Disciples

Who We Are and What Holds us Together

Michael Kinnamon, Jan Linn

• Publisher: CBP
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780827206670
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

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.

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 “dishonor God’s character.”8

The remarkable stability of our heritage becomes especially clear when we set this list alongside the “principles of identity” developed, a century later, by the Disciples “Vision Team.”

• We confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and proclaim him Lord and Savior of the world, requiring nothing more—and nothing less—as a basis of our life together.
• We hold the centrality of scripture, recognizing that each person has the freedom—and the responsibility—to study God’s Word within the community of the church.
• We practice the baptism of believers, which emphasizes that God’s grace demands a response of faith and discipleship, while also recognizing the baptism performed in other churches.
• We gather for the Lord’s Supper, as often as possible, experiencing at this table the gracious, forgiving presence of Jesus Christ.
• We structure our community around the biblical idea of covenant, emphasizing not obedience to human authority...

Table of 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