1989 and Churches of Christ

1989 was an interesting time in Churches of Christ. Three books had just been published that stirred the conversation: Discovering our Roots and Illusions of Innocence by Leonard Allen and Richard Hughes, and The Worldly Church by Leonard, Richard, and Michael Weed. (In 1990 Leonard’s The Cruciform Church would come out; and in 1996 Richard’s Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America would be published.)

These books challenged the notions that Churches of Christ represent an untainted, pure form of Christianity. And yet they affirmed the best aspects of our tribal tradition.

Let the truth of these words by Allen and Hughes (Illusions) set in:

“The restoration perspective has worked in American life in two important ways. Some Americans have enshrined first times as an ideal to be approximated and even as a kind of transcendent norm that stands in judgment on the ambiguities of the present age. In this case, the myth of first times has been a beacon summoning Americans to perfection. On the other hand, some Americans have fully identified their religious denomination or even their nation itself with the purity of first times. The illusion thereby fostered in the minds of these Americans is that they are an innocent and fundamentally natural people who, in effect, have stepped outside of history, thereby escaping the powerful influences of history, culture, and tradition. These Americans therefore have often confused the historic particularities of their limited experience with universal norms that should be embraced, they have thought, by all people in all cultures and all times.”

In February, 1989, there was a buzz at the ACU lectureship as people listened to Allen, Hughes, and Weed discuss their book. I taught a three-day class in the University Church auditorium called “Success: The Fatal Attraction.” (I remember this because they were still doing lectureship books. I just pulled it out. My chapter is the one right below one called “I Saw the Towers of Darkness Fall; I Saw the Morning Break” by . . . Landon Saunders.)

In March of 1989 I spoke at the Tulsa workshop on fellowship. It wasn’t my first time to come “out of the closet,” but it was the first time in such a public setting. Shortly after that, an elder in an Arkansas church wrote people in Searcy saying that if I wasn’t let go, they would bring home 24 Harding students from their church. (As if he had that power.)

In May, I did the opening night keynote at Pepperdine, introducing the book of Exodus. I called it “One Thing Worse Than Bondage.” (Want to guess?) Oliver Howard taught a packed house in Smothers Theater on the topic, “Maintaining Unity in the Face of Divisive Controversies.” Another major class, taught by Randy Mayeux was entitled, “A Local Minister Responds to the Warnings of The Worldly Church.”

Then in July, I gave the opening keynote of the first Nashville Jubilee — again on fellowship (and again a topic that I was asked to speak on). That time, some Nashville church — or perhaps it was a few churches — took out an ad in the Nashville paper (I kid you not!) to attack my speech. For reasons I still don’t understand — though I think just because it was such a large gathering of a group that doesn’t normally have “conventions” — there were summaries of that message everywhere from Christianity Today to the New York Times. Again, I kid you not.

What’s significant isn’t anything I said. That’s just the camera angle I had on everything that year. The real discussion, I think, came from those important books. What if our hermeneutical method wasn’t the only possible one? What if God’s family is much larger than those we know? What impulses in our heritage were worth remembering and emulating? What does it mean to follow Christ in this world?

I mentioned these three books. However, the discussion had begun a few years before. The real shot across the bow came from a Nashville preacher. It was entitled I Just Want to Be a Christian. Anyone remember that?