Chapter Twelve
Dealing With Differences in
Priorities
Rarely
mentioned among the sources of denominational division are what I would
call differences in "priorities" or "emphasis." These
are not differences in doctrine, for two bodies may adhere to the same
doctrines but have very different priorities. We might describe them as
practical or historical differences, but they are distinct enough even
within those classifications to deserve special mention. One major
problem, I think, in the quest for reunion, is the tendency to
confuse priority questions with other sorts of doctrinal and
practical questions.
Perhaps
the best way to understand this issue is first to look at the nature of
priorities in the individual Christian life and then, by comparison, at
the nature of priorities within denominations.
Priorities
Among Ultimates
When
God says "no" to us, he requires an immediate response. When he
says "do not steal," and I am stealing, I must stop right then
and there. I have no right to ask him to wait. Repentance, turning from
sin, is not a long, drawn-out process, but a single act.[1]
But
when God says "yes," the situation is somewhat different. His
positive commands require a somewhat different sort of response from his
negative commands. Positively, God commands us to pray, evangelize,
worship, feed the hungry, visit the sick, study the Scriptures, train our
children, edify fellow believers, seek justice in society, show love to
our spouses, even replenish and subdue the earth, and so on. Does he
expect instant, immediate obedience to those commands?
We
may be inclined to say yes, and that inclination comes from a good motive.
We think of Abraham, who heard the word of God to leave
Surely
there are times when God calls us to do something now. Jesus did not accept would-be disciples who wanted first
to say good-bye to others, or to bury their dead. He wanted them right
away. But God does not always command us to do something "now."
Indeed, God commands us to do many things that cannot all be done immediately. Think of all the things
God commands, some of them listed in the fourth paragraph of
this chapter. So many things! In the nature of the case, they
simply cannot be done "now." If I spend the morning going door
to door presenting the gospel to people in my neighborhood, I won't
be able to visit my sick friend in the hospital until afternoon. If I
spend the next hour in prayer, I shall have to postpone writing this
chapter of my book, and so on.
So
I come to an obvious, yet somehow surprising conclusion, that some good
works must be postponed.
Obeying God is not a simple matter of hearing his Word, then going
out and doing it immediately. Sometimes we must put off a good
work until tomorrow, so that we may do another today. Sometimes when
I hear God speaking in the Scriptures, I must reply, "Lord, I'll
do that later; you have given me something else to do now."
That
means that in relation to God's commands, each of us must develop a system
of priorities. We must discover,
not only what God requires, but also what command to carry out
first. Priorities among ultimates! Priorities among absolutes! The
whole idea sounds so paradoxical! We're not used to thinking
along these lines. We normally assume that if two commands
are absolute, that is, from God, neither can take precedence over
the other. But we know now that that cannot be right.
The
problem faces us every day, even every moment: what shall I do first; what
shall I do now? Generally we make our decisions without really thinking
much about priorities. We make priority decisions off the tops of our
heads, unreflectively. Yet these decisions often have
enormous consequences. Where can we turn for help?
On
the problem of priorities among ultimates, sermons often do more harm than
good. Sermons almost never tell us what good works we may leave until
later! They never tell us what prayers may be left unsaid (for
now), what Scriptures unread, what needy people unfed,
unvisited, unevangelized, uninstructed. In fact, it would be hard to
imagine a sermon that did tell us such things. The very nature of
the sermon seems to be that of encouraging us to do, not to leave undone.
There
are good reasons why sermons are like that, which I will not list here.
What is harder to justify, however, is that sermons often not only fail to
solve our priority questions, but they often make those questions more
difficult.[3]
For sermons usually suggest, if they do not actually imply, that we should
be doing all good works all the time.
One
week we are told that evangelism is absolutely central to the work of the
church and the life of the believer. Everyone must be passionately
concerned about evangelism. And if we are passionately concerned, of
course, we will spend time evangelizing. The preacher may present to us as
illustration a Christian who has led thirty people into the kingdom during
the past year; the illustration makes us ashamed of ourselves.
Next
week, the sermon is on prayer. Our lives must be full of prayer, we're
told. If we don't spend a lot of time praying, we don't really love God
and our neighbors. And Luther spent so much time praying each day! We are
ashamed. Then the next week we hear about feeding the hungry, then
studying the Bible, then contending against false doctrines, then
influencing our social institutions, then working hard at our jobs,
then caring for our families. And of course we must not "forsake
the assembly," which seems to mean attending every church
meeting possible.
I
am a church musician, and I once preached a sermon which showed, by a good
biblico-theological method, the centrality of music in the Christian life. We are, after all, saved to sing
the praises of Christ (I Pet. 2:9). Therefore, all of us ought to put much
more time than we do into our worship life. We ought to study how
to worship, just as we study how to pray and how to witness. If
we really care, we'll join the choir!
But
when we count up all the things we're supposed to do, we have to ask hard
questions about them. Is it really right for preachers to heap such an
enormous sense of shame upon their people on this account? Though all of
these things are "central,"[4] "vital,"
"important," though all of them deserve a passionate concern, a
sacrificial giving of time and resources, we cannot do them all at once.
Ought we to be ashamed of that? Why, even if we tried to do all these things at once, the end result would be
a lot of failure, frustration-- and shame.
That
is one side of the problem. The opposite result is also possible: that
failure to come to grips with this issue can lead to pride and arrogance.
Believers are often very suspicious of other believers who have a
different set of priorities from themselves. The zealous evangelist, who
labors many hours to bring the gospel to neighbors and friends may look
down at his stay-at-home brother who spends more time with his wife
and children-- and vice versa.
How
do we deal with the problem? First, let us recognize that God understands
our finitude. He doesn't expect us to do everything at once. He commanded
Adam and Eve to "replenish and subdue the earth" (Gen. 1:28),
but he did not intend for them to do that immediately or all by
themselves. For at the same time as he told them to subdue the earth, he
also told them to replenish it: he ordained reproduction. Subduing the
earth was not a job for Adam and Eve alone, but for a great body of men,
women, children spread over the whole surface of the globe.
Similarly, when Jesus called the disciples to "teach all
nations" (Matt. 28:19f), he did not intend for the twelve disciples
to do the whole job themselves and instantly. He envisaged, rather, a
historical process (a long one, as it's turned out) in
which millions of believers cooperate in this great task. Not
all believers do the same thing, either. They have different gifts
(I Cor. 12, Rom. 12), and therefore different callings; but each
one makes a contribution. Some will knock on doors, some will
develop businesses to support those knocking on doors,[5]
some will pray for those who are knocking on doors, etc.
And
when God calls me to pray, as he does in Scripture, he doesn't necessarily
mean that I should drop everything and do it immediately, for an unlimited
time. Even Jesus got up from his prayers to do other things. Rather, he
expects me to devote a reasonable amount of time to prayer. How much is
reasonable? Depends on the person. Some have more opportunity and leisure
for this than others (like the "order of widows" in the New
Testament (I Tim. 5:3-16, especially verse 5)). Gifts and calling make
a difference. How do we determine our gifts and calling?
General principles of scripture, our opportunities and abilities,
the support of the church (cf. Acts 13:2, etc.), the Holy
Spirit enabling us to make our decisions according to love (Phil.
1:9f; cf. Rom. 12:1f, Eph. 5:8-10).
Some,
then, are called to pray more than others, some to knock on more doors,
etc. Those with one gift/calling are not to look down on those who have
another, for they are one body in Christ. One is like the hand, another
like the foot, another like the brain. Each needs the others if the body
is to function correctly (I Cor. 12). No one should feel guilty,[6]
and no one should be arrogant or prideful.
Denominational
Priorities
Now
we can say things about denominations similar to what we have been saying
about individual Christians. For among the many kinds of differences they
have, denominations also differ from one another as to their priorities.
One may give special attention to Christian education, another to
evangelism, another on social action. One will have a strong interest
in maintaining proper procedures. Another will at times cut
corners in the established procedures to accomplish some other goal.
The point is not that denomination A believes in, say,
Christian education while denomination B does not. (What denomination
would dare say that they don't believe in teaching the gospel to
their children?) Rather, some denominations put a higher emphasis
or priority on Christian education than do others.
The
same applies to more "doctrinal" matters. Say that denomination
A emphasizes that God is to be worshipped in "reverence and awe"
(Heb. 12:28); denomination B emphasizes that worship must be of such a
style as to demonstrate God's love to the people who attend (James 2:1-13).
Now denomination B certainly would not wish to deny Heb. 12:28, nor would
denomination A wish to deny James 2:1-13. But there is a difference of
emphasis or priority between them that can lead, indeed, to rather
different styles of worship.
Other
differences are partly priority differences, partly simple disagreements.
I certainly would not reduce the difference between Calvinism
and Arminianism to a difference in priority or emphasis[7]. These
are differences of exegesis, of theology. But there is an element of priority difference here too:
when a Calvinist tests his doctrinal formulations, he tends to be
preoccupied with the impact of that formulation upon the divine
sovereignty, though he also wishes to do justice to human
responsibility. Arminians, however, while not wishing at all to deny
the sovereignty of God, tend to be more preoccupied with the need
for a credible doctrine of human responsibility. It is interesting
to speculate as to which came first, the priority difference, or
the substantive difference. (I'm inclined to say the former in
most cases.) Perhaps if both parties had tried harder to
appreciate the priorities of one another their difference might not
have hardened into a substantive one. And perhaps the only way
out will be for both parties to develop their arguments with
a greater appreciation for where the other party is coming from. For
neither priority is wrong, in my view.[8]
And since neither is wrong, there is room for mutual encouragement and
affirmation at the priority level, an affirmation which ought to precede
and govern all debate.
In
my view, denominations should not remain separate because of priority
differences alone. Consider the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC)
and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), two bodies with which I have
had some experience, and which have considered church union with one
another (unsuccessfully) from time to time. These two denominations have
identical doctrinal standards and both have shown a serious purpose in
maintaining those doctrinal commitments. There is a somewhat wider range
of opinion in the PCA on some matters: the precise scope of
Christian liberty, for instance. But those differences are very
slight. Yet there is a kind of nervousness in both groups about the
possibility of church union. Why? Well, for one thing, there are in both
groups many misunderstandings about the role of denominations in God's
kingdom: misunderstandings which I hope this book will help
to alleviate.[9] But for
another thing, there are definite differences in priorities between
the two bodies: differences which provoke a sense of discomfort
in those contemplating merger.
The
PCA has a far larger missions program for its size than the OPC, though
both bodies certainly believe in missions and support it.[10]
The OPC gives much more support, per capita, to the production
of Christian Education materials. The OPC is known for its
profound and brilliant theologians, the PCA for its remarkable
church growth. The OPC is known for the carefulness with which
it follows Presbyterian procedures, the PCA for its speed
(sometimes at the expense of "procedures") in getting new
churches started.[11]
Some have described the OPC as more "inward facing" and the
PCA as more "outward facing," to recall a previous distinction.
The OPC is known for its relatively tough ordination exams, the PCA
for its openness to welcome new ministers and churches into the body.
A
bit of whimsy may clarify the issue: The OPC is like a homemaker, the PCA
like a breadwinner. In the traditional family (rapidly disappearing,
one would gather from the national media), the husband is the breadwinner,
the wife the homemaker. The homemaker spends more time at home. She sees
that the house is clean, that the children are taught the right things,
that the right persons are on the guest list (and the wrong
ones excluded). The breadwinner, on the other hand, concentrates
his energies outside the home. He knows the house has to be kept
in order, and he is glad that there is somebody around to do
that work. But his own talents and interests lead him to take on
more and more responsibilities on behalf of those outside
the household. He knows he must meet their
needs, not only those of his family; and he knows that if he does not go
into the world to draw from the world's supply of wealth, his family will
not survive. Homemaker and breadwinner may well respect
the priorities of one another, or they may fight about them. At
least it should be noted that their priorities are not the same.
Now
many in the OPC and in the PCA believe that these differences in priority
are incompatible. They think that the two churches cannot join together
unless they become more like one another. I think that these opponents of
union fail to see the distinction between doctrinal differences and priority differences--
or they fail to understand that the differences between the two groups are
indeed largely differences in priority. If I am right that the differences
are differences of priorities, then the two groups ought not to remain
apart. For the two kinds of gifts are complementary, not in opposition.
The PCA needs more theologians and Christian educators; the OPC
needs more evangelists and church planters. Each needs the help of
the other in deciding when and how much to bend "procedures" in
order to hasten the advance of the gospel. Or, to revert to
my metaphor, the homemaker needs a breadwinner, and vice versa. And
when we recognize that homemaker-gifts and breadwinner-gifts are
complementary, then our sense of the possibilities can change. After all,
homemakers often fall in love with and marry breadwinners, and these
sometimes live (relatively!) happily ever after.
What
is it that enables us to see differences as they really are, without
exaggerating them? The love of Christ. Love and marriage go together, in
the spiritual world as in the natural world; and it is love that holds the
marriage together.
As
we seek to evaluate our relationships to other denominations, we will
observe many sorts of differences. But it is important for us to
distinguish substantive differences from priority differences, even when,
sometimes (as in the Calvinist/Arminian example) these types of
differences are both found together. Making that distinction will give us
a much clearer view of things, and will, I believe, naturally pressure us
toward reunion. As we saw earlier, denominationalism is largely
responsible for the present uneven distribution of gifts in the church and
for the inaccessibility of the gifts of some to Christians of other
denominations. A determination to redress this imbalance will force us to
work toward reunion.
Emphasis
in Ministry
Love
will also enable us to make wiser judgments about what to emphasize in the preaching and teaching
of our churches. This is an important "priority" question that
all of us have to face. In my previous book,[12]
I attacked the tendency for theologians to criticize one another on
the basis of "emphasis": "Theologian A does not
sufficiently emphasize x." I pointed out there that there is room for
many differences in emphasis, since the work of theology is to
apply, not merely to state, biblical content. Even relatively
minor matters, like the head-coverings of women in I Cor. 11,
are proper subject-matter for theology, even if the theologian
does not attempt in the same context to emphasize more
central biblical topics.
In
this regard, however, pastors are different from other theologians. Most
people get 90% or so of their Christian teaching from a local church. It
is therefore important that the ministry of that local church provide a
balanced diet of spiritual nourishment. An academic theologian can
sometimes afford to spend his life studying obscure subjects of interest
to him but not to many others in the church. But the pastor of
a church cannot afford that kind of luxury. If the teaching ministry
of a church "majors in minors" or "rides hobby
horses," the people will not be fed.
The
"proper emphasis" of church ministry must be, roughly, the
emphasis of Scripture itself. I say "roughly," because the Word
must be applied to the people in the congregation, and of course these
people are very different from the people to whom the New Testament was
first addressed. We must talk about many things today that Paul did not
talk about: abortion, nuclear war, Christian influence in politics, television
violence and pornography, etc. Still, the center of our preaching and
teaching (and indeed the "answer," in a sense, even to the
modern problems) must always be "Jesus Christ and Him crucified"
(I Cor. 2:2). This is the great message that all true Christian churches
share, regardless of denomination.
One
anti-ecumenical tendency is for churches to emphasize their distinctives, the doctrines and
practices which separate them from other churches, denominations and
traditions, at the expense of those doctrines and practices held
more broadly, by all evangelicals or even by all Christians.
Some churches, for example, that believe the premillenial view
of Christ's return put such an emphasis on it, even making it a test of
orthodoxy, so as to produce an imbalance in their teaching and an
unnecessary degree of separation from other believers. Whether or not that
doctrine is true is not the point right now. The question is whether that
should be a major emphasis of the church's preaching and teaching,
coordinate with, say, the resurrection of Jesus.
I
believe that we should accept a wide variety of different emphases in
different ministries: again, no one can do everything, and so no one can
have a perfect balance. At the same time, some emphases are better than
others, and we ought in general to emphasize the more important matters
over those which are less important. For the most part, the "more
important" matters (scripturally determined) coincide with those
doctrines and practices believed broadly throughout the Christian
church, rather than the distinctives of any one denomination.
Such emphasis will be beneficial to church unity, but also to the
very quality of ministry within the church. Fewer lessons are
needed as much as the lesson to put first things first.
Denominational
chauvinism often includes the view that the distinctives of one's
denomination are more important than the great doctrines shared among all
Christians. Thus it often leads to serious imbalances in preaching and teaching.
On the contrary, I would maintain that denominational distinctives never
have that kind of importance. More on this in Chapter 14.