07-Those who are not with Us
VII. Those who are not with Us A SAYING MAY BE HACKNEYED AND STILL BE PACKED with truth. One such saying is, “It takes all kinds of people to make a world. ’ ’ The secular world, however, has no monopoly on varieties of types of people in its make-up. It looks as if our religious world is even overburdened with them.
We are a varied lot, we Christians. If we were to look at ourselves objectively, stand off as one on the outside, we could hardly be proud of ourselves, as we note our larger denominational divisions, our sects and independent churches, our isms, our Holiness, Dispensational, Adventist groups, and our so-called modernist and fundamentalist factions, some within the larger groups, and others separate and distinct and militantly opposing. We are a motley crew. We not only seem to have a lot of different oars, but are pulling in opposite directions. And some won’t even admit that we are all in the same boat. This situation is, of course, confusing to people outside of the church, resulting in the indifference and the scorn of many. There is no minister, hfljfever, who finds himself at ease about it.
All of us are concerned that there should be so little unity of impact of our spiritual resources upon an evil world. And it becomes a deeply personal disturbance to many ministers as these widely differing viewpoints mean criticism or attack against themselves by those who differ with them. Some men find their congregations divided, with certain groups setting themselves in array against them. Some such groups, overstressing some phase of religious truth, take the part for the whole and tirelessly labor their point. They are out of harmony with the teaching of their minister and they demand that he be the one to change his tune.
Whether or not this be an acutely personal problem for us, we are all aware that there are those who claim to be within the fold of Christ who are not with us. And some are so definitely not with us that they are against us. Or maybe it is we who are against them.
How are we to be faithful ministers and good pastors in this situation? It is evident that this is a question of attitudes. It is especially a pastoral question if, as it may happen, the differences are within our own congregation.
It may be that we ourselves have some rather settled opinions about the religious values of some who differ with us. I know that I have. I am quite convinced that I would rather have my own child have no formal relationship with a religious group at all than to be under the influences of some of them. I am quite sure that some forms of religion make people morally poorer instead of richer, and weaker rather than stronger. It is possible, of course, that they would say that of mine.
I know that there are some forms of religious emphasis which I feel definitely have this tendency. One of them is the religion of emotionalism.
It is the religion of escape. It is fraught with the feeling of release. It is the religion now of copious tears, and now of loud hallelujahs, neither of which ever proves to be much more than a momentary stimulant. James tells of the man who,.looking into a mirror, “goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.” But emotionalism does not even look into the mirror of self -analysis. The pulsating ecstasy of feeling is too satisfying for that. Except for the time spent in so-called religious exercises which might otherwise have been spent for some even lesser purpose, nothing is different at all because of it.
I have some aversion too for types of religion that build up mere codes of conduct as standards for Christian living. “We not only have small and admittedly odd groups such as the Amish and Dunkards, for whom a style of dress and a restriction as to the use of modern conveniences is a distinguishing mark of their religion, but also we have something equally wide of the heart of religion in larger groups and churches, where things done, or not done, in accordance with accepted codes of the group are the standard of one’s Christianity. Certain restraints are laid down, and anyone who breaks over these is considered a heathen and a publican. Psychologically there is actually a morally deteriorating influence in such restrictions and limiting qualities of life. For one thing, there is too much moral satisfaction born of outward conformity with them, and too little training in moral discrimination and values against the time when one faces a situation not covered by the restricted codes of conduct. In merely learning the restriction of “thou shalt not,” one may miss altogether the undergirding principles of “thou shalt.” Here the Christian soldier may have learned a manual of arms, but not much about how to fight an enemy when on his own.
Furthermore, I find myself critical of the strict lines drawn by the religion of “modernist” and “fundamentalist.” Personally I think that anyone would have rather a hard time lining up Jesus Christ strictly with either one. The Pharisees were certain he was a modernist. The Sermon on the Mount was revolutionary enough and a complete denial of old shibboleths. On the other hand, Jesus was loyal to the synagogue and the sacrifices of the Temple. He went back of the Torah to the older Prophets for his authority. It is hard to believe that such a one would approve of the volume of contention with which some have sought to place him solely on their side, or that he needs any lastditch defenders any more than he needed the literal sword of Peter in the G-arden of Gethsemane.
If lie said, “He that is not with me is against me,” he also said, “He that is not against us is for us.” And if he told of a separation final and complete of the sheep and the goats at the judgment, he was yet widely inclusive when he said, “Inasmuch as... ye have done it unto me.”
We often seem far more ready than Jesus was to draw a line and say, “Stand you on that side, for on this side am I. “The bitterly caustic remark of Job to his critics was deserved “No doubt... wisdom shall die with you.” Whatever position we hold, we can be of little use to God unless we truly manifest in our ministry that we do not merit a similar summary of our attitudes. None of us has a charter of all truth. The important thing for all of us is that if, for instance, we do abhor mere emotionalism, we yet recognize its worth over against the hardness of mere logic, and the warmth of its tears over against the coldness of unyielding hearts, and that we remember that narrowness is not worse than shallowness, that inner discipline and restriction must ever be present, and that zealousness and even controversy are better than dead formalism or a mere socially correct church affiliation.
Nobody is going to be worth very much as a minister without strong convictions concerning his own interpretation of religious truth and those of his group; but let us be assured that others have convictions too, and that a consideration of the things they hold may conceivably be critically constructive and corrective for us.
Furthermore, we have our own job to do and gospel to preach. It ought to be pro-Christ and not against some other group or some other minister. It may be that some other group or person is wrong. Yet it is better to preach for Christ than against them. And it does not follow that in proving they are wrong we have proven that we are right. The test of us runs deeper than that. Our orthodoxy is not established upon the ruin of that of anyone else. ’ A rabbi friend of mine recently suggested that “respect” is a better word than “toleration.” Who more than a minister should respect the convictions and the work of others f Some are doing a work in a spot where we would fail. They are reaching men and women whom we could not touch. To tolerate them is not enough. We must respect them. And when we do not, we are out of line with the scripture that says, Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not [love]...
Some of the differences that arise in the interpretation of truth may seem more important than they really are. Temperaments vary and the angle from which one looks may give a different aspect of the same truth. Somewhere I once read a little story of a Scotch father that has helped me to understand how the same words may be used and the meaning put into them be wholly conflicting. The old Scot was very angry when his only son left home, and its restricted opportunities, to be on his own in the world. The father cut him out of his life and his thought, and bade his faithful daughter never to mention the name of her brother in his presence. The sister’s heart was heavy about it all; but she was overjoyed indeed when, after more than a year of silence, a letter came addressed to the father from his son. Neither father nor daughter could read. The father was too angry and still too hurt to want to read it anyway. But after much persuasion the daughter induced him to go with her to the village butcher and ask him to read the letter for them. The butcher was a gruff soul with a harsh voice and contentious personality. So he roughly took the letter in his hand and with characteristic churlishness of accent read, “Dear Father: I am very sick. Won’t you please send me some money? Your son, John.”
Upon hearing it read thus, the father said, “The ungrateful rascal! I won’t send him a cent.” The daughter sadly walked home with him; but before they entered the gate she said, “Father, let’s take the letter over to the baker. He is a good man and friendly, and he will read the letter to us, for maybe there is something that the butcher did not see. ’ ’ So they went to the baker, who was indeed a good man and understanding, with the spirit of Christ in his heart. Gently he took the letter from the father’s hand and spoke with kindness of the absent boy. Then, with feeling and sympathy, he read the selfsame words: “Dear Father: I am very sick. Won’t you please send me some money? Your son, John. ’ ’ And the hard old Scotch father, with tears glistening in his eyes, said to the daughter tenderly, “How much do you think we can send him?”
“For ye have need of patience,” wrote the author of the Book of Hebrews. It is up-to-date advice for the exasperation sometimes occasioned by some who suddenly become critical of our spiritual life. A new light has shone for them, and a new truth has dawned for them, and their minister must be converted to it. A zealous young woman came to a minister whom I know to tell him that he ought to make a new all-out surrender to his Lord. She did not know, and he could not tell her, that years before, as a boy of seventeen, he told his father that he wanted to be a minister but his father forbade it, and that when he was twentyone he again approached his father, who replied that if he chose the cloth the door of his house would be closed against him and he would no longer be his son. And from that day forward he was cut off from his father’s house. Most of us have need of a continual surrender; and this minister, acknowledging that, did not claim that his original sacrifice was enough. But he had need of patience, and he exercised it, remembering that youthful zeal, though inconsiderately critical, could yet be turned to good account.
Dr. S. Parkes Cadman was asked in one of his radio question periods, “How can I persuade another person to believe as I believe?” He answered with telling brevity, as he knew so well how to do, “By living a better life than he does.” That is always the minister’s opportunity in any difference of belief or practice. Our dogma is never as persuasive and convincing as the conclusiveness of a reality and sincerity in our personal religion.
James Hilton, in Random Harvest, depicts a London cleric by the name of Blampied a quaint, varied personality, a timid, unworldly parson of fiction who was both a crusader and a mystic, but some of whose philosophy of life many of us could adopt with profit to ourselves and the cause we serve. Blampied says that every man should have some small matter to which he attaches undue importance, always provided that he realizes the undueness. The Oxfordshire men in the story obviously regarded the parson as an oddity, but being country people they knew that men, like trees and unlike suburban houses, were never exactly the same, and this idea of unsameness as the pattern of life meant that (as Blampied put it) they didn’t think there was anything very odd in anyone being a little odd.
Commenting about Ms former political activity, Blampied confesses, The truth is, Smith,... I never could get along with all the Risers-to-Seeond-That and the On-a-Point-ofOrderers. If I were God, I’d say Let there be Light. But as I’m not God, I’d rather spend my time plotting for Him in the dark than in holding committee meetings in a man-made blaze of publicity. 1
Dr. Halford E. Luccock speaks of “ crowding Christ into a uniform. ’ ’ That is a mistake we often make about him who is too big for any uniform and is always greater than any pattern we fashion to enclose him. Stanley Jones has spoken of “The Christ of the Indian Road,” saying that Christ ought to be presented as Christ, and stripped of our Western thought and preconceptions. A missionary of thirty years of service in China once told me that he was certain that they had made a mistake in their attitude about Chinese ancestor worship, for instead of sublimating it and transforming it into some form of the Christian conception of the living dead, they insisted that it be given up. As a result the Chinese concluded that Christianity meant a turning of their backs upon 1 Used by permission of Little, Brown & Go. and the Atlantic Monthly Press. their deep-rooted and worthy filial piety. How rarely do we dare preach Christ and let Tiim have his own way with men! We insist upon putting him into our uniform. Perhaps it is because we have never dared ourselves to wear his. It is so much easier to be busy sewing braid on our own, brushing it off and shining up its buttons, than to acknowledge its unlikeness to Christ’s, whose uniform was a crown of thorns, whose symbol a cross, and whose purpose to do utterly the will of the Father. For contentiousness there is no place whatever, no matter what the issue. No difference of opinion or conviction, no question of orthodoxy or practice, can ever merit a surrender of the inner spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ in us. “We must ever be his valiant followers. But it is tragic always when anyone comes to believe that he personally is the Lord’s last line of defense, that he only is left, and that the issue is so final that he must draw the sword in defense of the Lord against all comers. Then it is that anything and everything contrary to his spirit may happen. And it usually does.
There is a passage in the first chapter of Philippians that strikes at the heart of this matter. It is Paul of strong convictions, the sturdy, strong crusader for his Lord, who writes, Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: the one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: but the other of love, knowing* that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
Notwithstanding, Christ is preached! Let us be sure that we do that in word and in life. None of us has enough of the grace and strength and spirit of our Lord to dissipate any of it in attack.
Let us give our all to our ministry, as G-od gives us grace, and let the other fellow give Ms. It may be that God is using us all; and we ought then to give him a chance to use all we are, with, nothing of us diverted against anyone else.
There is a radio story of a sheepherder, away on his lonely station, writing in to ask the broadcaster to strike A on the studio piano that he might tune his old violin, his only comfort in Ms solitary task. And so the broadcasting station did, and some days later a letter came expressing gratitude and saying, “Now I’m in tune.” Each of us has Ms own note, and others have theirs.
We do not need, all of us, to play the same note; but we do need, each of us, to be in tune with the great A who is the Lord and Master of us all.