Stephen
Terry, Director
When
Conflicts Arise
Commentary
for the November 17, 2018 Sabbath School Lesson
“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.
At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like
a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son,
whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” Matthew 3:16-17,
NIV
There is so much conflict in the church today that it
can seem like we are woefully adrift. Within the Seventh-day Adventist
denomination, we have conflicts over who should be ordained, whether or not we
should believe in Trinitarianism, Male Headship Theology, and Perfectionism to
name just a few of the hot-button issues. While there are more issues, the purpose
of this commentary is not to present an exhaustive list of Christian conflicts.
Instead, perhaps we can look at some of the deeper theological perspectives that
give rise to conflicts in the first place. Some may wish to go back to Creation
and the Fall to find the source of conflict in the church. Others may wish to
find reasons for our conflicts in the Mosaic expression of law and obedience.
Still others might see its roots in the national apostasy that resulted in the
Babylonian captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem. Arguments could be made
for all of these and certainly many people adhere to these arguments as
definitive for their cause. However, I would like to suggest that much of the
conflict can be traced back to our understanding of a singular event that
occurred about two thousand years ago. The incarnation of Christ was such a profoundly
disruptive event that all of history has been fissured into those things that
happened before that incarnation and those things that happened after.
In spite of the library of stories, predating the
incarnation, found in the Bible’s Old Testament, understanding God’s character
did not necessarily follow from reading those accounts. Perhaps more questions
than answers are to be found there. Did God indeed order genocide? What kind of
endorsement of our own racist tendencies can we find if we feel that he did? At
the Fall, did God truly curse women to be dominated by men? How would our understanding
of such a curse impact how we deal with domestic violence? Would we shrug it
off and say, “It’s just the curse, so we should just accept it as a woman’s lot
in life?” Strangely, some who do indeed feel that way see no problem in
alleviating pain from another aspect of the so-called curse: the pain of
childbirth. Do the Mosaic codes require us to sentence to death adulterers and Sabbath
breakers? If this is so why then was David’s adultery with Bathsheba not a
capital offense?
Likely as I have shared these few examples, you have
felt strongly about at least some of them and may even have felt that much of
the problems we face today derived from failure to act out judgments based on
some of these rules. Perhaps this is because we love rules. Rules tend to make
everything black and white. They can be set in stone to endure through the
ages. Except there is one small problem. Rules tend to produce rules lawyers, individuals
who make it their business to define the rules as finely as possible in order
to more easily apply them to the world around them. As they do so, others look
for loopholes to exploit in the rules, resulting in the rules lawyers lobbying
for still more rules to plug the loopholes. Over time, this can produce
absurdities that produce more conflicts than they resolve. Jesus faced some of
this and attempted to illustrate how absurd the rules had become. His disciples
were accused of violating the Sabbath because they picked some heads of grain
to eat from a field.[i]
Elsewhere in the Mosaic code this was permissible,[ii] but since the Sabbath was
a part of the Decalogue given at Sinai, it was interpreted as being sovereign
over the lesser Mosaic allowance. However, Jesus pointed out that the law was
given to benefit mankind, not to enslave them and that the higher good of
caring for the needs of others should overrule strictly legal concerns.[iii] But this left too many
subjective, fuzzy areas around the application of the law for the rules lawyers,
and since the law had become the entire point for these individuals, conflict
arose. We are not unlike those ancient Jewish Pharisees in this.
If we trace our own denominational history, we find that
we began with the Protestant cry of Sola
Scriptura; the Bible, and the Bible alone, as our guide. But as it became
apparent that various Bible passages were open to diverse interpretations,
rather than allow such diversity, we decided to nail everything down with a
creed, and in 1980 at a General Conference we voted in “27 Fundamental Beliefs.”
Then later, when we found there was still too much “wiggle room,” we tightened
up the language and added a 28th belief. Now, because some were not
respecting with perfect obedience what had been voted, the denomination has
established a curia of five courts to
compel obedience. Matters that will come before these courts, euphemistically
called “committees,” are likely to include some of the issues I mentioned
above. The purpose of these courts would be to further set in stone the
definition of proper denominational behavior. This is frightening when we
consider the minutiae that can be included in such definitions. There was a
time, when children had to roll up their pant legs to go wading on the Sabbath
and if the pant legs got wet, then they had violated the Sabbath. Some may feel
that things would not come to that pass. However, the Jews, who had far more
time to define obedience than we have, are able to show how far it can go. Because
it would mean doing work on the Sabbath, some Jews today will pre-tear paper
towels, toilet paper and other similar items before the Sabbath.[iv] I’m not sure how tearing
the paper is construed to be more work than using it, but this illustrates how
finely detailed the requirements of obedience can become over time.
How can we better deal with church conflict than simply
multiplying rules to force one another to obey? Perhaps the answer does exist
in the experiences of the early Christian church. However, the answer may not
be readily seen if we do not follow the right leader. We can stumble if we too
heavily discount the work of Holy Spirit. In the absence of a relationship with
the Spirit, who is to lead us “into all truth,”[v] we tend to construct the truth
for ourselves, and we tend to do that with man-made rules. Jesus tried to warn
us of this,[vi] but have we listened?
When we come to Christ and are baptized, we receive the Holy Spirit.[vii] But it remains our
choice whether or not we listen to the Spirit and follow his guidance. Too
often, rather than doing that we go to other flawed human beings and lead them
into temptation to play Holy Spirit for us by asking them “What should I do
now?” Sadly, instead of directing us to the Holy Spirt and the Bible to search
out the answers for ourselves, too many willingly begin to tell the new convert
everything they should and shouldn’t do, according to their understanding of
the rules of the denomination. This can not only send the neophyte astray, but
it can also develop a spiritual pride or arrogance that can cause the more
mature Christian to stumble. Besides when we take it upon ourselves to be spiritual
guides, we tend to make cookie-cutter copies of ourselves.
Everything about God’s Creation tells us that this is
not what he wants. Instead it tells us that he loves diversity. This is true
whether we are talking about the broad diversity among humankind, or the
intricate diversity of each unique snowflake falling from a winter sky. The
diversity is not hierarchical as some might advocate. The words and life of
Christ do not indicate that anyone is to rule over their brother or sister, but
instead are to serve them as God’s blessing has enabled them to do. We are not
called to consult some rule book to determine their worthiness for our service,
or our sacrifice on their behalf. Instead we are to follow the leading of the
Holy Spirit and use the gifts provided by the Spirit to serve in whatever
capacity he shows us. When Peter went to see Cornelius, everything he had been
taught in synagogue told him that what he was doing was wrong. He could have
walked away, secure in the knowledge that he was obedient to the fundamentals
of his faith, but instead, he listened to the Holy Spirit, saw that the Holy
Spirit was speaking into the situation and went with the Spirit’s leading. His
world was never the same after that. Perhaps that is the radical faith that can
resolve conflict and put us back on track as well.
