There can be two kinds of discipling relationship:
One like the Karate Kid with Daniel-san and Mr. Maragi, and one like in Wall Street with Bud Fox and Gordon Gekko.
Whatever the characteristics and moral example of the person at the top is, that will trickle down and eventually permeate the whole batch of dough.
From what I’ve read of some of the recent SODM articles (by Kip Mckean and others) there seems to be repeated issues raised about autonomy, lack of baptisms, and ‘optional discipling’ (whereby some ICOC churches that formally practiced one-on-one discipling have adopted the approach to give members a choice of whether to have a discipler or not).
One of Kip’s recent articles has become more persuasive, and while I agree with some of his argument I still feel provoked to react with my own discussion, and perhaps his intention is to provoke. He even used a quote from Jeremiah, which I feel he misquotes. A ‘horrible and shocking thing’ he equates to ‘few baptisms’, and ‘prophets prophesy lies’ equates to those preaching ‘discipling is optional’.
One point comes to mind -there are ICOC churches with compulsory one-on-one discipling, and who don’t subscribe to autonomy. Where do they stand? Or is the problem that they don’t fit into Kip Mckean’s version of central authority? How could they, some joined in the public challenge to Mckean’s divisiveness. I’m not sure how they’re doing with baptisms, but I’ve also heard the ICOC is now out of a seven year ‘recession’ and is back in growth, or estimated growth or something. What is supposed to happen then? They change sides over to SODM? Kip Mckean accepts them into his version of Christianity anyway?
Back to the quote from Jeremiah -I still maintain the argument that if the First Century Christians didn’t have the system of one-on-one discipler (whereby every member is assigned a discipler who is accountable up the discipler ladder), how could ‘optional discipling’ ever be a heresy or a lie? If the Christians of the New Testament were able to fulfill all that was expected of them from the scriptures without a system they hadn’t even heard of, how come it should be compulsory today?
Sure, the bible has examples of mentors and protégés or partners fighting side by side. But these relationships exist in all kinds of contexts -cops hitting the streets as partners, a leader in an academic field taking on an assistant, the kungfu “sifu” with his disciple; in fact any field where one benefits by learning from the other. The bible, as well as life, demonstrates the effectiveness of such inspiring relationships enabling people to learn from each other in a personal way.
But the system of discipling and shepherding remains controversial, because it is imposed, and easily becomes a tight mechanism for control. That’s not inspiring -that’s a dangerous recipe for abuse. And testimony after testimony is proving this.
On to autonomy. I haven’t studied the issue in the bible personally. However, I don’t believe it’s necessarily a heresy or correct doctrine, and that’s why I don’t intend to scrutinize every reference in Acts. I believe it really depends on the situation. And in the current situation my advise is for any former ICOC fellowship or mainline Churches of Christ to stay away both from Kip Mckean’s SODM and the ICOC Cooperative.
I don’t believe ‘autonomy’ and ‘independence’ are the dirty words that have been ascribed by Kip Mckean or the ICOC. Of course, in regards to faith we’re called to rely on God rather than man. However, I also believe these were terms that were twisted and abused to keep people staying tied to the system of discipling. It is clear many prophets roamed the desolate places, almost as if to express a desire to remain detached from politics, to find solace in God, and to have the objectivity to challenge society and king where necessary.
It’s good to be part of a good church -but we can’t assume that every church remains good. If anything the New Testament letters demonstrate how challenging it was for churches to stick to the true path. They were forever attacked from within and without in the form of heresies, crooks and frauds trying to lead them astray, jealous leaders of competing sects etc… Churches and leaders alike can go astray, get lukewarm, become deceitful or abusive. Even if it’s a good ‘movement’ or group of churches, within them some can go astray.
There may come a time when a church has to break free and become autonomous -perhaps the leader of the church believes according to his conscience, this is the right thing to do to protect his flock. For this to happen in the former ICOC, such a leader would have been labeled rebellious and divisive. Yet from my point of view, in the churches I was in, that probably was the right thing to do. Much abuse stemmed from a conflict of interest in leadership where they had to appease pressures from up the hierarchy and yet were called by God to look after the flock under them (not exploit them in rushing baptisms every month etc…). The only way to protect them from a system of works and abuse was to break away. That’s just an example from the former ICOC. The issues could be over anything.
Of course, generally it is good for a church to have relationships with other churches -mutual encouragement etc… But if a church labels or implies another church (is) ‘heretical’ just because it doesn’t submit to it’s self imposed central authority, then that’s just like saying “your heretical because you don’t follow us”. And that’s judgment in the wrong sense of the word, because it’s not basing the judgments on the merits of the church itself before God.
This is why I’m skeptical about the issue of ‘autonomy’, it can more like a devise of moral bullying rather than challenging a church to repent of a sin.
Who is a fence-sitter, and how did the concept come to my mind? Truth be told, I used to be somewhat of a fence-sitter. It’s very easy to be, and I believe most people tend to be fence-sitters when there are two differing ‘camps’, opinions or mindsets but neither is dominant.
The fence-sitter seeks the best of both worlds, or two worlds. It’s the safest position in the house. It’s a position of non-commitment, of waiting and seeing, in case one camp comes out trumps and ‘persecutes’ or ‘rejects’ the other camp. All the fence-sitter needs to do is jump into the right camp at the right time, and he’s safe.
A fence-sitter isn’t concerned with contradictions or inconsistencies -rationalisation allows him to remain on the fence. Dictators and tyrants like fence-sitters, because they know at the heart of a fence-sitter’s motivation is safety first, and they therefore will not oppose or rebel. When the tyrant is deposed down the line and public opinion goes against the former tyrant, the fence-sitter is there with everyone else reminiscing all the bad things under the tyrant. Should a new tyrant come along, the fence-sitter will be there again, rationalizing away about how legitimate the tyrant is.
Fence-sitters therefore can legitimize a tyrant or a system. Fence-sitters are often very intelligent and can give the appearance of wisdom, but they’re bendable. Nathan, David’s prophet, John the Baptist, or Paul the Apostle they are not.
I’m not about pointing out who in the ICOC was or is a fence-sitter -this is more for people involved or formally involved to reflect on their own role they played. As I said previously, I was a fence-sitter. I was in one church that scorned the ‘Honest to God’ letter in 2003, and then visited my old church in another city that came to grips with the past and made changes to the discipling system. The other church strengthened it’s discipling system, and I just went along with both churches depending on which one I was in at the time. And yet the views and attitudes were inherently inconsistent.
One church had a ‘revolution’ of sorts and acknowledged former abuses, the other church made token apologies and resisted change because in the church with the revolution full-time ministry positions ceased to exist. With so much at stake, it’s understandable why many are fence-sitters.
But I believe the real issue is about each individual doing what he believes is right according to his ability, situation and conscience. You may come to a point where you decide that to be a fence-sitter is against your conscience.
If you see something wrong, and you’re afraid to say something, you’re a fence-sitter. I’d had this experience in the ICOC. I saw things that were wrong. Rushed baptisms, unfounded and overly harsh rebukes, blatant taking people for granted, but I couldn’t say anything. That would’ve been ‘unsupportive’ and ‘critical’. Anyway, maybe if I did say something, it could’ve been rationalised away in some private D-time, and if I brought the subject up again, I would then have been ‘proud, divisive and defensive’.
At the time I still wanted to believe in ‘the kingdom’ (being the ICOC), I wanted to be apart of it and I didn’t want to be ‘lost’. But I didn’t want trouble. I didn’t want to lose my friends. So I stayed on the fence.
Reflecting on that now I believe a stumbling block was the way discipling system insisted on such control. I believe, in a healthy church, if a member sees things that go against his conscience or doesn’t feel right, he should feel free to talk to a leader without fear of being labelled ‘defensive, unspiritual’ etc… But the ICOC had such pressure to grow that control became the basis rather than love. Conscience became of second importance, because if your church wasn’t growing, you just weren’t ’spiritual’.
I don’t believe Christians are fence-sitters. I don’t believe that’s the example of Jesus, the prophets and the apostles. The ICOC partly preached that when discussing denomination churches and the ‘mainline’ Churches of Christ, and perhaps it was right to make a stand on certain issues. But in our suffocating ICOC culture, did we teach people to be good fence-sitters when it came to problems of the ICOC?
I also mention the concept of ‘fence-sitter’ because I’ve seen first-hand how people’s opinions vary depending on the church they’re in. Perhaps I felt it in inconsistencies of argument, and there seems to be a certain murkiness of where people stand. Who is against discipling? Who is for it? Who is really for or against, and who just says they are with the potential to switch sides when convenient?
