Let’s suppose you have a family in our house church that has
been with you for several years. They laugh with you, cry with you, worship
with you and serve with you on a daily basis. You’ve heard the Lord speak to
you profoundly through these dear people. Their family is part of your family.
You cannot imagine being a church without them.
However, imagine now that they do not fully embrace the
doctrine of the Trinity. Let’s say they believe that Jesus is God, but that he
also takes the form of the Holy Spirit and sometimes the Father. [It’s called
the “Jesus Only” or “Oneness” doctrine for those of you who are not familiar
with the concept.]
Although they do not agree with you or anyone else in your
church family about the Trinity, they also never attempt to argue for their
"Jesus Only" view or impose their perspective on anyone else in the
church. What do you do? Do you invite them to leave? Do you host an
intervention and attempt to show them how wrong they are?
As I was reading Rad Zdero’s latest book, “Letters to the
House Church Movement” I found myself asking myself this very question. What
would I do? In his book, Zdero provides a specific example of an occasion when he counseled a family to separate themselves from another family they
had been serving with for a long time because of just such a difference regarding the Trinity doctrine. But, is that the right thing to do? I’m not so sure.
Also, just this week, Neil Cole published an article at CMA Resources about statements of faith and he included the doctrine of the Trinity at the top of his list of what he calls "Gun to the Head" beliefs
So, let me share with you my thoughts on this idea of formalizing our beliefs into a statement of faith.
First of all, let me affirm that I am a Trinitarian. I do
accept the traditional Christian view that God is One being who is revealed in
three separate persons as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. However, is
this view something that we should use a litmus test for fellowship, or even
for salvation in Christ?
Jesus did not seem to believe
that it was of utmost importance that the Disciples/Apostles understand the
doctrine of the Trinity. If He did, then He did not stress it to them in His
teachings anywhere. Also, the Apostles and the NT church did not ever seem to
be of the opinion that agreement with this doctrine be the litmus test for
salvation. Again, if they did then we should see some very strong teaching in
that regard. And we don't.
Yes, I do believe the doctrine of the Trinity, but I also
believe that salvation is by Grace, through faith alone in Christ Jesus. That
means when an 8 year old girl prays to receive the Christ as Lord and Savior
and begins to follow Him, we do not automatically expect her to be capable of
explaining the Trinity to anyone. If she fails to explain the Trinity correctly
do we proclaim that she is not saved? I wouldn't think so. So, I'm of the
opinion that it's better to allow people to grow in their understanding of who
Christ is and not dismiss people for not being where I want them to be
doctrinally.
I think my response is also tempered by the fact that our
house church is made up of people from a wide variety of backgrounds: Baptist,
Methodist, Brethren, Charismatic, Presbyterian, Vineyard, Calvary Chapel,
Pentecostal, etc. Because of this wide
diversity we have maintained our love for one another and our unity by simply
not allowing any particular theological perspective to rise above the
over-arching practice of learning how to follow Jesus in our daily lives and
how to love Him and love one another as He commands us.
Do we disagree on doctrine? Yes! But not intentionally, and
certainly not during our fellowship time together. Exceptions to this rule are
few, of course, but in general we try to focus or time on Jesus and allowing
His Spirit to lead us. Sometimes our differing perspectives leak out, but in
those cases we are all careful to express those differences with grace. For
example, one brother in our fellowship is a dispensationalist. I am not. Most
of us are not, actually. So, if our perspective of a particular verse is
informed by that doctrine we say, "I believe XYZ because of the way I
understand these verses ABC." We try to allow for the possibility that we
could be wrong, and we allow others to voice their different view if they want
to. But, the key is that none of us is attempting to impose our views on anyone
else. We share our perspectives openly but we do not divide on those issues -
and we never allow those differences to overshadow our time together in Christ.
Everyone is In Process
One way we have come to understand these differences is by
acknowledging that "we are all in process" and by that I mean that we
all fully admit that there are convictions we hold today that we did not hold
five years ago. We also know that the convictions we hold now could change in
the next five years. We are all in process, and because of that we have grace
for one another and we do not try to harvest green fruit or coerce people to
agree with our perspective.
As you might have guessed, our house church does not have
any formalized statement of faith. Whenever someone comes to our church and
expresses a desire to join with us we simply say, “If you love Jesus and if
you’re sincerely trying to follow Him in your daily life, you’re in!” That’s
it. If people aren’t comfortable with this, they usually excuse themselves.
(And some have, but not because we invited them to leave).
Here's one reason why we have not attempted to write any
sort of Statement of Faith for our house church: Historically, every time the
Church has tried to bring unity through the writing of doctrines it has always
resulted in greater division because some will always disagree with that
doctrine. Doctrinal statements have never resulted in increased unity, only
increased division. That's why we allow people to grow in their understanding
of Christ and of the Scriptures at their own pace.
Olly Olly Oxen Free?
Does that mean there are no standards? Of course not. None
of us would allow an outsider, or an insider for that matter, to introduce a
teaching that was contrary to clear Biblical truth. For example, if someone
came and wanted to convince us that Jesus was a space alien from Alpha
Centauri, or the spirit-brother of Lucifer, we would all open our Bibles and
demonstrate that Jesus is no such thing. The key, of course, is that none of us
attempts to sway anyone else in our group to agree with them.
At a basic level, we believe that the Gospel is
fundamentally about transformation, not about information. In other words, we
follow Christ and we encourage one another to know Him more, to follow His
teachings in our actual, everyday lives, and we work to put His Word into
action rather than sit around and argue about it from a theological
perspective.
Unity or Division?
I think doctrinal statements divide as equally as they
unify. For those who agree, unity. For those who do not, division. But if the
church says, "We love Jesus and we're following Him in our daily
life." Then all followers of Christ can agree with that and those that
don't have no place in the Body, because they are not following Christ.
Even with doctrinal statements, there will always be those
who silently disagree but who go along with the program because they don't want
to be excluded from the fellowship. You will also eventually discover that
although everyone agrees with doctrine X, they don't all see doctrine Y the
same way...and now you've got another opportunity to start excluding people and
dividing the church.
Our variety of doctrinal backgrounds at our house church
hasn't prevented us from "walking together" or serving together or
advancing the Gospel together, or serving the poor together, or anything else.
If anything, we learn from people who might otherwise be excluded from our
fellowship because we welcome anyone who says, "I love Jesus and I am
doing my best to follow Him in my daily life by the Grace of God."
I don't know about the rest of you, but I don’t want to be
in a church where everyone agrees with me on everything. Homogenization isn't
our goal. Following Jesus, putting His teachings into practice and encouraging
others to follow Him is.
I'd love to hear your thoughts concerning this.
Peace,
kg
