Restoring Unity...Again:Neo-Restoration and Ecumenism

When I was in high school I had a tremendous life situation for a young disciple. Much of my time was spent with my youth group formally and informally. A fair number of church friends doubled as school friends, which makes life (not to mention consistency) easier for a boy. Even better than this, a number of other school friends were also Christians of a various stripes. Among those were some impressively devout, spiritual people whom I respected greatly. There was quite an exchange of Christian piety going on between the lot of us. They came to our devos, we came to theirs, we all defied the U.S. government together at See You At the Pole, singing to Jesus with proverbial fists raised at the oppressor. In an outburst of indignation some of us CofC friends decided one night that there was no good reason not to get over our differences and be one body of Christians. Of course, it stuck us that someone had surely thought of this before, so we hopped on the world wide web to investigate. After an appallingly few clicks of the mouse we had learned all we needed, most especially a new word: ecumenism. The "ecumenical movement," our single web page had taught us, was a failure because people had made all beliefs equally unessential in order to worship together. One had to believe nothing in order to be ecumenical. Now having the foresight to overcome this tragic flaw we were ready to promote unity without being "ecumenical." We hand picked a few of our favorite Baptist friends, threw in a scared solitary Catholic for good measure, and began meeting to see if our disagreements were indeed insurmountable. We were prepared to share our biblical arguments for certain positions and asked that they do the same. Apparently the ferocity with which our biblical passages flew was not conducive to the longevity of our little experiment in Christian unity. For whatever reason, our friends preferred to discontinue the meetings. We were, nonetheless, very proud of ourselves for having tried--no one could say we hadn't--and continued with our now somewhat resentful belief that unity is possible.

But is it? Am I just a hopeful high schooler trapped inside a seminary student's body? Only after our erstwhile attempt at unity did I come to learn how the Restoration began with the very same naive dream in its heart. This only incensed me more, for it is a great tragedy--something far beyond irony--that I could never have know this because of all our divisiveness. Nonetheless, I remain proud of the spirit in which we began and will not give it up. The Restoration holds a unique place in the history of Christianity, if only for its location in time and space on the American frontier. There are plenty of downsides to this context, but the opportunity for unifying a vast and increasing array of denominations in a burgeoning pluralist society was unique. The burgeoning is over, and it may be time for the pendulum to make its halting reverse of direction. The RM has had plenty of other lessons to learn in these years, but we remain in a unique position--and better for the lessons--to foster inter-denominational unity. Neo-Restoration must look to its roots. The radically ecumenical aspect of restoration must itself be restored among us.

I have two questions as I read over what I have written above. There are more, but it will be two for now. (1) How are we in a unique position, and (2) how will unity be achieved?

(1) I don't want to state my perception of a unique position too strongly in relation to the second question. That is, I don't think it is the answer to Christian unity. I think it is highly related, though, and will at the least be a contributing factor to the RM achieving a greater degree--indeed, any degree--of unity with others. This is the unique position that I see: we are anti-tradition. Of course, if you know much at all about the RM you are thinking that this predilection has not proved to be all that helpful in previous attempt to unite the church. I cannot disagree; the frightening and well documented tendency to believe sincerely that the RM churches had left aside all theological/philosophical tradition-like influences on our understanding of Scripture and God is a harsh reality. But the RM's introspection over the past decades has been very significant, and we owe a great debt to the historical theologians who have given so much to make us aware of the truth. For this reason my plan is to work (at a painstakingly slow pace) through these kinds of writings here on the blog.

Let me sum up the findings as I understand them, though, in order to finish making my point about our unique position. We stand firmly in the tradition of Stone and Campbell. Writing as a Church of Christ goer, I am more in that of Campbell. Either one of those men was firmly in the Enlightenment tradition of the early 19th century. The fact that they did not realize this--because of some of the very philosophical assumptions inherent to enlightenment humanism--meant that their tradition was all the more dangerous theologically. Here is the great irony of ironies. These men (and the rest of us after them) who wanted so badly to check the theological/philosophical influences among the denominations, by denying that they themselves were under such influences, were unable to check their own predispositions, which ran rampant. I deny that this position is helpful at all, but I also deny that the initial diagnosis of the schismatic power of tradition is invalid. The divisive force of church tradition is a reality that must be dealt with in the realm of ecumenism. The position becomes helpful only after we come to terms with the reality of our own theological tradition, at which point we may decide how to proceed. I believe the way that will capitalize upon our strength is to accept our tradition rather than continue only blithely trying harder to be traditionless. If we may continue in self-examination, imperfect though it be, we may do theology not without being influenced by our tradition but with careful consideration of how it is influencing our determinations. This seems to me the best way of dealing with church tradition in any denomination. But tradition or the theological influence of tradition often becomes normative in a church context, and the normative level is where things get divisive. The RM is an a uniquely skeptical position in regard to the normative value of tradition. Once we are aware of a tradition among us, my assumption is that we will be eager to examine its influence upon our theology. We have been too eager to examine the influence of other denominations' traditions, but if we would examine our own, and they theirs, unity becomes much more viable.

This is particularly apparent in the arena of biblical interpretation. A long-standing discussion exists in Biblical Theology (the field) about the meaning of Scripture. Krister Stendahl wrote a classic, much debated article about the difference between "what it meant" and "what it means." The dichotomy is helpful for getting a handle on the issue, even if the article is not the final word. At one level of biblical interpretation we ask what the words of the biblical letter or book meant to the writer and original recipient (historical exegesis). At another level we ask what it means to us, a different audience in a different setting (various kinds of theology/application/homiletics). The former question requires a much more historical endeavor. Without positing here a theory of totally objective historical inquiry, it seems evident that in order to understand properly what a writing meant to its author, one must be cautious to hold theological assumptions and traditions to one side. While this is no easy task, I believe the RM has an advantage here as a whole, simply because the concept makes sense to us on a church-wide scale: tradition is an influence to be checked when studying Scripture. [One of our dilemmas is the outright conflation of what it meant and what it means, so in the CofC, at least, we tend simply to stop with exegesis, which I hold to be theologically inadequate. For more on this see the Neo-Hermeneutic thread on this blog.] I do not intend to insinuate here that we are better exegetes of Scripture; it is meant as an example of how willing we are to hold the influence of tradition in check--even our own, given awareness of it. This is what I mean by "unique position." I believe such a procedure is necessary for much more than exegesis.

Some implications of what I'm getting at:

Implicit in my discussion is a moderate post-modern pluralism. Post-modernism is a reaction to lessons learned from the excesses of Modernism. As many of the RM's excesses fall right in line with Modernism, we must appropriate the lessons learned, so long as they do not become excesses themselves. Hence "moderate." In other words, we are not eschewing our tradition or asking anyone else to do the same. You've got yours, and I've got mine, and that's fine. That is the way religion goes. What I'm asking is whether, after accepting tradition for tradition, we can separate that from norm and all be more realistic about the biases our traditions create.

Implicit in my discussion is a very high view of Scripture's place in the unity discussion. I hardly think, as my RM forefathers did, that reaching a consensus on the "meaning" of Scripture is even possible, much less the sole means of restoring unity. But division is always theological at some level, and for Protestant Christianity, the Bible matters more for theology than anything else. Thus, I do believe the exegetical round table is the best starting place. It will give us all practice at examining our presuppositions, which will have to continue through the rest of the theological process.

I will leave this section with a quotation from the first book I will be working through (because I'm already reading it for a class): Evangalicalism & the Stone-Campbell Movement, edited by William J. Baker. Craig Blomberg writes:

What does it mean to retain Stone-Campbell Restorationist distinctives within mainstream Arminianism or even evangelicalism? The question is a fascinating one, not unlike the one our sister study group in the Evangelical Theological Society (on progressive dispensationalism) has been asking about their movement for the past decade. Each of us is tied to a constituency that often values certain divisive traditions, though this is probably less so for the scholars among us. In view of these facts, the harder question to raise and address is to what extent Restorationists (or Dispensationalists, or Baptists, etc.) should even be trying to preserve their unique tradition's distinctives.

I leave Blomberg's conclusion off in preference to the thoughts of those reading this blog. What is your answer?

(2) How will unity be achieved? In addition to the factors I've been discussing, there are many more. For my part, all I will add for now is that unity will be first and foremost "of the Spirit." I do not know what all that entails, but I believe it. How would you answer this question, keeping in mind we are talking about the RM's particular characteristics?

A "Neo" Hermeneutic

I have really appreciated the comments and interest about my Neo-Restoration post. The dialogue is precisely what I've hoped for. I intend to proceed by bringing together concerns and comments in subsequent posts according to topic and relevance. Given the variety of threads created by the comments (and my upcoming semester schedule) progress will be slow but hopefully steady. At present there are a few obvious posts to work on. First, the basic question is what hermeneutic replaces the literal-logical one I am rejecting. It is easy to be destructive, but can Neo-Restoration be constructive? Second, questions about ecumenicity and, relatedly, the Emergent Church Movement have...emerged. What exactly does "ecumenical" entail, and how does Neo-Restoration practically proceed in relation to other denominations. Third, much more must be said about what it means to restore and what ought to be restored. This is related to every other thread we might pursue, but specifically it will be helpful to draw on resources that reveal what has been our idea of restoration and make some comparisons with Neo-Restoration. The present post, then, will deal with the hermeneutic issue.

While discussing Neo-Restoration with one of my professors, I explained that for me the idea of Neo-Restoration is motivated primarily by the thought that the Church of Christ is defined by its hermeneutic. The professor suggested that I would learn differently in time. I think I might more clearly have expressed my meaning if I'd said that any protestant church is defined by its hermeneutic. I truly believe it must be so. I grant that there are other historical or cultural kinds of influences on the identity of a church, but any church that looks to the Bible as it norm for decision making about what it believes, how it will act, and all the rest, must be essentially a reflection of the way it interprets and understands the Bible. A "Bible only" church is a hermeneutic only church. Because the Church of Christ has been so "Bible only," I think this must be even more the case. If you change a church's hermeneutic, you change the church; if you change the Restoration movement's hermeneutic, you get a new restoration. So, naturally, I think the hermeneutic question is the most basic one. All others will follow.

To this point I have made no effort to define the Church of Christ hermeneutic other than to say it is literal-logical, biblicist, and anti-theological/philosophical. The hermeneutic trinity of command/example/necessary inference (CEI) came up quickly in the comments, however, as though that is what I am rejecting. This is not exactly the case, since I am questioning much more. Mark (see comments on "Neo-Restoration") raises a couple of appropriate questions. First, is the view of CEI as inadequate "fairly unanimous" in Churches of Christ? Second, given that many are leaving CEI behind (in word at least), something must take its place, but what? I will spend my time on these two questions for this post.

I will reframe Mark's first question a few ways. Is our traditional hermeneutic still in place? Am I picking a fight with a straw man? Are we not beyond rejecting the old hermeneutic? I easily agree that many churches are in various stages of questioning and rejecting the way we have approached the Bible in the past. This is merely symptomatic of the very dissonance that leads me into this discussion, and again, I hardly suppose I'm the only one experiencing it. But in fact, the churches that are in such transition and the many that are not continue to make theological decisions by defaulting to a literal-logical hermeneutic that relies primarily (though not totally) on CEI. There are many simple tests of my hypothesis. Walk into virtually any Church of Christ and ask why they believe in (fill in doctrine or practice here). The answer will almost invariably be that it is taught in the Bible. How? Well...it's either commanded or else there's an example of it. If not those, then its reasonable to infer from other teachings and examples. The fundamental answer: because it (said doctrine or practice) is biblical.

Now, in my initial post I said that the concern for being biblical is the Restoration Movement's greatest strength and tradition. What Neo-Restoration asks is what it means to be biblical. There is more than one way to read the Bible and we are fairly well locked onto only one of those. Neo-Restoration must as relentlessly as ever ask, "is that biblical?" That is not synonymous, however, with, "is there an example for that?" or "show me where it says that!" or "Bible words for Bible things." Anyone familiar with the Restoration Movement knows I could go on, and this is no caricature. In those more progressive churches, there is certainly a sense in which many quibbles and divisions have been left aside for freedom from the need for CEI on every point of doctrine and practice. But press those churches as well on the things they do hold dear and you will likely see Bible pages flying in search for, well, a proof text. I thank God for the churches where this is not the case (sounds funny, huh?), but in response to Mark, I do not think the view is even remotely unanimous that doctrine and practice should be arrived at in other ways. It seems, instead, that there is a growing consensus that in an effort to reject CEI many churches have decided that a great many decisions need not be biblical at all. This is perhaps because there is little to fill in the hole that rejecting CEI leaves, which brings me to my second point.

As far as I can tell at this point in my studies, there are a great many other hermeneutic options out there. To name a few examples: Narrative Theology, Process Theology, Dialectical Theology, Liberation Theology, Feminist Theology. Anyone studying theology knows I could go on. Now, it is certainly a matter of opinion whether any one hermeneutic is better than another, but one question that is invalid is "is it biblical?" since the hermeneutic itself determines what is biblical. Then again, one particular approach that seems fruitful is to consider how the biblical authors themselves interpreted, appropriated, and used Scripture. In that sense there is a biblical hermeneutic. By exploring this theological process I think we will find a few things right off. One, there is not a single hermeneutic at work among the biblical writers. Two, there is quite a bit of disregard for forms and determinations found in previous Scripture in light of new circumstances, information, or experiences. (I'm expecting comments on this point about biblical writers being inspired. That's fine, but please include a serviceable definition of inspiration and perhaps a bit on the canonization process.)

I find it difficult, as I expect anyone would, to suggest one hermeneutic to replace the process we have used. One of the primary lessons to be learned from our history is that there is a world of people with insight into God and his Scripture, and it is ludicrous to ignore their contribution. Neo-Restoration's hermeneutic will be eclectic and always evolving in light of this lesson. Beyond this, it is not that all commands and examples should be ignored or assumed unimportant. There are some of those that I find to be highly important and always relevant. Instead, it is perhaps "necessary inference" that needs defining. It is here that the greatest ambiguity of the Restoration hermeneutic lies, and it is here that the theological process rejected by the RM hid in an undeveloped, unidentifiable, dangerous form. It is the theological process that goes beyond the recitation of the commands, examples, and propositional statements of Scripture that must fill out or replace the old hermeneutic. That process can only be developed and defined in conversation with all the theological options available. This means that CEI is not the problem. Biblicism and anti-theology dispositions are. Neo-Restoration is not preoccupied with the harmful effects of "the traditions of men," as though history has not proved we have our own traditions or that biblicism addresses the issue. It is men for whom God provided Scripture, and it is men--with all their handicaps--who must interpret it. We must talk about God in language other than purely Bible language, and we must endeavor to understand the meaning of Scripture beyond face value. This is subjective, uncertain, and highly threatening to the rationalist mentality of Restoration forebears. It is, nonetheless, the only way forward. As we attempt to formulate a theological process that is somewhat in tune with our Restoration heritage, perhaps the best starting place is to examine the theological process in which the early church was engaged.