If I'd thought about it, I would have posted this a week ago and let some Facebook and Twitter friends weigh-in on the question.
Actually, I plan to offer more questions than prophecies. Among the elements of my presentation will be quotes from three different writers who spoke to the question in the pages (and on the website) of Christian Standard:
• Paul Williams wrote in his column: "Young leaders suggest our movement will be held together through relationships I hope they're right. The question then becomes, 'How do we leverage relationships to continue the plea for unity that brought this movement into being?'"
• A couple of years ago, Roy Lawson wrote, "We have outlived our enemies--and as a result have a dimmed sense of identity. Some of 'us' have trouble figuring out who 'we' are. We once were energized and scrappy and sure of ourselves when we were fighting--Baptists, denominations in general, erring fellow Restorationists, and more. But without a fight, who are we?"
• In that same issue, Dick Alexander reminded us, "Movements last a generation or two at most. The Campbell-Stone Movement played itself out on the American frontier in the middle of the 19th century. And then in the first quarter of the 20th century this once great unity moment fractured into three distinct groups.
"In looking at our present and future, we would benefit from laying aside Restoration Movement terminology except as an historical reference, and developing a new vocabulary that is descriptive, and also capable of motivating future generations."
All three of these writers believe we need the tribe that has provided our heritage, our understanding of the Scripture, our ideals about the church, and our fellowship with each other. I'll be interested to see what the Ohio ministers think about this when I visit with a few of them tomorrow.
Great question Mark. Personally, I see our movement heading in two different streams. For lack of better terminology I will simply call one stream 'unity' and the other stream 'doctrine'. I feel the 'unity' stream wants to seek out Christians from all walks of faith and serve with them. This stream values relationships and synergy. They are usually younger and have community impact in mind as they want to reach the lost by showing them love and compassion. The 'doctrine' stream, on the other hand, values strong Biblical teaching. These are the bulldogs of the faith, defending the movement form anything that smacks of man-made religion. My hope for the future is that these two streams see the value that the other has and they merge, becoming a mighty river, redeeming not only the lost, but the Church in their zeal for Christ.
ReplyDeleteI think the Rest. Movmnt' needs to reconsider the fact that it originally claimed to neither be catholic nor protestant. Unfortunately, in the US it has swayed under the hegemony of protestantism, so now we have three branches: Disciples (lib. protestantism), Independants (Evangelicalism), and COC (Fundamentalism/Evangelicalism).
ReplyDeleteBut we ARE niether protestant nor catholic....and with the younger generation, we are what John Milbank calls post-protestants, a good thing, in my mind.
Simply, we are "sacramental" in our views of baptism, so we have much to say to catholics and orthodox. But we are non-sacramental (though it is important to do it every week! Silly huh?) in regards to the Lord's Supper (eucharist). All of this means that we are a nice bridge piece for dialogue between catholics and protestants.
I think, if we are to have any future....we are going to have to continue high-lighting personal faith, Biblical understanding, and homiletics/christian ed. like that of certain protestant groups. But we are also going to have to address sacramentality and theological tradition of the catholics, anglicans, and orthodox. Otherwise we will continue in the theological/ecclesiological ghetto that we have carved out for ourselves within late modernity.
Our past scholars were mostly Biblical experts or theologians trained in Calvinist schools (though they remained good ol' arminians). Now, however, we ae experiencing many students from our movement who are paying attention to: doctrine, philosophy, and other Christian traditions. Our future is in keeping with our tradition of unity...among diversity, and with these young scholars who can bring our concerns to the wider ecclesial tradition!