Rev. Jim Lyon, newly ratified General Director of the Church of God, recently participated in a Q&A article in the quarterly Warner Press publication Book Lines. (If you missed the article, you can read a scanned version of it here.) I find this to be an important document because, to my knowledge, it is the first substantial written contribution Rev. Lyon has made on the topic of doctrine and theology since he was ratified as General Director earlier this year.
The first question asked of Rev. Lyon was about whether or not Church of God doctrine is “as obvious [today] as it was” in earlier years. He answered this question well by pointing toward examples of “core doctrine,” such as Christian unity and the gospel message, which are of greater significance than anything we could characterize as “divisive doctrine.” I think any local church could benefit from examining periodically which doctrines, practices, arguments, and issues are “core” and which are “divisive.”
But then Rev. Lyon wrote at length about five “nonnegotiables” – five beliefs of the Church of God as presented to him, submitted by many leaders individually and at his request. These five beliefs are notable for what they include and what they exclude – and for how they are presented.
Certainly, if you or I were asked to summarize the five most important beliefs of the Church of God, we would out of necessity leave something important off the list. Five is an arbitrary number, but not too large for the task at hand. The five “nonnegotiables that came overwhelmingly” from the people Rev. Lyon asked were these:
- Jesus (the entire gospel event; his divinity)
- Holiness (personal transformation)
- Unity (within the body of Christ, both Church of God and external to us)
- The Great Commandments (love God and love others)
- Scriptural Authority (the Bible is our rule of faith…)
I appreciate this list and believe all five of these are worthwhile contributions. It is no surprise to me that #1 is Jesus. Besides being the most frequent answer to children’s Sunday school questions, the name “Jesus” carries a lot of theological weight in American Christianity today. We are not so much God-followers as we are Christ-followers; we are not so much trinitarian believers as we are believers in Jesus. That’s not to exclude the language of “God” or “Trinity” from our discussions; it’s just to note our locus of theological identification in the present age. (Witness many pieces of worship music written in the past decade; how many of them address Jesus as the object of our praise?)
Similarly, #2 and #3 must be holiness and unity if we are to call ourselves the Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). Salvation, holiness, and unity have been our self-proclaimed theological characteristics for decades. I am thankful that these are still at the top of the list. However, I believe our understanding of each needs to be broadened. (And again, this is no fault of Rev. Lyon’s; he only had limited space in which to address each of these topics.) For instance, holiness need not be limited to personal transformation; it can and should have a social perspective, as well. We are not holiness people who sequester ourselves from the world. Instead, we are holiness people who have a Christ-centered responsibility to see transformation take place in our townships, communities, neighborhoods, and cities. We are holiness people who have a responsibility to give the hungry something to eat, to give the thirsty something to drink, to invite in the stranger, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to visit the imprisoned.
Similarly, our understanding of Christian unity needs further discussion. Actually, I disagree with the article’s statement – summarizing the beliefs of Church of God leaders – that our “movement must become a catalyst for the unity of the universal body of Christ… We must ask, how do we integrate with other Christians? How can we become God’s instrument for unifying his body?”
I disagree with this statement because I believe it comes from a misunderstood place of our identity and influence in the broader Christian world. If we believe that we must catalyze the unity of all Christians, then we will be sorely disappointed. We simply do not have that kind of voice in today’s world. (Take note of Pope Francis’s actions, interviews, and Twitter posts since his installation this past March. I would posit that he has done more to engender broad Christian unity – in healthy, kingdom-centered ways – in the past eight months than the Church of God has since its inception 130 years ago.) We are small, and our influence is simply not that large. Would a single-A baseball player on a six-month contract set a goal of hitting a walk-off home run to win the World Series in October? A better goal would be for that ballplayer to be as faithful as possible in his post, to work toward team unity in his current assignment, to respect the contributions and perspectives of the older, more seasoned heavy-hitters in the farm system.
The Church of God must work toward Christian unity in our local, national, and international contexts. But we must have a healthy understanding of who we are – and of who we are not. More often than not, when someone discovers that I am a Church of God pastor, they ask first, “Oh, are you associated with the Cleveland, Tennessee people?” They do not say, “Oh, you are part of that movement that is going to draw together all Christians!”
The fourth and fifth “nonnegotiables” – the Great Commandments and scriptural authority – are solid candidates as well. We cannot go wrong with these two, although to be true to our identity as Wesleyan holiness people of faith, “scriptural authority” must be balanced by the contributions of reason, tradition, and experience. The Bible is our rule of faith, yes, but we also interpret the Bible through reason, tradition, and experience, and the influence of these three sources must not be ignored. We are not biblical fundamentalists, after all.
Finally, a word or two about what is not on the list. As Rev. Lyon commented, close runners-up to these five included the doctrine of the Trinity and “gender equality.” I believe we would do well to reconsider the importance of trinitarian doctrine; surely this is not less important than our call toward, say, personal holiness. At the same time, I wonder if “gender equality” really means “support of women in ministry.” And when I compare these two ideas (Trinity and gender equality), regardless of their historical influence on the Church of God, I believe they are on unequal footing when it comes to what a church group should hold as its most important doctrines of faith. (This is not to denigrate women in ministry; it is merely to highlight the importance of the Trinity as an historical Christian doctrine with which we must be aligned.)
Rev. Lyon listed a few items that were not mentioned at all: “eschatology, the structure of the church, or the name of the church.” I would add my surprise and interest that evangelism was not included in this list of “nonnegotiables.” Do you remember the General Assembly of the Church of God in 2011, during which it was announced that we were “claiming 25,000 souls” for the kingdom of God in 2012? This was reemphasized at the Strategic Planning Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, in September 2011. It was the primary thrust of our observance of “Focus 40” (i.e. Lent – do we remember our emphasis on Christian unity?) in 2012. I found that to be a distasteful and inappropriate goal on a number of levels. It was not, in fact, part of our DNA (as was claimed in 2011) to be soul-winners and soul-winners alone. After “Focus 40” and, indeed, all of 2012 came to a close, there was absolutely no mention from Church of God Ministries of the 25,000 people that we had hoped to add to the kingdom. To be sure, we are indeed called to make disciples of all nations, as Jesus commanded us, but I find it reassuring that our national leaders have not identified evangelism as a top-five doctrinal belief of the Church of God.
It is because we believe in Jesus, holiness, unity, the Great Commandments (to love God and others), and scriptural authority that we extend the gospel message of Christ to people outside the church. It is because of these five things that we serve our local communities by reaching out in the love of Christ. It is because of these five things that we draw closer to God in discipleship and to each other in fellowship and love.
What else should be on this list?
David – There certainly is a lot in both the interview with Rev. Lyon and the post here to chew on and think over (I’m planning to offer that myself in the next day or two) but I’d like to push back a bit on the idea that the Church of God shouldn’t consider itself able to speak to the wider church concerning our distinctive theological beliefs.
If we imagine we can launch a massive campaign in order draw all of the church together in Christian unity based on our level of influence then I would agree we would be disappointed. But it doesn’t take anything nearly that ambitious for the Church of God to be a catalyst for unity. A catalyst, after all, can be something very small and otherwise unremarkable that in the right setting can exort an inordinate amount of influence and change.
When I survey the landscape of post-modernism, the changes in the church at large, the interestes of at least certain segments of the millennial crowd, and even current trends in scholarship, I find myself more and more compelled to believe that the Church of God has historical roots that might equip us well to serve the kingdom in the coming generation. I also believe we might be closer in thought, as well as connection, with some rising voices in wider church than we have been in the past.
Again, we ought not go on a great campaign to change the whole church, we’d do better as you said to go about living lives of holiness and unity, and I’d add repenting of times when we have not, but I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that if we keep swinging away at that task, this plucky little single-A church might just get called up to the bigs.
Joe, I appreciate your optimism. I think I tend to be optimistic about individuals but pessimistic about organizations, so your perspective is a good corrective for me.
What I’m reacting against is the language being used by some of our leaders, not just in this Q&A with Jim Lyon, but previously in other settings as well. That language seems to suggest that we *already are* large and important enough of a catalyst in broader Christianity that we already have that type of transformational voice in the larger dialogue. I do believe that we have an important message to share with Christians of all stripes, a message which stems from our historical roots, as you say. But I wonder about our self-awareness of that message.
That’s why this discussion about our “nonnegotiables” is so important. Of course we’ll include “Christian unity” on the list, because we all remember that “holiness and unity” are key terms for us. But what do we mean by unity? What do we hope to achieve? And what techniques are we using to achieve it?
To continue the baseball metaphor, we can swing away at pitches that are in our wheelhouse, but we should study those that are in our cold zones.