**Update** I’ve expanded the opening paragraphs from the original posting to provide a little more context. I also changed the article title to be less negative.
On my About page, I wrote that:
“I grew up in a non-denominational Christian church and never paid any attention to doctrine, creed or theological issues, if such things were talked about. As kids, we went to Sunday School, sang hymns, took communion every week, listened to the sermon, then went outside and played in the backyard forest while the adults caught up on each week’s activities.”
When I left Alaska to go to college, I drifted away from formal church activities for a few years. While my NASB never left my hand, I never seriously sought out a church home-away-from-home. Eventually I made the acquaintance of the Christian group on campus and attended the local Alliance church my senior year in college. After graduating, I attended a Lutheran church with a young lady and her family, and I was formally baptized there in 1995, having confessed myself to the Lord several years earlier. Since then, I’ve visited and been a member at several congregations; my wife and I presently attend a local Baptist church.
Through it all, my memories of that original Alaskan church have created an element of tension between what I’ve perceived in the denominational church environments around me and what I’ve mentally held as my non-denominational “ideal”. I never knew Homer Christian Church as anything more than a community church of families, united in worship. However, after some recent conversations with my dad, I’ve learned that, in addition to my memories of good honest people, the core group of families came from a Churches of Christ (CoC) background.
Members of Christian Churches and churches of Christ believe in the deity and Lordship of Jesus Christ, the inspiration of the Bible, and the autonomy of local congregations. Following the basic principles of the ‘Restoration Movement’, they accept and teach believers’ baptism (immersion) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins; they assemble for worship on the first day of the week, making the observance of the Lord’s Supper a focal point in such worship. They seek the unity of all believers on the basis of faith in and obedience to Christ as the divine Son of God and the acceptance of the Bible particularly the New Testament as their all-sufficient rule of faith and practice. (Source)
Churches of Christ derive their doctrine and ecclesiastical structure from the New Testament, and intend to avoid the binding of traditions, practices, or doctrines that have arisen since the writing of the New Testament. Thus, they recognize only Jesus Christ as founder, and they trace their ecclesiastical and spiritual origins to the first Day of Pentecost after Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, which is when the Bible records the birth the church. (Source)
You don’t know how much those statements ring true to me; Wikipedia’s bullet points on CoC distinctive traits describe my early church experience to a “T”:
- “The refusal to hold to any formalized creeds or statements of faith, in preference for the Bible itself.” Rick Mansfield wrote a nice article a week ago about the need to honor the traditions of historical Christianity instead of always searching for the Next Big Thing. I don’t know whether the Restoration Movement that CoC churches subscribe to qualifies as a NBT, given that it began around 1801, but I definitely didn’t grow up in “traditional Christianity”. I don’t recall ever saying a creedal statement growing up; my first mature memory of a formal statement of creed was at a Lutheran church after college – it seemed so formal and artificial, like memorization. Now obviously I’ve been “exposed” to orthodox Christianity in the years since, but I still have an internal cringe against liturgical church services.
- “Autonomous, congregational church organization without denominational oversight.” I’ve mentally fought the divisions and labeling of denominations for as long as I’ve searched for a church home as saved Christian. If the context of CoC wasn’t overtly taught to me as a youth, I certainly sub-consciously absorbed autonomy from episcopal and presbyterian authority.
- “Local governance by a plurality of male elders in cooperation with a preacher.” Our church was led by a preacher and three elders. That’s the way it was. The preacher preached, but decisions always involved the elders. There was a time when we were in between preachers when the elders gave the weekly sermon.
- “The teaching that both repentance and believer’s baptism (by immersion) are necessary in order to receive forgiveness of sins.” This obviously is the biggest point of contention between CoC and orthodox Christianity: whether the forgiveness of sins happens by pronouncement of faith or by the act of baptism. CoC is branded heretical for the latter view. Fortunately (or not), I don’t recall the act of baptism being a frequent part of my church experience, with one significant exception (see below). That might have been because most everyone was already baptized by the time we started attending and we didn’t really have a lot of new people attending or joining; the small-town congregation of 5-10 families was pretty insulated and self contained.
- “The weekly observance of Communion, referred to as the Lord’s Supper.” I grew up experiencing Communion as a regular part of the weekly service, though I didn’t participate since my sinful pride at the time kept me from being baptized. It was a shock to attend church services where Communion wasn’t observed weekly, but only at the beginning of each month. For all the negatives that I remember of my brief time attending a Catholic church with a former betrothed, at least they observed Communion weekly!
- “The practice of a cappella (non-instrumental) worship, usually as a matter of strict doctrine but sometimes as a simple matter of preference (similar congregations that allow the use of instruments are usually known as Christian Churches).” As one of the latter congregations, our music consisted of a piano accompanying congregational hymn or chorus singing. On very rare occasion, my dad would play his trombone along with me (trombone) and my brother (trumpet). Though I think I made us play from the back of the church, as I didn’t like being in front of people and the focus of so much attention. Touch not the glory!
The baptismal exception was my parents; they both grew up Lutheran, which meant they were baptized as infants. I don’t recall the year, but I have the distinct memory of their choice to be re-baptized as adults. I never really knew why they’d chosen to do that until recently when my dad explained that their decision was based in part on the desire to eliminate barriers between my parents and the corporate church body. It is ironical then, that my wife and I face a similar situation as attendees of a Baptist church that requires the mode of immersion baptism for membership (not for forgiveness of sins), when both of us were baptized by sprinkling (my wife as a youth, myself as an adult – both in the Lutheran church).
I can’t say that I was overtly taught all of the beliefs of the Church of Christ, but the absence of traditional “church structures, doctrines, and hierarchies” definitely left its imprint on what Christianity is to me and it explains my constant leaning to scripture as the “sole rule of faith and practice.”
As any regular reader of this blog can tell, I’ve been stuggling lately with the eschatological issue of preterism and how it fits or doesn’t fit with orthodox Christianity and all its associated creeds, doctrines and traditions. Now I perhaps have a better contextual understanding of why I’ve been so restless in this debate. Many of the founders of full preterism came from a CoC background; it is natural that one environment that rejects creedal authority would lead to an eschatological view that also rejects creedal interpretation.
The question for me is: what place am I going to make for my history, my tradition, in my present views and practice?
8 Comments
Hello, ElShaddai.
I, too, grew up in the Restoration tradition. That group today falls into three main branches. Group 1: Churches of Christ. Group 2: Christian Churches. Group 3: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I’ll refer to them as group 1, group 2 and group 3. Group 1 and group 2 have no denominational structure, though group 2 has the annual North American Christian Convention. I’v heard that the only official business at that convention is to elect the people who plan the next convention. Group 3 has a denominational structure with “regional ministers” and a headquarters in Indianapolis, IN.
Group 1 usually does not use instrumental music in worship. They tend to be quite separatist, not sure that anyone outside their group is saved. Schools associated with this unofficial movement would include Abilene Christian University and Searcy College. Their most famous member is Max Lucado, but his beliefs are by no means typical of the group.
Group 2 tends to use publications from Standard Publishing Company, http://www.standardpub.com
Group 2 people tend to be conservative but not separatist.
Group 3 is a mainline denomination. Their schools include Texas Christian University and Drake University. Lyndon Johnson was a member of this group, as was Jim Jones of The People’s Temple infamy.
I grew up in churches of group 3, but on the edge of the group that was more similar to group 2.
I’m not sure whether any of this clarifies anything for you.
There’s a systematic theology from the Restoration movement, written back in the 1800’s. It’s “The Scheme of Redemption” by Robert Milligan, and is still in print.
As for preterism and the restorationists, I’m not sure what to say. I’m more futurist than preterist in eschatology. The restoration movement sprang up at a time when few people were futurists.
As for water baptism, you may or may not have read my odd view on my web site. My view falls somewhere between the restortionists and the Lutherans and the Baptists. I think each of them would think my view is too much like the view of one of the other groups.
Sorry to write such a long essay. It’s wonderful how the Lord works through a variety of people and through a variety of churches, imperfect as we are.
Thanks for the insight, Jim. I think we were definitely group 2, Christian Churches, though some of the original families were group 1. My time there was largely the 1980s, up until I left for college in 1990.
Thanks for the link to Standard Publishing, as well as the Milligan book. My curiosity may just get the better of me…
I know you and I have talked baptism before, but I’ll be sure to stop by your site again and look your thoughts up. Also on that topic, my dad also said that there were some in the church who had relationships with a church in Anchorage that practiced triune baptism, but I don’t recall the church or organization they were affiliated with.
FWIW, I’ve been in that Homer church many times, both with my parents when I was growing up and, later, as an adult. I have warm memories of the good fellowship there with longtime friends. I never knew it had a denominational background of any kind. I just thought it was a community church, non-denominational.
Unless there was both a Homer Community Church (on the street to the hospital) as well as a Homer Christian Church. We had friends in the first church, then.
There was/is both… Homer Christian Church was on East End Road, just outside of town by the new (in the 1980s) high school. I think the one on Bartlett St. (on the way to the hospital) was Christian Community Church.
“Community church, non-denominational” is still a good description for HCC too.
One scriptural name for the church is the church of Christ. That can be found in Romans 16:16 as you probably know. In Acts 20:7-and following verses we can see that the church was meeting at night. That would be Saturday night according to our calendar which would be the starting of the first day of the week according to Jewish reckoning.
If you want to know about the true church and about scriptural salvation then read……trulysaved.blogspot.com.
Read this and find out the truth you have been looking for all of your life. Blessings to you and all.
This was a very interesting post. I’ve always attended churches of Christ, myself. I’ve also been interested in finding out more about the Christian churches.
Anyway, I was curious about your comments about baptism. If you don’t mind saying, what’s your current position on it? Or do you have a link to where you and Jim Swindle talked about it before? Personally, I do believe that baptism is something we’ve been told to do for our salvation. I don’t think it’s the only thing, but I do think it’s part of the process. And I also believe that the Bible teaches that immersion is baptism’s correct form.
Look forward to your reply! (and sorry I’m so late to the discussion…)
It’s a fair question, Nate. I don’t have the link to my conversation with Jim, so I’ll try answer the question here.
I’ve struggled with religious legalism all of my life, especially those times when the practice of faith feels like a checklist of things “to do”. For the longest time, baptism was one of those things on a checklist – you’re not really going to heaven, i.e. be saved, unless you’re baptized. Now maybe I picked that up from the Church of Christ church environment I grew up in – I don’t know.
I still sometimes struggle with whether my decision to be baptized at age 22 was checking off “my list” or an emotional response to my mom’s death earlier that year. Or both. Or the Spirit using those events to create an opportunity for my faith to take stronger root and continue the transformation process. I do know that I cried out to God several years earlier in college on a very dark and cold winter night and asked him to take over because I was lost. Should I have been baptized then? Maybe, but I wasn’t in unity with a church community at the time to do that with.
Romans says that if we profess Christ as Lord and have faith in our hearts that he is the first fruits of our eternal resurrection then we will have salvation. I see baptism as a public symbol of that statement of belief and faith, but not the act of salvation itself.
I have always held that a proper declaration of faith can only done by someone aware of their sin, a so-called age of accountability. I believe that children who die before they are able to make this decision are saved nonetheless by God’s love and grace. My wife and I had our two sons baptized (sprinkling) as infants, but more in the sense of dedicating them to God and the church (my wife’s parents, as Lutheran and Catholic, would say otherwise). There is no mystery or magic in baptism – it is act of corporate unity with the universal Church.
I expect that, when they reach the appropriate age, my sons will face their own decisions of publicly professing their belief and faith – if we stay at the Baptist church we’re currently attending, they will be baptized by immersion again as part of that profession.
Ironically, to be members of the church, both my wife and I will need to be baptized again, since they do not recognize sprinkling as a valid form of baptism, infant or adult. That’s a bit of legalism to me, but I understand their position (and yours) and am comfortable with a “redo” to be in unity with the church, much as my parents were baptized again to be in unity with our church in Alaska.