christian and support … (fill in the blank with your own shibboleth)?” Learning from each other by dialoging about what brought us to be fully convinced is an endangered practice.

My sense is that the Church (all who follow Jesus from all traditions) in our time is facing a similar dilemma to what the Confessing Church faced in Nazi Germany. I mention this with some hesitation, as I know accusations of Nazism and Fascism are being hurled around in the political arena. While there may be some reasons for that, I don’t want the emotional reactions to such name-calling to distract from learning from the Confessing Church lessons I believe we need in our time.

The rise of the Nazis into power in German government challenged the Lutheran and Reformed pastors and theologians who took exception to what the government expected of the churches. They had generations of state church and government cooperation. The churches kept records of births/baptisms, marriages, and deaths for the state. In some instances pastors were virtual employees of the state paid by the state. Some of their predecessors in the generation of The Great War (as they called World War I since they didn’t anticipate another world war) preached that Germany was God’s instrument to save Christian civilization from secular democracy, and they prayed blessing on the soldiers and weapons as they pursued this holy cause. While formally structured in law and bureaucracy in contrast to the separation of church and state we are used to, the sentiment was much the same as the impetus to consider the US as a Christian nation in some circles today.

We need to remember that at that time “Nazi” was not a slur loaded with negative emotional connotations, but for many German people was a movement for recovering national respect after the humiliation of the defeat of World War I. In 1933 Ludwig Müller was appointed by the Nazi government as Reichsbischof of the German Evangelical Church (“German Christians”). Theological and liturgical changes were instituted such as deleting the Old Testament as too Jewish and including pledging loyalty to the state at part of worship. Though many pastors and churches fell into line, plenty of people muddled along with the routine of Sunday worship as they always had without protest. Those who did object openly became the Confessing Church as an alternative for those who opposed the German Christians.

Breaking with the government authorized church was a major and traumatic step for the Confessing Church. The break came when the German Christians began to enforce “the Aryan Clause,” which prohibited any who were not considered racially pure (especially those who had any Jewish ancestry) from holding any church leadership positions. The Theological Declaration of Barmen was issued in response in 1934, which became the rallying point and identifier of the Confessing Church with its confessional language.

The complete text of the Theological Declaration of Barmen is available from a number of websites such as this one. http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/barmen.htm It is short enough to read at a sitting and profound enough to ponder for a lifetime. I want to highlight a few lines that I believe speak to my concerns for Christian unity.

“Do not listen to the seducers who pervert our intentions, as if we wanted to break up the unity of the German Evangelical Church or to forsake the Confession of the Fathers!” (8.03) “If you find that we are taking our stand upon Scripture, then let no fear or temptation keep you from treading with us the path of faith and obedience to the Word of God, in order that God’s people be of one mind upon the earth.” (8.04)

The Confessing Church was accused of not only disrupting the unity of the Church, but also the nation, tantamount to treason. So early in the Barmen Declaration, they affirmed their commitment to the Church’s unity in Christ. In language reminiscent of Luther at Worms, they invoked Scripture as the basis for their dissent from the German Christians. But this greatly stressed the experience of cooperation and identification with the national church they had known for generations. They were determined not to become labeled as Anabaptists who had eschewed the state-church partnership as unholy. Perhaps an Anabaptist voice could have helped them with this wrestling as they had worked on it for centuries, but that would almost certainly have doomed the Confessing Church from the start. It would have been a step too far for the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of Germany.

I obviously identify with the Confessing Church in both its stance confronting the German Christians and the Nazi government and with the depth of their struggle with their commitment to Christian unity. I am especially agonizing over how to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” with those who exclude me because I cannot share their expressed loyalty to national and church leaders whose articulation of Christian responsibility is so contrary to how I have become fully convinced I must follow Jesus. I am not prepared to question the authenticity or sincerity of the faith of these folk, but sense our unity in Christ is seriously threatened.

Following are the specific theological statements of the Barmen Declaration. They made a point of casting these as theological assertions and refrained from making a list of individual objections. By doing that they avoided getting mired in petty debates over details. These affirmations may seem self-evident, but they shook the churches of Germany to the core and unsettled the government so deeply that some who made this confession paid with their lives. They purposely spoke to the foundation of Christian discipleship that continues to serve us today.

“We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords – areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.” (8.15)

 “We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions.” (8.18)

We reject the false doctrine, as though the Church, over and beyond its special commission, should and could appropriate the characteristics, the tasks, and the dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State.” (8.24)

Once again, let me be completely clear, I am definitively not engaging in any discussion one way or another about whether or not the current political climate in the US is akin to the ascendancy of the Nazis to power in Germany. My interest is in learning from the Confessing Church how to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” when threats of schism seem to me to be bringing the Church in the US to a time a great testing. To be sure, no list of steps for escaping the test or preventing the schism emerges.

While most of those who identified with the Confessing Church have faded into obscurity, the faithfulness of some was witnessed and passed on to our generation generally in the form of correspondence and church documents. A few left a written legacy of memoirs and theological writings. I deeply appreciate that they were transparent about their wrestling without coming to a clear consensus. If these folk who struggled (whom I and many others of our present generation consider heroic giants), who am I to think I have the wherewithal to come to definitive, convincing conclusions about what is, so far at least, much less intense testing than they experienced? I take them as examples and encouragement for persisting in faithfulness in the face of ambiguity and confusion. I resonate with them as partners in grieving the chasm opening in the Church. I join them in praying with Jesus that we might not be led into a time of trial, all the while trusting that Christ’s grace is sufficient for whatever lies ahead.

Jesus’ harsh words in Luke 11:47-48 remind us that most of the Hebrew prophets were not appreciated in their own generation. “You build the tombs of the prophets whom your ancestors killed. So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them, and you build their tombs.” Only after they were long buried were they honored, and even then not necessarily heeded. So here we are eighty some years later, and no one is reading the writings from the German Christians except as a scholarly counterpoint to better understand the Confessing Church. And yes, we still read not just the Theological Declaration of Barmen but a large body of theological, pastoral, and personal writing that emerged from the crucible the Confessing Church endured. Even though some of them did not survive it, their writing and witness has. I have no illusions that any audience will be reading my writing in a future generation, but I take encouragement from the Confessing Church that those writing of our struggles in this time of testing will be read for generations to come.

Though we may regard the courageous voices from the Confessing Church as heroes, they were broken people, as are we who struggle in our own time. Just a bit of biblical prologue to my observations. God seems to have had a great propensity for working through deeply flawed people. That doesn’t excuse any malfeasance but only highlights the wonder of God’s grace. Just rehearse in your own memory the faltering of these characters: Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samson, David, Peter, Paul. Their grievous failings do not invalidate what God brought to us through them.

This principle is a difficult challenge as we move into our own time. Though the Theological Declaration of Barmen was the shared work of a group of leaders of what became the Confessing Church, Karl Barth was the primary amanuensis. He is known to have had a decades long adulterous affair with his personal assistant. Does or should that invalidate Barmen or any of his other work? John Howard Yoder was a recognized university and seminary professor and arguably the most notable Anabaptist theologian of the 20^th century. Particularly after his death, his persistent sexually predatory history with female students has tarnished his reputation, undermining the credibility of his work. Though I and others have appreciated their work, a shadow is cast over it that calls for great discernment and for me would preclude positions of Church leadership. I myself have witnessed the collapse of marriages, families, and ministries brought on by the sexual misconduct of clergy colleagues, some of whom I consider as friends.

In the current public arena, the reputations of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton as sexual predators have been bandied about as weapons of political attack. Without getting sidetracked too much, I want to be clear that I consider their treatment of women and lack of sexual discipline equally reprehensible and regard both of them as unsuitable to be trusted with public office. To me, those who do not honor their marriage vows, cannot be expected to honor their oaths of office. I also want to be clear that I am all too aware of my own vulnerabilities and am dependent on the prayerful vigilance with which I must seek and welcome the strength of the Spirit and accountability of the community of faith.

Though this may seem to be an unrelated excurses, I am concerned that integrity is essential to enduring the testing that I think this current divisiveness in the Church is bringing upon us. Already accusations of various kinds are being hurled across the chasm to discredit voices on both sides. My recommendations for responding to this are paradoxical. Don’t dismiss out of hand the input of someone, especially someone you disagree with, just because of their character flaws without considering the merits of their ideas. Also, don’t dismiss out of hand criticism of the character flaws of someone you do agree with. Furthermore, recognize that moral failure undermines the credibility of the advocates for any proposition, so do everything you can to encourage ethical integrity among your colleagues. A momentary human failing when responded to with fruit worthy of repentance (Matthew 3:8; Luke 3:8) while serious, is quite different than persistent patterns responded to with dismissive rationalization. Most of all, guard your own soul with scripture, prayer, and accountability in community. Finally, remember that sex is not the only area of moral vulnerability; money and power are also alluring traps, and they are often mingled together.

I am inclined to think that one of the reasons the division and fragmentation in our society has brought the unity of the Church under siege is that the political categories and labels in the country have invaded and infected the Church. Rather than defining ourselves in terms of Jesus’ concerns, we have let the culture define us. I do not think of myself as politically or even theologically liberal/progressive or conservative/evangelical (especially in recent years as evangelical has been redefined as a voting block to be manipulated rather than as the bearers of the good news (gospel) of Jesus). In some self-identified liberal/progressive circles I get labeled as conservative/evangelical because of the centrality of scripture as inspired, reliable, and authoritative for me. In some self-identified conservative/evangelical circles I get labeled as liberal/progressive because for me following Jesus’ mandate means love and justice for the poor, the weak, the outsiders, etc. My commitment to scripture and to following Jesus in love and justice are not only inseparable, they are identical.

Taking a cue from Benedict, I have an established “rule” that has developed and continued to be shaped through my adult life, so I’ve got a half-century invested in this. I outline it here with some reticence because I do not see it as some great pious achievement, nor do I want others to view me as either a model or as self-righteous. Rather, I see it as necessary protection from my vulnerabilities and nourishment of my journey with Jesus. Also, this is “my rule” and not something I would impose on anyone else. What it boils down to is that if I expect to follow Jesus every day, I better take a good look at him every day and pay close attention. Since I have predicated so much of what I have written here on my intention to follow Jesus, I thought explaining how I discern how to follow Jesus to be important, recognizing the risk of Jesus’ warning about practicing one’s piety to be seen by others. (Matthew 6:1-18)

This means I start with a priority on soaking in the New Testament Gospels and observing Jesus’ relationships with people. How did he treat them? What did he tell them? How did they respond to him? I do that with the process known as lectio divina on the Gospel passage from the Revised Common Lectionary specified for reading in worship for the coming Sunday. I repeat that with the same passage every day for the whole week. Over the years I have been amazed that rather than becoming routine or boring, the depth of insights grows from day to day. I compliment this with the lectio divina process on the selections from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and the New Testament Epistles. This helps keep a balanced spiritual diet, but Jesus in the Gospels is the interpretive lens for these other passages.

My daily encounters with scripture are not simply about accumulating biblical information or aphorisms to prove some point or other. I find the metaphor that Henri Nouwen shared with me to be satisfying. Daily meditation on scripture is like a cow chewing her cud to extract all of the nutrition possible so all those spiritual amino acids are incorporated into every cell of my being. Or perhaps as Abba Poemen said in the 4^th or 5^th century. “The nature of water is soft, that of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above the stone, allowing the water to fall drop by drop, it wears away the stone. So if is with the word of God; it is soft and our heart is hard, but the [one] who hears the word of God often, opens his [her] heart to the fear of God.” I have expressed my aspiration to be shaped in Christlikeness in my personal mission statement: My intent is to live in such continuous awareness of the presence of God that my heart and character are in increasingly congruent harmony with Jesus Christ.

My prayer routine is to read through one of fifteen prayers from the New Testament Epistles and five Psalms each day. That means I cover all 150 Psalms each month and get through the Epistle prayers twice each month. For me this is not a matter of praying the words on the pages, but letting these prayers prompt me to have conversations with God about things that seem to be of concern to both of us. More often than not, the biblical prayer suggests things to talk over with God that I would not have thought of on my own. I am approaching 600 times through the Psalms in this way. Sure, I have gotten familiar with them, but when juxtaposed with the ever changing rhythms of current events and my personal life, they have never gone stale. It’s not a matter of every line every day, but a purposeful sensitivity to the Holy Spirit to be drawn into listening for God more than telling God.

Several times a week I take twenty minutes for centering prayer. I seek to come into God presence with an attitude of availability and anticipation. I sit in silence, usually with a lit candle to remind me of God’s presence (check out how often scripture makes fire a sign of God’s presence). As distractions or anxieties intrude, I gently release them to God. Without an agenda of my own, I am open to how the Spirit brings something from the reservoir of accumulated scripture to the surface that addresses either a concern I had or prompts me to consider something that hadn’t occurred to me previously.

For the past twenty-five years I have had a relationship with a personal spiritual director most of the time. (During my season of serving as an interim pastor, this wasn’t quite as practical as when I was more settled.) The role of a spiritual director is not to “direct” my spiritual life but to direct my attention to God and help me identify how God is involved in and shaping my life and relationship with Jesus. An important dimension of these relationships has been a level of trust that fosters accountability.  They have been people who I knew would confront me if they perceived I was wandering off the path with Jesus.

Though the siege on the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace affects the whole Church in the US, I have purposely written in a personal voice. I know it is neither my responsibility nor in my power to bring about Christian unity. But I do commit myself to attempt to address the concerns with love and respect toward those who disagree with me, regardless of how they respond to my perspective. I resonate with this quote that has been attributed to the Talmud (Shapiro, Wisdom of the Sages, 41. Paraphrase of Rabbi Rami Shapiro’s interpretive translation of Rabbi Tarfon’s work on the Pirle Avpot 2:30. The text is commentary of Micah 6:8.) which is clearly a reflection on Micah 6:8. “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now. Love mercy now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

If I am following Jesus when he says to love my enemies (Matthew 5:43-48; Luke 6:27-35 which is affirmed by Paul in Romans 12:17-21), I must love those who disagree with me so vehemently that they consider me not only their enemy but the country’s enemy or the Church’s enemy, or even God’s enemy. I am called to this with no expectation of reciprocity of kindness. Such love is not a glib cliché. It calls for challenging self-discipline to restrain my tongue, which is only possible with the power of the Holy Spirit. It calls for refraining from gossip, rumors, and slander of those who speak ill of me and others in my circle. It calls for welcoming those who claim Christ as their own as my spiritual kindred, even if they expel me from the community. Though my focus here is on the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace in the Church, following Jesus’ lead means welcoming all people with love whether they identify with him or not, even those who would consider themselves my sworn enemies. I make no claim of being able to heed these calls. They are challenging and costly. Without wanting to sound unduly pious, I must depend on the Holy Spirit for the necessary strength and discernment. I must fill my heart with the words of scripture and the presence of Jesus, so that in the moment of pressure what overflows from the abundance of my heart is the love of Jesus and not my fear or anger. (Matthew 12:34: Luke 6:45)  So far as it depends on me, I aspire to live peaceably with all. (Romans 12:18) O Father in Heaven, deliver us from our time of testing and trial!