Honoring the Hawleys

A 70th wedding anniversary is a rarity.  I’ll certainly never have one, and I’ve never personally known a couple who celebrated one.

Julia and Monroe Hawley are celebrating theirs today — August 22, 2015.

The Hawleys have spread much good influence through the years, particularly in the North Central states, according to the Christian Chronicle’s August edition.  I don’t know the couple personally, but I do have one of Monroe’s books, Redigging the Wells, in which he attempts to call those in the American Restoration Movement churches back to restoration ideals.

Anyone who does that type of thing, while coming to be known for having an “irenic spirit” and having a marriage that lasts 70 years, is worth of honor.  And so I honor them here today.

Preparing for onslaught

Monday, I heard a speaker refer to reforming.  She framed herself as a Calvinist, and therefore, a “reformer.”

Notice the suffix she chose.

The speaker’s self-descriptor caused me to question both her literalness and the self-awareness of most religious movements.  (Don’t ask.  I’m just like that with words.)  She could equally aptly have said, “I’m (R)reformed,” but that sounds a little more static.  I myself would also choose the bolder assertion of being a reformer, and with that boldness goes a certain amount of misplaced arrogance, I know.  The point is that I want to be engaged actively in reforming.

Again with the suffixes:  I could have said “I want to be engaged in reformation,” but the –ation wouldn’t have implied enough ongoing activity for my taste.  Maybe that’s just how I hear it.

I would not choose “reformed” or “restored,” even if the former term had no denominational associations.  Calvinist and American Restorationists (Stone-Campbellers) alike tend to view themselves as having restored, as having arrived, to an appreciable extent.  The concrete resultant state is the problem.  To think we have it all figured out is also arrogant, of course.  I find it a trifle unbecoming for anyone to label himself “Reformed.”

The gerund -ing implies just the right thing.  I want to be an active reformer, which means I’m into reforming on an ongoing basis.  Calvin and Zwingli were as explicitly interested in a primitivist, back-to-the-Bible brand of Christianity as I am.  I was intrigued yesterday by some material I was reading on Zwingli–he is said to have stressed the “utterly unique authority of Scripture,” holding the Bible at the “heart of reformation.”  (Begbie, Resounding Truth, 114).  The 16C reformers said and did some good things, and they went overboard on some others—just like the rest of us.  If we continue actively reforming today, these overboard positions receive fresh analyses.  That’s the kind of Christianity I want to be engaged in.  Christ-ian discipleship implies active learning and following.

For the next three days, I’ll be availing myself of an opportunity for blistering criticism.  This will be, in a limited sense, a strong—like poblano peppers?—taste of active reforming.  These posts will by no means be a bedrock look at central doctrines.  Rather, they will constitute one possible starting point in the business of reforming.

Those of you who may wish to position yourselves “graciously” at the ecumenical epicenter of Christendom may wish to tune out until Sunday.  🙂  Starting tomorrow, for a planned three days, I’ll be posting a criticism of the Roman Catholic notion of priesthood, touching on related doctrines and assumptions that are in desperate need of reforming.  It is not only the RC institution that deserves censure; there are applications for all of us in all our church groups.  Let us continue reforming.

Capitalization and denominationalism

Through the years, there have been several positions I’ve held that have later been altered.  Others have remained constant.  One of the more meddlesome, persistent opinions–both in my heart and in the eyes of others, I think–has been that the practice of decapitalizing[1] the letter “C” on the word Church in its proper-name appearance is silly.

Some church bulletins and letterhead paper, and even references to congregations in denominational newspapers and journals will appear like this:  “The Main St. church of Christ held a gospel meeting,” or “The East Side Baptist Church, the New Life Community Church, and the West Ave. church of Christ contributed 5 cans each to the Community Food Bank last month.”  I’ve written a few “letters to the editor” of the Christian Chronicle on this topic, and a couple have been published.  (The current editor seems to have cleaned up the  editing on this point!)  The more narrow, dyed-in-the-wool CofCers still don’t get it, though.

I imagine it’s difficult for those from other religious traditions even to begin to understand how this practice developed.  In order to comment on this, I’ll leave today with a quote from John D. White, found in a book called Restoring the First-century Church in the Twenty-first Century.

Once upon a time, it was almost a dogma that “churches of Christ” had to be spelled with the lower-case “c” on the word “churches” to prove that we were a movement, not a denomination.  Tricks of spelling, however, do not disprove the thoroughly denominational status of that recognizable body of churches that may be denominated “Churches of Christ.”  The real name in-house of the denomination is “the brotherhood”–who’s in, who’s out, whose preacher gets invited to speak at the Christian [c]ollege lectureships, etc.  A more formal institution with elected denomination officers, headquarters,  official print organs, and certified educational institutions would be more denominational only by a matter of degree.  Informal structures may well be stronger than formal ones.

What do you think about denominations, speaking either from common sense or from scripture?  And do you agree or disagree with the last sentence in the paragraph above?

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[1] Here I intentionally say “decapitalizing” and not “leaving uncapitalized” or some other, less negative term.  The English-language convention, of course, is to capitalize words in proper nouns.  An alteration of that practice, therefore, merits being labeled as de-capitalizing.

Ideals of the 18C New England Christians

Abner Jones and Elias Smith had called for a restoration of Christianity according to the clear teachings of the New Testament. They did not seek originally to found a denomination, but to call all men to live simply as Christians in the one church of Christ. The denominational world often despised and opposed them, but the fire of persecution only made their vision shine clearer. Yet, when opposition gave way to success, the years of prosperity which followed proved more destructive to their ideals than the years of struggle. (James Gardner, The Christians of New England, 77)

Two comments on this passage (from a book I’ve finished–it’s been a while since I actually finished a book!):

First–on the notion of “restoration according to the teachings of the New Testament.” This is a worthy goal! This is a worthy goal! (No, I didn’t just accidentally copy & paste that in a second time.)  Grammatically speaking, I’m not sure a testament or covenant can possess teachings, which is why I usually refer to the “New Covenant writings” or some such phrasing, but we know what he means. Anyhoo … I wish, hope, pray, beg, urge, plead, and long for the restoration appealed to in the phrase above.

Second–on the observation that movements tend to lose their moorings over time. I believe sociologists (religiologists?) have noted a basic pattern–motion from a) movement to b) sect to c) denomination. This makes some sense, given human nature. Is there any way to maintain focus on cherished, valid ideals? Is there any documentation of a sincere, right-spirited, well-founded religious movement that has remained a movement instead of turning itself (whether unwittingly or otherwise) into a full-blown denomination?

I think of the Amish and the Mennonites, which may be examples in some regards, but who have also lost some of their original tethers. What about the Lutherans? The Wesleyans and Methodists? The Swedenborgians? The Vineyard Church? Or today’s so-called “emergent/emerging church”?  Few leaders of movements seem to have wanted denominations founded in their names, yet this crystallization has occurred, many times over, throughout history.

God, keep us true to You and to Your ideals.