It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.
— Terry Pratchett
Perhaps somewhere, there is someone who dwells among unicorns that does not have preconceived notions about church. If you are that rare creature, you should wait for my next post. For me, I need to unravel my church history to understand how it shapes my perceptions and expectations about church. At this point, with regard to church, I’m not sure where I am and I don’t know where I am going. As Pratchett posits, it is important to know where you come from.
“Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while or the light won’t come in.”
Alan Alda
Choosing to believe my windows are crystal clear, I resist challenges to my assumptions. My adopted mantra…”I could be wrong” prompts me to forge ahead. Church history in this post refers to personal experience with church rather than 2000 years of Church History. Most people have a church history, all of which differ in some way; but none of us can escape the influence of our personal experience of church. Perhaps, as you walk with me through my church history, you will recall you own and recognize ways in which your perceptions and expectations about church have been shaped and together we can see where we should go.
I have no memory of life without church. There was the church Dad and I attended— church of Christ— and the church Mother attended— The Methodist Church. I have no recollection of animosity between them, although I can’t imagine there wasn’t. As a youngster, it was clear churches differed, some were right and others were not. The church of Christ was the former. There was only one true church— the church of Christ— all others were not the true church.
Members of the church of Christ do not conceive of themselves as a new church started near the beginning of the 19th century. Rather, the whole movement is designed to reproduce in contemporary times the church originally established on Pentecost, A.D. 33. The strength of the appeal lies in the restoration of Christ’s original church.
—Batsell Barrett Baxter
I wrote in some detail about my experience in the church of Christ in an earlier post, you can read it HERE. I learned early, the best way to know what you shouldn’t be doing was to look at what other churches (non-church of Christ) were doing. Such logic about church is clearly irrational and I reject it intellectually, but I cannot help but wonder if it doesn’t reside somewhere in the depths of my assumptions about church. explaining my tendency to be critical and wary.
I learned church was a place. Not any place, but a building —not any building but a building that reflected the nature and character of the church we believed it was established on the day of Pentecost AD 33. You could tell if it was the correct building because the cornerstone would be engraved —”Established AD 33” . Memorials to good stewardship and proper doctrine and ecclesiology , buildings were sparse, devoid of decorations, including a cross on an occasional steeple. Interiors were consistent with the absence of icons, banners or crucifix. The only semblance of an altar would be a communion table —”Do this in remembrance of Me”— flanked by the pulpit beneath a baptistery.
Ornate and extravagant church buildings were evidence of departure from the New Testament church and delineated “in” from “out”.
Church was where religion happened. There were certain things that could and couldn’t be done at church — within the church building and particularly in the auditorium (not the sanctuary). Everything changed when I went to church— clothes, language, demeanor, music. It was confusing to observe activity regularly condemned in preaching and teaching to somehow be allowed, if not permissible, as long as it wasn’t “in church”. Unwittingly, my life was being shaped into two discrete realities, sacred and secular.
Church was home. I felt welcomed and loved. There was fellowship — koinonia —the preacher called it. My religious identity was church of Christ. We were a special people, Campbellites — a derisive appellation, worn proudly because it affirmed our righteous sectarianism. To put it another way, we were a tribe — families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect — our tribalism was most evident in our assertion that members of the church of Christ th were the only ones going to heaven. It was home.
The above are just a few examples of my church history. There is much more for me to reflect on, including theology, doctrine, hermeneutics, ecclesiology, to understand my underlying assumptions about church. These are biases about church. Despite the fact that my view of church has changed dramatically over the course of my spiritual journey, biases from my church history will resist and/or filter new or different understandings about church.
This exercises requires self-awareness and self examination, both rare commodities.
…even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare
quality: We estimate that only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the
criteria. *
It is my contention that any effort to re-examine church, absent a clear understanding of our mostly hidden but powerfully influential biases about church, will produce little more than confirmation of those biases. If you are inclined to walk with me on this trek, I encourage you to examine your church history — know where you have been and where you are —so we can see where we should go.
Still on the journey.