Part three of a series. Read part two HERE
Challenging the commitment of the Church of God to one of its core tenets is not without risk. It can easily be assumed that this is a negative attack on our movement, or an attempt to discredit our heritage and doctrinal distinctives. This is certainly not my intent. On the contrary, I have been captivated by our teachings on the church, and this has deeply influenced my own spiritual journey and ministry. Nevertheless, as I pointed out in the previous article on this theme, we have struggled to put our doctrine of Christian unity into practice.
As with any opportunity for personal or corporate growth, the first prerequisite for change is an awareness of the need for things to be different. We must live squarely in the reality of our current situation, even when it reveals our shortcomings and prompts shame and pain.
The second step necessary for our transformation is one that should not be unfamiliar to those familiar with Scripture: Repentance. It is only when we approach God and others with a spirit of metanoia (literally to “change one’s mind”) that we will be in a posture to confess our missing of the mark and to take definite steps toward fulfilling the call that God has for the Church of God Movement.
As I have stated, we have nailed the doctrine, but have not always lived up to the practice of it. Yet, we are still known to proudly uphold unity as one of our theological innovations, as if we were the ones to finally get the biblical mandate for it figured out. We love the idea of unity. It conforms with Jesus’ passionate prayer found in John 17, and reflects the biblical vision for the Body of Christ. Human attempts at ecumenism have appeared to fail, but our understanding since Warner seems to us to provide the antidote to the highly fractured universal church. And, we are the bearers of this message!
But, unity is not just an abstract theological proposition. Like its doctrinal twin, holiness, it is a point of orthopraxy, not just orthodoxy. As Rufus Burrow Jr. in his excellent book, Making Good the Claim, reminds us, unity must be visible. Again, not to beat the drum to death, but we have failed to deliver in this way. And, for that we must repent.
I am convinced that for the Church of God to truly take on its God-given calling as a unifying agent, it is absolutely necessary for us to enter into a period of lament and repentance, both personally and corporately.
Without a deliberate confession of our shortcomings and intentional decisions for real concrete change, we will continue to find ourselves wandering in the wilderness, unable to attain the promised land of God’s vision for his church on earth.
Allow me to suggest some specific areas over which we must repent. This is not an exhaustive or ranked list, but a starting point for further reflection.
As a movement committed to a holy and united church, the Church of God and those of us who call it our ecclesial fellowship must confess the times we have failed to live out this conviction, and repent of these for the sake of establishing a new reality. Examples of this include:
Pride in our doctrinal teachings on unity despite not living up to them.
Giving priority to doctrinal positions over relationships.
Bowing to worldly, cultural influences that have led us to diminish the full acceptance and trust of our African American sisters and brothers, contributing to structural divisions which persist to this day.
Not calling out and condemning the past influences of blatant, racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, on the Church of God.
Viewing our once thriving German-speaking congregations in North America with suspicion because of our political concerns over events in Europe during the first half of the twentieth century.
Treating our Hispanic brothers and sisters as second-class members of the Body of Christ because of the prejudices fostered by the failed immigration and foreign policies of the United States.
Tepidly embracing the leadership of women in our movement, including within many of our congregations.
Failure to engage in open, healthy dialogue with the growing constituency among us concerned about the place of LGBTQ+ persons.
Again, there is more over which we must repent. I welcome your contribution to this list.
Especially within the current period of self-examination brought about by the paused search for a new General Director, we have an opportunity for the fresh start of a movement committed to unity. It will need to begin with the repentance of our divisiveness, and allowing God to lead us to a renewed vision and witness for the future. We need leaders who will lead us to this spiritual time of lament and repentance. Only then will the wider world be able to “see the church” as we do.
There will be a part four in this series, in which I will outline a framework for enabling the practice of unity within the Church of God.
I watched your Christian unity call with great interest. I plan to respond at the end of the series. But I will give a response to repentance.
During my 51 years of ordain ministry, and even before reconciliation has been a high priority for me.
In 1975 or 76 as the associate pastor, I was named Director of the northern Illinois youth of the CHURCH OF GOD. The first rally had about 60 youth. Only four of them were African-Americans. The CHURCH OF GOD in Northern Illinois was and is majority African-American churches. I asked where the African-American were. The answer I received and I quote was "they aren't interested. They do their own thing."
I was not content with an answer and the last rally held while I was Director had nearly 150 young people and they represented the diversity of the CHURCH OF GOD and northern Illinois .
This was not something I accomplished on my own, and I would be remiss if I did not name Verda Beech and Barbara Wakefield among others were in this transformation
I am the first person to hire an African-American person to edit a major publication at Warner Press. I also hired other African-Americans in editorial positions.
At the 75th anniversary of the National Association of the CHURCH OF GOD Wilford, Jordan and I co-edited a joint issue of The Shining Light and Vital Christianity. We published an additional 100,000 copies to be distributed across the church.
My confession . As the people I knew well moved off the scene: James Massey, Samuel Hines, EJ Morris, Claude and Addie Wyatt, Marcus Morgan among others, I felt that my efforts were no longer adequately appreciated.
I realized several years ago that there was no need to be appreciated. Why should I get kudos for doing what was right? I contacted several of my friends in the national Association and asked forgiveness for my attitude as I do now.
I realize that pride is the enemy of unity . Christ calls us to a fundamental humility. CHRIST calls us to find way to work together in a selflessness that remote others and not ourselves.
Excellent list, Lloyd, though it strikes me (as a fellow white male) that many of these bullet points are written from a white male point of view. I wonder if the wording would be different if these were written by someone with a different perspective.
Another item to add: our handling of Native American issues in the Church of God. Yes, we passed a GA resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery in 2017(?) but I think Native issues are generally not understood or recognized by folks outside of that community.