Let's Disagree!

A Church Divided—Literally!

In the little town of Carinthia, Austria is a very unique church. On a typical Sunday morning as the clergy mounts the pulpit to begin delivering their message it is not an uncommon sight for the priest to suddenly stop mid-thought and wait—for a car to go by. Ok, you might be thinking, sure, there are times when cars can be really loud (especially with those coffee can exhaust things that were popular a few years ago.) But it isn’t for noise that the priest has to stop giving his message. No, the priest actually has to stop preaching because a car is literally driving in between he and his hearers. You see, the church was built in two parts. Each part is across the road from one another: where the priest prays and prepares the sacraments is on one side of the road and the parishioners are found on the other side of the road. Can you imagine what it would be like? And who would build a church like this?

Well, this small church has a fascinating history beginning with the ancient Romans who built the road which this two-part church straddles. This road originally carried trade and people from one place of the Roman Empire to another. Then later, after Christianity spread throughout Europe, a small shrine was built for people and pilgrims to come and pray as they journeyed on the road. Over time, this shrine became more popular until a formal church structure was built facing the road for a priest to pray and administer the sacraments to a congregation that would gather outdoors around the sheltered sanctuary. But then too many people started coming, the weather was not always conducive for outdoor worship and the priest took pity on the congregation and a second building was built—across the road—for the people to shelter in as they worshipped. Why they didn’t build a new building that contained both parts of the church on the other side of the road I do not know, but what I do know is that you can still see this wonder of wonders if you venture off the beaten path in Austria.

I tell you this little story about a divided church physically to lament the fact that Christ’s church is also divided spiritually. And even more sadly that the church doesn’t always even want to be together anyway. The folks in Austria found a unique and innovative way for a church to remain together and they put their time, money, and effort into worshipping even if it meant they have to pause now and again for the stray station wagon to roll through. But for many people today it’s as easy to go to another church down the road that meets our preferences than to stay with a community that we don’t see eye to eye on everything with. There are literally thousands of denominations in the Christian Church today and even more churches that claim no denominational affiliation numbering likely in the tens of thousands.

How is it that we got this way? How is it that we have allowed ourselves to fall prey to the temptation to divide from one another and seek out only like minded people? Well, I think the reason we have done so is that we are not comfortable disagreeing with someone. More precisely, we are not comfortable disagreeing with someone and continuing to have conversations about tough topics or controversial topics, or things that make us uncomfortable. Obviously I don’t even need to mention the ten ton elephant in the room that is currently dividing the United Methodist Church, we all know what that is and where most people stand. And that is actually not the reason I’m preaching this sermon specifically.

In truth, I’m preaching this sermon because of an American tendency we have. This tendency is to seek out like-minded people, form our little echo chambers, and silo ourselves away from others who think and believe differently. We see this in the media we consume don’t we? You can likely tell the way someone votes by what cable news station they watch, right? MSNBC? Must be a progressive. Fox News? Die-hard conservative. CNN? Well, maybe just a little confused! (I tease). But I think you get my point. We can’t even get our news from the same source these days because the culture is so divided that the media has begun catering to the division with marked bias that is now to the point that I need to literally consult a chart on media bias before I read an article so I know the particular slant I am going to encounter. And the same happens in church and publishing with theological topics as well. Certain publishers only publish things that are on one side of an issue and others the opposite side. It’s so predictable that I don’t even have to look at the author’s name to know what kind of bias they’re going to have on a particular issue; I just need to look at the publisher.

Disagreements Old and New

But disagreeing about things isn’t really a modern western phenomenon. It is something that is as old as the hills—even in the church. If you somehow had a rosy picture of the early days of Christianity as a time when everyone believed the same thing, worshipped the same, or prayed the same I am sorry today to say that I have to burst that bubble. Even from the days that the Apostles themselves lived and moved in the world there were disagreements. Paul and Barnabas? They couldn’t agree on whether John Mark was a good egg or a hindrance to the mission and so they went in different directions. Peter and Paul? They couldn’t agree on how they should act around the Gentiles. They disagreed. They argued. They even fought it out.

But do you know what Paul and Barnabas and Paul and Peter didn’t do? They didn’t suddenly go out and start another church and surround themselves with like-minded yes people that only towed the company line. They didn’t form their own doctrinal statements and write them in such a way as it is obvious that what they’re actually doing is condemning the church they left. But yet folks, here we are in an era that we do precisely that.

In our own Methodist history, the Methodist Episcopal Church, that body that formed when John Wesley gave his blessing for the Americans to found their own church, split over the issue of slavery. Those in the north believed that a pastor or bishop could not serve if he owned slaves. And because a certain southern bishop inherited slaves and was not to keen on emancipating them, eventually the church split and that division wouldn’t heal for years.

And then further back in history right about three blocks away from my Alma Mater seminary in Philadelphia, at St. George’s Church many of the white folks didn’t want to worship with people of color. It got to the point that they had to sit and worship in different parts of the church. And so not long after the African Methodist Episcopal Church was formed to give people of color a Methodist Church in which they would be welcome.

Two sides of a coin there, isn’t it? On the one side we see a church divide because of a difference in belief with one group willingly pulling away from the other. On the other side we see a group pushed out of the church because others were not willing to worship with them, the group in power forcing the separation. But in either case the result is division because of disagreement.

But is disagreement bad in church? Is it wrong of us to think differently about some issues? Must we only worship with those that can affirm the same thirty-one point doctrinal statement and separate from those who cannot affirm a point or two?

The answer, I believe, is no. Disagreement is not bad. It is not required that we think the same on every issue. We CAN and indeed I think we MUST worship with those we disagree with, even on hot-button and controversial issues.

But the question might come up: what are the guide-rails, where are the boundaries? And that is a good question. Remember in our discussion of the church we talked about basic Christian teaching as found in the Creeds and Confessions of the Church. Here in the United Methodist Church we have several of these. You’ll find the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Articles of Religion, and the EUB Confession of Faith. These are our fundamental doctrinal statements that go back for generations. These function as the guide rails of our faith. And the issues that face our church in today’s world are largely not about anything that is found in these fundamental doctrines. The church by and large isn’t arguing about the Trinity or the nature of Christ or even less clear things like what happens after you die. No, the church is arguing about minutiae, about things that the Bible has comparatively less to say at least directly. I’m not saying that the Bible is not relevant in contemporary discussions. Far from it! But what I am saying is that we need to have some triage in how we deal with certain issues.

Dogma, Doctrine, and Difference

And that brings me to a helpful framework I am going to adopt from two sources. The first is another church that has been wrestling with similar issues to the ones facing the UMC for a number of years now, the Brethren in Christ, a small denomination centered here in Pennsylvania. The second source is a Southern Baptist minister Albert Mohler who gave me the idea of triage as a metaphor to discuss theological differences.

First, let’s talk about triage. Triage is a word that comes from the medical field. Triage is the process of sorting through folks who are injured, wounded, and ill and deciding the severity of their illness so that those who are sicker or in more dire straits can get treated more quickly than those with minor injuries. In a disaster scenario, many rescue operations adopt a color-coded system where patients are tagged with a color to indicate the severity of their injury across a spectrum from black tags (those who are either dead or not going to make it) to green (those with very minor injuries.

We can take this metaphor of triage then and apply it to our disagreements in church as well. And that brings me to a helpful paradigm that I have used in my discussions and debates with others over the years and it centers around three “D-words,” “Dogma,” “Doctrine,” and “Difference.”

Dogma, Doctrine, and Difference. Let’s start with Dogma first. You might react strongly to hearing the word. It’s the same root we get the term “dogmatic” from for someone who is being inflexible or asserting their own opinion as the only right option. But in terms of Christian belief, Dogma is the name given to that relatively small body of Christian teaching that must be believed if one should be termed a Christian. These are the central truths of the Christian faith that ground our Christian tradition. These are the kinds of beliefs found in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed—the things that the overwhelming majority of Christians have believed for nearly two-thousand years. But if you look at those statements—many of them we used to memorize—you’ll recognize that they don’t amount to a great deal that we have to believe. Nonetheless they are vital to our faith. These are things like there is one God revealed as Father, Son, and Spirit, One God in Three Persons. Things like the fact that Jesus lived, died, and was raised from the dead. And the truth that Christ will come again. We give an even shorter version of this creedal faith in the classic communion response: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.

So, that’s dogma, the very small but vital teachings that define historic orthodox Christianity. The next level down in our triage is Doctrine. Doctrine is the teaching of a specific church about a particular issue that is not part of the core Christian teaching. And example of doctrinal difference is how and when to baptize and individual. In our tradition we joyfully baptize infants as children of the covenant and as the pastor I can deliver the water in a number of ways: I can sprinkle, pour water, immerse—or even use a super soaker if I wanted (though the bishop might raise an eyebrow at that last one). But if you go to the Baptist Church down the street and you ask to have your child baptized, they will tell you they won’t do it. Now, they’ll dedicate your child but they will wait until your child can ask to be baptized his or herself to actually immerse them under water. There is no sprinkling or pouring for a baptist, you have to go headlong into the pool. So, by and large, issues of doctrine have to do with important Christian teachings but there is room for disagreement on them between orthodox Christians. Other issues that fall within this category would be who gets to be a minister, the nature of predestination and free will, who gets married, and other similar secondary issues—including the issue that is currently active in our own UMC church.

The third level of triage is to be found in the category of Difference. Difference could also be stated as Preference. Areas of difference are things like worship styles. Do you prefer to sing contemporary music or hymns? Do you prefer to worship on Sunday morning or on Saturday night? Do you think your pastor should wear a collar and robe or a t-shirt and jeans. Can we have coffee in the sanctuary or not? These are the relatively minor issues that often become hot-button topics at local congregational meetings.

Living with Disagreements

So, as you can see when I named this sermon “Let’s Disagree” I am not saying that anything goes in the church. I’m not saying we need to welcome and give a platform to every idea or teaching there is or that all teachings of Christianity are of an equal level. No, far from it. There are those core dogmas that I think there is precious little room for disagreement about. I think the fact that God exists as Father, Son, and Spirit is fundamental to making sense of the Bible. I think that the centrality of Jesus and Jesus’ atoning work at Calvary are essential to the faith. I think the resurrection is vital to the faith and that without it Christianity just doesn’t make sense.

But there are other things, things like those I mentioned, that divide Christians when they shouldn’t. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have discussions, debates, or even arguments about them. But that these secondary and tertiary issues should not divide Christians. While I do not preach or teach on the issue that divides our United Methodist Church, I will say that it is scandalous that we are allowing it to divide our fellowship and that it has led to schism. People have been unwilling to acknowledge that the issue is not one of Dogma but one of Doctrine and that we can keep genuine fellowship even in the midst of our disagreements.

Family of God, we must do better at being able to disagree with one another without being disagreeable. We must

Watch our for those that cause division (Romans 16)

Be peaceable and considerate (Titus 3)

Avoid foolish controversies (Titus 3)

Keep the main thing the main thing (2 Timothy 2)

Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments (2 Timothy 2)

Accept one another (Romans 14)

Do not judge others because of doctrine or difference (Romans 14)