Disciples: Who We Are and What Holds us Together

By Michael Kinnamon and Jan Linn

What does it mean to be part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)? A denomination that intentionally unites Christians who have different ideas about what it means to be Christian is bound to struggle to agree on its core values and beliefs — but respected Disciples Michael Kinnamon and Jan Linn believe unity is possible through reforming worship, relationships, and mission. A timely update of their landmark book, Disciples identifies common ground and continues the conversation started by Stone and Campbell two centuries ago on the American frontier.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CBP
• Release date: Jul 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9780827206670

Michael Kinnamon

Michael Kinnamon is one of the most widely respected leaders and scholars of the ecumenical movement. He has held many noteworthy positions, including General Secretary for the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, Executive Secretary of the World Council of Churches' Commission on Faith and Order, and Dean of Lexington Theological Seminary. Kinnamon has also served as a professor of ecumenical and interfaith studies at seminaries and universities in the United States and India. He is the author of several books on the ecumenical movement, including Can a Renewal Movement Be Renewed?

Book preview

Contents

Contents

Copyright

Preface: Who We Are and

What Holds Us Together

Chapter 1: Why We Are Disciples

Chapter 2: Covenant—Freedom

with Accountability

Chapter 3: Scripture—Common Source,

Diverse Readers

Chapter 4: The Lord’s Supper—One Table,

Many Guests

Chapter 5: Baptism—Bold Discipleship and Humble Spirit

Chapter 6: Unity—One Church and

One World

Chapter 7: Mission—The Ministry

of Reconciliation

Chapter 8: Congregation—Church but Not the Whole Church

Chapter 9: Leadership—Pointing Direction,

Sharing Responsibility

Chapter 10: Being Disciples in the Twenty-first Century

About the Authors

Copyright

Copyright ©2019 by Michael Kinnamon and Jan Linn.

All rights reserved. For permission to reuse content, please contact Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], www.copyright.com.

Bible quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Cover Design: Elizabeth Wright

CBPbooks.com

Print: 9780827206663

EPUB: 9780827206670

EPDF: 9780827206687

Preface: Who We Are and

What Holds Us Together

Why write a book about a denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), in an era sociologists call postdenominational? Many, if not most, church members were once familiar with the distinctive elements of their Methodist or Presbyterian or Baptist or Disciples heritage, but studies show decreasing interest in such labels. It is now commonplace for Christians to switch congregations without concern for denominational affiliation. So why write a book about the particular church tradition known as Disciples?

This question has ironic significance for our church because Disciples have historically seen themselves as a movement, regarding denominations as divisive and seeking to overcome them. Some of our forebears on the American frontier willed that their denominational structure die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the body of Christ at large. It might be argued that a book focusing on our distinctive identity only compounds the problem.

The authors of this book share this basic sentiment. Denominations can be divisive, if they are treated as nouns rather than adjectives. We are not, properly speaking, Disciples; we are Disciples Christians—part of the universal fellowship of persons who confess, in the words of Matthew 16:16, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God (RSV). At the same time, however, we (Michael and Jan) give thanks that we have come to know and serve Christ within a more intimate community shaped by a particular history and shared experience. We give thanks for all overseas ministries of compassion, justice, and peace carried out in the name of Christ, but we have a special concern for historic Disciples mission partners in such places as the Congo, India, and Puerto Rico. We give thanks when any person responds to the call to ministry in Christ’s name, but there is for us a special joy in supporting Disciples seminarians and lay leaders. We give thanks when any child of God is baptized and nurtured for a life of discipleship; but we admit to a special delight when this happens in a Disciples congregation. These are, in effect, our immediate relatives through whom we learn about our bond with the whole Christian family. Beyond that, we are convinced that this branch of the family has received gifts that can contribute to the renewal and witness of the wider church. The book that follows is our attempt to elaborate on this conviction.

There is a second question we need to address in this preface: Why offer a revision of our book on this subject? The first edition of Disciples was published only ten years ago, but so much has changed in church and society during that decade! Our Disciples community has become increasingly diverse—racially, culturally, theologically, liturgically—and we have also grown in our appreciation of such diversity. Meanwhile, society has experienced incredible fragmentation and polarization, some of it a reaction to the threat of diversity. We explore these developments further in chapter 1, and they are an undercurrent throughout the book as a whole. Because so much has changed around us, simply tweaking the first edition would not have been sufficient. We have made substantial changes to the book in an attempt to contribute to ongoing conversation in the church.

It is also true that we, the authors, have changed over the past ten years. Which brings us to a third question: Is it appropriate for a book about Disciples, especially one published well into the twenty-first century, to be written by two white men? There are ways, of course, in which we are quite different from one another. For one thing, we have often disagreed with one another throughout the writing process, a characteristic we believe goes with being Disciples! In part that has happened because our particular perspectives on the issues this book discusses have been shaped by different experiences in our church’s life. One of us has held leadership positions at the General and Regional levels, while the other has in large measure served outside those official circles. Our particular perspectives are more fully integrated in this revised and updated edition than in the first, but readers familiar with our other writings will still discern the fingerprints of one or the other of us in various places.

It remains the case, however, that, different as we may be, we do not represent the growing racial/ethnic breadth of this church; and so, before working on this revision, we invited feedback to the first edition from Hispanic, African American, and Asian American colleagues, and listened carefully to the critiques we received. Our hope, therefore, is that this edition will reflect greater sensitivity to other cultures and perspectives—and be a stimulus to further conversation in the church.

One thing that has not changed from the first edition is our core thesis: Disciples have an identity that is recognizable across the years and across cultures, and a reclaiming of this identity can contribute to much-needed renewal of our denomination, while strengthening our witness as a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world. It is our experience that Disciples are in danger of losing touch with this historic identity, which often leaves us searching for direction. And if we don’t strengthen the sense of covenant that unites us, we may lose touch with one another. This church has frequently demonstrated a willingness and ability to adapt to changing circumstances, refusing to be held back by outdated ways of thinking and acting. Our intent is to suggest possible ways of renewing our practice—and, in some cases, our thinking—consistent with our enduring identity.

This new edition, we hope, will prove useful in courses on Disciples history, polity, and theology; will be put in the hands of new church members; will enable long-term members to say who we are as a church with greater clarity. But, make no mistake, our purpose is prescriptive, not just descriptive. We are attempting to say, not just what we have been, but what we might be, with the help of God.

We trust that one thing will be clear throughout: We love the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)! For all our concerns, we are deeply grateful for those who have helped shape and lead this church over the years and for those who will shape and lead it, perhaps in ways we can’t yet envision, in the years ahead.

Chapter 1: Why We Are Disciples

This is a book about the identity and mission of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a small, North American-based denomination that we believe has a large witness to make to the universal church and the wider society. There is so much we appreciate about this community called Disciples, including:

The central place we, Disciples, give to the Lord’s Supper, and our insistence that, since it is Christ’s table, it is not up to us to decide who is welcome at it;

How this church, in the words of one of its historians, is an experiment in liberty,¹ bound not by hierarchy or creed, but by a covenant of mutual accountability and the simple confession that Jesus is the Christ;

The place of honor that lay leaders have among Disciples, and the importance we give to scripture, but also human intelligence, when attempting to discern God’s will;

Our practice of believer’s baptism which emphasizes the decision of discipleship each person must make for herself, coupled with the affirmation that persons baptized in other ways in other churches are also members of Christ’s one body;

How, at our best, we strive to be bold in our proclamation that God was in Christ, acting to reconcile people to God and to one another (2 Cor. 5:16–20), yet humble in our recognition that we are not the only Christians or God’s only people.

This last point hints at a paradox that runs throughout Disciples history. On the one hand, we are a church. We gather for worship, engage in mission, baptize, ordain, and develop structures needed for common life. We are marked by distinctive practices and perspectives, several of which will be explored in this book. On the other hand, our Disciples forebears did not set out to be another denomination—brand Z on a shelf that already has A through Y. Rather, in words familiar to many of our members, we have seen ourselves as a "movement for wholeness,"² whose calling is to help heal a church fragmented by historic divisions and a world fragmented by war and injustice.

This paradox, however, has often made it difficult for Disciples to say who we are. Our key early leaders, Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone, favored generic names—Disciples and Christians—to emphasize our place within the entire family of Christ’s followers. The irony is that our very commitment to this mission of unity, this desire to be a healer of the universal church, is itself a distinctive identity. Beyond that, how will people hear our witness if we who make it are not clear about who we are and what we stand for?

Of course, not all the people in the pews of Disciples congregations will affirm, or even recognize, this description of who we are. Uniformity is not one of our characteristics. The authors of this book are convinced, however, that this church does have a coherent identity, one that has been affirmed by generations of its leaders and set forth in its few foundational documents. This book is our attempt to name that identity as we have come to understand it.

And, of course, there are other ways of being Christian. We give thanks for the gifts of the Spirit entrusted to other communities that claim the name of Christ: the peacemaking witness of the Mennonites, Brethren, and Friends; the theological rigor of the Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Catholics; the liturgical depth of the Anglicans and Orthodox; the passion for inclusivity evident in our ecumenical partner, the United Church of Christ—to name only a few. Our contention is that Disciples, too, have particular gifts that can help to build up the body of Christ and give powerful demonstration of God’s reconciling grace. This book is our testimony to why we are Disciples.

A Stable but Dynamic Identity

The first edition of this book was published in 2009, the bicentennial of the seminal document of our tradition: The Declaration and Address, written by Thomas Campbell. This text, more than any other, set the initial direction for our identity and special mission as Disciples. In it, Campbell declared that, since the Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one, the various Christian communities ought to receive each other as Christ Jesus hath also received them to the glory of God—a restatement of Paul’s powerful charge to the Romans (15:7). For them to walk and speak together, nothing ought to be inculcated upon Christians as articles of faith, nor required of them as terms of communion, but what is expressly taught and enjoined upon them in the word of God.³

In 1909, participants in the Disciples International Convention celebrated the centennial of Campbell’s pronouncement by specifying, in their own era, the chief things for which this movement stands. One of them—the complete dominance of Christianity in our social, domestic, industrial, and political life, so that ours shall indeed be a Christian civilization—will sound far too triumphalist for many contemporary Disciples, given our positive experience of religious diversity and our negative experience of Christians running roughshod over various cultures. We suspect, however, that the rest of their list will ring true today for most Disciples.

We stand for the unity of the church and for the manifestation of the spirit of unity by cooperation with other followers of Christ, who stand not with us in all things, but who hold to Christ as their head.⁴

We stand for the rejection of creeds as the basis of Christian unity and fellowship. More positively, we affirm the Good Confession made by Peter—You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt. 16:16, RSV)—as the foundation on which Jesus will build his church, and the Bible as the only authoritative rule of faith and practice.

We stand for Christian liberty, for freedom from ecclesiastical coercion that has sought to make [people] think alike and worship alike, mistaking uniformity for unity.⁵

We stand for the organization of the church into congregations that have the right of self-governance in all matters that pertain to their local welfare, but also for the fellowship of all these churches together in the common work of advancing the kingdom of God.⁶

We stand for the centrality of baptism and the Lord’s Supper in the life of the church and for the restoration of their scriptural meaning and practice—including baptism that involves the burial in water of a penitent believer who signifies a willingness to walk in obedience to Christ, weekly celebration of the holy meal, and a table open to all who believe in and love our Lord Jesus Christ.⁷

We stand for evangelization through the simple preaching of the gospel, avoiding methods that