Christian Affirmation – A Closer Look
Recently, a few handpicked “leaders” of the Church of Christ fellowship (of which I was raised in) collaborated to form a document they coined the “Christian Affirmation” (link). It is necesssary to note that the churches of Christ have no official governing body, technically. Each church is autonomous under its own leadership of elders, ministers and lay persons. We do, however, have a network of schools and universities which act as a pseudo-government when problems arise. This has persisted for decades now.
The affirmation seeks to “clarify” and “unite” churches of Christ by expounding on three issues that have given “identity” to the fellowship historically.
Question 1: Why does our particular church sign need an identity? Can’t we let each autonomous branch define its own identity?
Proposed Answer: If each church is able to make decisions on fellowship, doctrine and worship without outside influence, we lose the ability to feel safe (or satisfied) when someone says they belong to a “church of Christ”. What does that mean? Which church of Christ, the one on Elm St. or Maple St.? Yes, heaven forbid, if this were the case we would actually have to ask each person if they believed in Jesus as the Son of God. Obviously this is beyond reason…
Question 2: Do the signers of the Christian Affirmation really believe acapella worship is as important as baptism or communion?
Proposed Answer: With a few exceptions, yes. Nevermind the fact that there is no clear directive for acapella / instrumental music in the New Testament. After all, our identity is at stake. (Side note: We are told to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to one another. What is the difference between a psalm and a hymn?)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m passionate about Christian unity more than anything. I’m also passionate about exposing disunity and those who purposely make it difficult to come to Christ. The very nature of God is to work in ways that we do not expect, and I’m sure that when we surround the great throne, there will be those there whom we did not expect to see. Meanwhile, let us fix our thoughts on Jesus, who starts and finishes our faith.
I suppose at this point you are willing to agree that we are a denomination among many. I also figure you don’t think ‘denomination’ is as dirty a word as our tradition’s forebares did. So at last we take our stand shoulder to shoulder with all the rest of Christianity, making a muck of Bible interpretation. Of course, as a denomination we–no less than any other–have a distinctive community identity that may or may not be worth preserving. Having finally left behind the impulse toward uniformity, however, we ought to be leaning more on the side of preserving our identity as a contributing voice to the aforementioned muck. That is, if we are a denomination, we are so because we have a distinctive voice. In that case we are talking about our tradition here (ironic isn’t it? surely not what the framers of the “affirmation” had in mind), and our tradition, in both inertretation and practice, has been acapella. In fact, more than any other thing acapella defines and distinguishes our movement from other evangelical churches who would esteem both baptism and communion. Certainly this is not to affirm a sectarianism rooted in something so, as you note, questionable. But as far as identity goes, I’d say the affirmation is on the mark. I only pray that all for all of those men the most important identity markers were not mentioned because they are so deeply assumed.
Now if you want the real irony, note the sources of argumentation for acapella. Rather than scripture, it’s tradition, particularly Calvin! Well, thank God they didn’t affirm a hermeneutic of silence. I’d be less sympathetic in that case.