Who are we?: A theological musing on the Restoration of Christian Unity, Identity, and Love

I’m not going to pretend that this is really a sermon. This is straight-up theology, so go refill your coffee mugs.

Alexander Campbell’s Restoration plea: “Christians only…” Those of you who are CofC will recognize that that’s not the whole statement, but we’re going to stop there for the moment. Those of you who didn’t grow CofC may well be wondering, what does C-of-C stand for, who the heck is Alexander Campbell, and why should we care. And this very thing highlights the issue of CCfB collective identity, doesn’t it? It splits us into two distinct groups: the insiders who get the CofC lingo, and the “outsiders” who don’t. And the question is, “who are we?”

Like the church in Acts, which convened the council in Jerusalem to discern the answer to this question, we too face it (and let’s face it, we’ll never settle definitively, but simply continue to negotiate it). In Jerusalem the question of insiders and outsiders took the form of whether or not the outsiders, Gentiles, were required to become insiders, Jews (by way of circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses) in order to be Christian. As Joe reminded us in a sermon just a few weeks ago, the council at Jerusalem decided: no.

Likewise, this church decided “no” to this question as well—long before CCfB was the community it is today. We are Christ’s Church for Brooklyn, and not the Brooklyn Church of Christ, for a reason: we don’t require nor expect everyone in this community to be, or become, CofC, in order to be part of this Christian community.

One might interpret our generic choice of name (well, it is specifically Christian, but denominationally generic) as a return to Campbell’s original plea for unity. Here, in this community, we are “Christians only.”

And yet, Campbell’s vision of restoration and Christian unity is problematic. Campbell believed that unity would inevitably result if only people could get away from denomination creeds and start reading their bibles. If everyone would just read and follow the Bible, we would all be “Christians only.” So Campbell founded a movement based on this premise—a new, “non-denominational” movement, in which denominational identities would be renounced in order to achieve a new and solely Christian identity.

The problem with this strategy is—well, it didn’t work. There’s the obvious (to us) problem of biblical interpretation and hermeneutics, the fact that everyone just doesn’t sit down and come up with the same reading of the Bible as everyone else. But beyond that, which is itself a seriously fatal flaw, there’s an issue with the idea of identity. Check your denominational identity at the door, and then join our church and be Christian. Or in other words, you can only start being “Christian only” by dumping your former Christian identity. If you want to be generically Christian, you can’t be specifically Christian. And if you want to be inclusively Christian, unified with other Christians, you must be generically Christian. Unity is the result of a new, generic category of identity.

What’s the problem with this? Simply that our identities aren’t categorical in this way. This is a common sense point. Think about how you might describe yourself to another person—how many categories appear in your laundry list? I’m willing to bet you can amass a dozen or more in about 10 seconds. My facebook page lists mine: “mother, feminist, homemaker, writer, spouse, eternal student, theologian, JTB, believer, doubter, CofC'er, sister, daughter, cyborg, goddess. In no particular order.” Do I inhabit any one of these categories of identity at expense of the others? Am I no longer a mother while I’m the eternal student? No longer a feminist when I’m a homemaker? Am I no longer a believer while I’m a doubter?

No. I am all of these things, simultaneously, just as you inhabit multiple categories of identity simultaneously. Categorical identities are not mutually exclusive.

At the same time, I—and you—are not reducible to any one of those categories on the list. The categories are simultaneous and they are also partial. I am always a mother—but I am also not a mother only.

Campbell’s mistake was to assume that Christian identities were indeed whole and mutually exclusive, and that it would therefore take a whole new generic category in order to create Christian unity. Christians only.

But (as we CofC’ers know): the end of the slogan is, “…but not the only Christians.” So even while Campbell founded his plea for Christian unity on the foundation of a generic Christianity built upon a universal doctrinal agreement from a particular biblical hermeneutic (so problematic!), he sowed the seeds for his own deconstruction in that very slogan. “Not the only Christians.” Later in his life indeed his theological emphasis would shift to this second clause, making ecumenical unity a focal point (a legacy continued strongly in the branch of the Restoration movement known as the Disciples of Christ). Built into this second half of the slogan is the recognition that particular Christian identities are indeed Christian, and there is no necessity to surrender them in the name of Christian unity.

This church began as part of this Restoration Movement, a church plant sponsored by Manhattan Church of Christ. And yet, we have not chosen to require that those joining this community become Church of Christ (that would indeed be laying a burden on you that we ourselves cannot carry—to paraphrase Peter’s words to the council at Jerusalem). Nor, I want to say, do we require that you check your identities at the door in order to become “generically Christian.” Not all of us in this room grew up “CofC”: some Catholic, some Baptist, some Presbyterian, some Pentecostal...and I continue to claim and negotiate my own (sometimes problematic) CofC identity. We bring these identities together, and it is the very differences that make the collective identity of this community the beautiful example of Christian unity that it is. I don’t have to deny my past or my identity to enter this Christian community. Neither do you.

So who are we? Can we answer that question? Is there such a thing as “CCfB identity” or must we just shrug and say, “well, we’re all different so good luck on figuring it out. We’re really nice though, and everyone is welcome.” Honestly, I think we can do a little better than that. The fact that we can’t make a universal checklist of Christian beliefs that describes everyone in this room, and call that our CCfB identity, is a blessing, not a problem. We CofCer’s ought to know that better than anyone—we’ve been there and done that, and watched it fall apart, again and again. Alexander Campbell saw it fall apart even in his lifetime. Christian unity is not the product of doctrinal agreement; Christian identity is not the product of a checklist of beliefs.

So who are we?

Hear the words of the prophet Micah: what does God require of us? The right sacrifices, done in the all the right ways? A checklist of right beliefs, identity and membership in the right group? No. We’re not required to get all that right. Just, do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with God. Who are we, Christ’s Church for Brooklyn? We are those who seek to do what God requires: to do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with God.

It’s not that it doesn’t matter what we believe. It matters, because beliefs inform actions. But God knows—God knows!—we’re not going to get it all right. If we’re honest, we know it too. On our own, we will never get it right. On my own, I will persist in my theological mistakes, my hang-ups, my idiosyncratic interpretations, my individual blindnesses. On my own, I will never get it right. And this is part of the reason we need each other; part of the reason we are a “we,” why we come together, why we hang out on Sundays and talk about these things, pray about these things, read and study and learn about these things. On our own, we will never get it right. We can bang our heads in frustration and despair over it, like that old Sesame Street piano player guy, or we can accept it, as part of what it means to be Christian. Not getting it right. Not necessarily needing to, because in the meantime, we know, that what God truly requires of us is simple: to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly. Who are we, CCfB? Christians, not getting it all right, but seeking to do God’s work anyhow. Christians—of all sorts, walking humbly with God, together.

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When God comes to us—and God comes to us, not we to God—when God comes to us, God does not require that we negate who we are. Again: God does not require that we negate who we are. Sure, there’s language of transformation all over the NT. Images of rebirth, language of the old man and the new man, language of “new creation,” even images of baptismal death and burial and rising to new life. Very dramatic. Nonetheless, I say to you: God does not require that you negate who you are.

Listen: God loves you. How many of us, during our engagement to be married or during the course of a relationship, have been tiresomely reminded of the truism, “don’t marry someone and then expect to change him.” Yes? I was told that. God doesn’t marry us, and then seek to remake us into the different person God secretly wants us to be. God marries us, because God loves us. God does not seek to make you someone else—some other person you theoretically should be. God loves you, and seeks to let you be who you are. And the language of transformation, of rebirth and new creation and the old and the new, is not the negation of your identity, but its fulfillment. This ritual, this sacred meal, invites us again and again into the powerful mystery of God’s love for us, a love that simultaneously celebrates, and transforms us into, who we truly are.

So we don’t check our identities at the door here. We seek to express God’s love to each other, and that means being who we are, with each other. Let yourself be known today, and loved.

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