Monday, August 12, 2013

An Open Letter to Rev. Dr. Doug Harvey, Executive Director, Disciples Heritage Foundation

(The following letter was emailed to Rev. Dr. Doug Harvey, the executive director of the Disciples of Christ spinoff organization Disciples Heritage Fellowship, which was formed from the network of pastors that founded the conservative Disciples Renewal movement in 1985, one year prior to my birth.  Despite my significant doctrinal differences with DR and DHF (especially regarding gay and lesbian persons), I have never felt any immediate need to reprove them...until now.  -E.A.)

Rev. Dr. Harvey:

You probably don’t know who I am, and that’s okay.  I am one of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pastors of small Disciples of Christ churches throughout the country to whom you mailed postcards recently encouraging our churches to join your Disciples Heritage Fellowship, the phoenix organization that arose from the ashes of your evangelical Disciples Renewal movement that was ended ten years ago, when you and the Disciples Renewal movement decided that the only thing left for you to do was to leave the Disciples of Christ denomination.

I am writing to you as a younger pastor within the Disciples of Christ who does not adhere to many of the earlier ways of the church.  Even though Disciples are a noncreedal denomination (which I like), I want us to be more deliberate in articulating exactly what it is we believe.  I wish we would jettison preaching from a lectionary, I wish we were more aggressive in our branding and marketing efforts, and I wish we weren’t so afraid of evangelism in a variety of forms.  Believe me, there is a lot about the denomination I belong to that I wish I could change.

But you know what I really wish?

I really wish that other, more seasoned pastors like you would stop being so disingenuous with us.

The postcard you sent me contained this particular gem: “We do not encourage churches to stay or leave the Disciples of Christ denomination.”

If this is so, then why does the DHF website offer its visitors a twelve-page eBook of interviews with, and articles about, former Disciples pastors and churches entitled, “Why We Left?”

If this is so, then why does the DHF website also offer its visitors a thirty-page eBook entitled “In or Out?” that claims to be advice for churches discerning withdrawal from the Disciples, but the middle section (pp 13-17) reads not as advice for congregations, but as a list of grievances against central Disciples leadership?

If this is so, then why do you take gratuitous shots at the declining size of the denomination in an article about Disciple Renewal’s closing, as though to say that others are joining you?  (By the way: in the past two years, our monthly average worship attendance has nearly doubled, and we have added two Sunday School classes and an additional Bible study class.  FCC Longview is living proof that a church can grow in both numbers and spirit within the Disciples.)

And if this is so, why are you sending out these postcards to begin with?  Are you hoping that this is your version of Inception, where you are Leonardo DiCaprio planting the tiniest version of an idea in my head that you are hoping and praying will grow into me deciding, against my best interests, to lead the congregation I love out of the denomination that has raised the both of us?

So please, sir, forgive my immense skepticism when I read the line, “We do not encourage churches to stay or leave the Disciples of Christ denomination.”  It certainly feels like you do, and if so, I think it is necessary to call a spade a spade, especially considering that in this same postcard, you lay claim to the mantle of our shared Stone-Campbell heritage: “We are a fellowship of churches committed to the Campbell/Stone core values of biblical faith and unity around that faith.”

Unity around faith is indeed a core Stone-Campbell value: Barton W. Stone famously exhorted us to “let Christian unity be our polar star.”  What then, exactly, is unifying about attempting to sow seeds of discord within the Disciples denomination?  On a local level, many pastors rightfully decry “sheep stealing” (a term that I actually find troubling, since my congregants are my faith family, not my “sheep,” but have yet to find a better equivalent), the practice of one church actively trying to recruit members from another church in town.  How is what you and DHF doing any different, except on a larger scale?  Instead of actively recruiting members of another church, you are actively recruiting members of another organization to join your own.

So please, sir, spare me the platitudes that you represent unity in the name of the Stone-Campbell movement.  Unifiers do not try to incite the rank-and-file to desert.  And please, spare me the postcards and any other active attempts you may make at trying to get me and my church to abandon the denomination that we have considered to be home for 85 years, if for no other reason than self interest in that it reflects poorly upon you and your organization.

And finally, I gently exhort you in Christ to please engage in prayerful self-reflection over whether or not your current ministry is, in fact, living up to the ideals of not only the Stone-Campbell movement but also of the very Bible itself, whose truth you, like me, profess to love and hold firm to.  For, as Paul writes in Ephesians 4:

There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all…We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

I, for one, will have no part in being tossed to and fro by every wind of DHF’s doctrinal differences with the Disciples.  Please do not send such wind in my direction again.

Sincerely in Christ,
Rev. Eric Atcheson

Pastor, First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Longview, Washington

6 comments:

  1. Whew and WOW - right on Eric. I endured their attempts to "divide and conquer" in their earlier efforts years ago. It never dies! Thanks for a clear, strong and relevant response! Take good care.

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  2. The problem with your logic is that the changing "winds of doctrine" are not coming from the DHF...it is coming from the leadership of the DOC in proclaiming sinful sexual lifestyles as acceptable to a holy God.

    Rev.Scott Davis+, RN

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  3. I was baptized in a Disciples baptistery in Robinson, Illinois in the 1940's, loaned by them to the independent congregation in nearby Hutsonville, Illinois. Our congregation was strongly pro-Bible and anti-ungodliness. I moved soon after, with my parents due to my father's job, to Nebo, Missouri, with Lebanon, Missouri being the closest town of size. I graduated that year at Lebanon High School.

    I enrolled that fall in Ozark Bible College in Joplin, Missouri. Students there learned to love Jesus and to respect apostolic teaching. We also learned that teaching material from the Disciples was less than faithful to apostolic teaching. The leadership of the Disciples advocated open membership, the accepting of unbaptized sinners as members of their churches if they wanted to join. That's an unkind way of describing their acceptance of infant "baptism" or adult "sprinkling" or "pouring" of water on a person.

    The Disciples were unsure of the authority of Jesus, as was evident in literature printed by them to be used in Disciple churches. I see much evidence that nothing has changed for the better in subsequent years. But the only cure for false teaching is to oppose it as vigorously as possible. And to replace it with the teaching of truth. It's to be hoped that these who do not choose to join with us in being Christians only may learn of freedom in Christ. Denominationalism is opposed to freedom in Christ. Every Christian should be in love with every other Christian, and should be in fellowship with the other Christians.

    We who are the fellowship of Christian Churches/Churches of Christ seek to belong to no denomination, but to accept as brothers and sisters all who join us in loving and serving Jesus as Lord. So we are not part of the break-away group from the Disciples. We were never part of the movement which became that denomination.

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  4. Ray,

    Thank you for replying. I would like to address here several of the arguments you make--

    First, my own theology of baptism as a Disciples pastor is that baptism is an outward reflection of an inward reality. By that, I mean that if someone has elected to follow Jesus, they should be baptized in the manner proscribed by their congregation or denomination, whether that is by sprinkling, pouring, or full immersion. Except in cases of emergency, I always baptize people via full immersion because that is how baptism was practiced in Scripture, but I do not see it as an essential doctrine because it is the "inward reality" that matters most, not the "outward reflection." What matters is that someone has had a genuine call to practice Christianity, not that they were dunked instead of doused.

    I will spot you that there is a wide variety of opinions as to the authority of Jesus, but if your concern is about the literature produced by the denomination, then I would point you towards the preamble to our denominational Design, which is prominently displayed on the home page of disciples.org: "We (Disciples) confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and proclaim Him Lord and Savior of the world." My own congregation has brochures from the denomination that we offer in our membership classes that proclaim us as "Not the only Christians, but Christians only." I think your own experience of denominational opinion or materials may be somewhat limited; put simply, we follow Christ. Period.

    In any event, it worries me when Christians imply that their perspective is more "pro-Bible" than that of another Christian's, because in my experience, every Christian that I have ever met fails to follow the Bible in its entirety, including myself. Paul says it himself: all have sinned and fallen short. If we all fall short, really, why are we so insistent on proclaiming our "pro-Bible" (or "pro-apostolic teachings" or "anti-false teachings") credentials?

    Thanks for commenting.

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  5. Those who know the Bible and that is all they know, do not know the Bible. 2nd Samuel 21:19 says that "Elhanon killed Goliath, the Hittite, whose shew was like a weaver's beam" In italics, because it was added by King James later and is not in the original text. he ordered the insert: "the son of." This made David killing the father of Goliath. In three chapters in Genesis, "Abram and Sarai, Abram and Sarah, and Isaac and Rebekah" three separate couples "go down to Gerar, but at the border. the man tells the girl. 'say you are my sister, so things will go well with us." ch. 17 vs 6 changes (saying God did) Abram to Abraham, but no name change for Sarai/Sarah. 3rd story, same story with Isaac/Rebekah. Same king in all three who pays off the men "because I have sinned!" Also, in Genesis light and day are created on one day
    and the sun later on another day. Other double narratives in the first 5 books of the bible. It does not mean the Bible is untrue, but is told mouth to mouth and recorded years later. The word virgin in Hebrew has two meanings. 1. woman who's hymen is broken and 2. "young woman of marriageable age." The author chose the second one. The Noah story has an earlier version, The flood of a different man and its facts were borrowed, but not all of them. Google "two versions of the great flood. Correct definition of the Bible is this: "The Bible is a record of the progressive revelation of God, given to a particular people as much as they were willing and able to understand." The progressiveness of every development known to man is the revelation of God. That is why Tom Edison tried 8,000 times to find the correct filament for the light bulb. He had the faith to know it was there if he did what Jesus said to do. Jesus said: "Why are you amazed at what I do? Seek and find, and all these things will be yours as well!" (quote is in the Apocrypha). As I said: "Those who know the Bible, and that's all they know, do not know the Bible."

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  6. There are many things you have missed in your assessment of this organization. Unity in Christ is keeping His commandments First, and loving one another as I have loved you. If you believe Jesus is God, then you will hold ALL of His Laws as truths. Those things which He said in the OT hold to be the same yesterday, today, and forever. Many ministers and disciples of God in Jesus have strayed from these truths. Unity is not about your church, it is about you as a true believer.

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