Who Is Polarizing the Church?

For a church in the great liberal tradition of modern Protestantism to withhold benevolence money from its denomination is sensational news—particularly when this church charges that the denomination has given funds and support to acknowledged Communistic and revolutionary groups. This was the action taken not long ago by one of the wealthiest and most strategic churches in the Midwest against its denominational conference.

The split within Protestantism today is clearly revealed when denominational leaders, rather than denying such charges, admit them and then seek to defend their policies in the name of “reconciliation.” “We have already radicalized the conference machinery and budget” said one activist leader in the bureaucracy. “Now we must begin to radicalize the local church.” One may safely predict, however, that the latter “radicalizing” will be longer in coming than the first.

At first glance, the proposed takeover of the Church for radical ends seems politically motivated. And superficially it is—hard politics, revolutionary if not Marxist. Those who deny it or believe it will go away if ignored are in for a great shock. This struggle is going on in almost all the major denominations in America, and in every geographical section, including the Bible Belt. (In fact, some of the most strategic and clever political action to radicalize the Church is taking place in Deep South enclaves.) But something is happening that transcends the political. The basic issue has been and is now theological.

A review of a book entitled The Secular Search for a New Christ illustrates the theological basis of this shift to the far left. The author of the book is G. H. Todrank, professor of religion at Colby College, and his thesis, comments reviewer R. Franklin Terry, is that “God as a supernatural agent intervening in history and nature is no longer credible; the biblical perspective on human nature and destiny is too narrowly conceived; the church in both liturgy and institutional practice has lost its compelling relevance to the modern world. But man is still incurably religious in that he longs for ‘an abiding sense of fulfillment or deep satisfaction in everyday living’ ” (The Christian Advocate, Feb. 19, 1970).

Terry goes on to describe the implications of this, in Todrank’s view:

The resulting “crisis for Christianity” is whether a more challenging alternative to orthodoxy can be conceived—a Christology, for example, without Jesus! Hence, we are led to the “quest for secular salvation.” In a pluralistic society, Todrank argues, “no one can claim, in any sense, to be the Christ. This is one of the most serious legitimate criticisms against traditional Christianity today.” In our experience today there are many agencies (Christs) of salvation. Gone forever is the Universal Lordship of Christ crucified and risen.

If salvation can be equated with “an abiding sense of fulfillment” or “deep satisfaction in everyday living,” then to be sure, Jesus Christ (present in gospel, sacrament, and church) is not the only agent of salvation. Beethoven might indeed be a Christ in this sense or Chase Manhattan Bank, depending upon how one defines “fulfillment” and “satisfaction.”

Now that review says it rather clearly, does it not? Every once in a while someone begs me to be more positive in what I preach and write about the state of the world and of the Church. I have been saying recently that there is something either sick or demonic about the present course of the Church, and some people seem to feel that such critical, negative words were better left unsaid. My question is, Who is being negative and who is being positive? Is Todrank, writing against the Christian faith, being positive, and am I by calling his book to your attention, being negative?

Of one thing I am terribly sure—there is a great crisis within the Church in this hour, a crisis that has greater theological implications than any other since perhaps the fourth century. And our strongest foes are those within our own household.

The Church seems to be divided today between those dedicated to changing the structures of society in an effort to build the Kingdom of God, and those who want first to see men changed and transformed so that the Kingdom may ultimately come. Within many of the denominations, great sums of money are being raised from the local churches and then, in the name of “reconciliation,” given to various power blocs and radically militant groups with the idealistic hope that “the structures of an evil society” will be changed.

Reconciliation is a fascinating word, one with a beautiful meaning. In the New Testament, it is used to mean the restoration of harmony between man and God. But amazing things are being done with this lovely word by those who seem to have little interest in its original meaning. The “reconciliation” funds that major denominations are giving to various radical and revolutionary groups—often groups with deep and bitter anti-Christian philosophies—are raised within the local churches by pietistic arguments with fine biblical sounds. Listen to this one, taken from a denominational promotional sheet attempting to raise funds “to change the structures of our evil society”:

We are motivated, not by political, economical, sociological, or even humanitarian considerations, though we recognize such considerations as legitimate expressions of our response to the love of God in Christ with which He first loved us. We are motivated by the love of God manifest in Christ which calls us to total commitment of His Reconciling purpose.

Or this:

Because God is the Reconciler and not we ourselves, we must continually seek the guidance of His Holy Spirit lest we project institution-oriented goals and class values as the purpose of this program. The ministry of reconciliation which we acknowledge as the mission of the Church does not require us to re-create all sorts and conditions of men into our image, nor even to win members for the Church. It requires us to open the way for God to make a people what He will. To say it another way, it requires us to work for conditions in our world that free men and women to attain the utmost of themselves as persons. We do not presume to predetermine what kind of persons they will be.

That says it clearly, it seems to me. Conversion is certainly not to be the number one item of business. I suspect it is not even second or third on the priority list. In the new pragmatic, political church, we are to give missionary money to all sorts of organizations outside the Church to help each to do its own thing. Apparently there are to be no strings attached to the gift, no questions asked.

Some of the major denominations have publicly denied giving missionary money to meet the reparations demand of James Forman. Yet their mission boards have given hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single year to the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization, an organization that publicly admits that it is a front for Forman’s group and that some of this denominational mission money is being given to Forman. This is an interesting game the denominational boards seem to be playing. Perhaps it is their way of fulfilling the biblical injunction that “when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.”

This clever bookkeeping serves to appease the constituency that pours the millions of dollars into the mission-board coffers annually while the mission boards give money to radicals and revolutionists in the name of reconciliation and the building of a new world structure. And in this way the denominational boards declare that they are fulfilling Christ’s mission upon the earth and doing the work that the relevant Church should be doing in this crisis hour.

To bring it all off successfully, however, and to insure that the dollars continue to pour in from the local churches, requires some care. The goose that lays the golden egg must not be fatally damaged in this delicate operation. The men in high places who produce a pietistic rationale for these operations and mail it out to the local churches acknowledge openly that “we do not presume to predetermine what kind of people” the recipients of the missionary funds will be or ought to become. With disarming honesty the writers announce their dedication to the task of working for conditions in our world that will “free men and women to attain the utmost of themselves as persons.” That makes good existentialist theology. Bultmann and Heidegger would understand perfectly. But it is a far cry from the New Testament theology of both Jesus and Paul.

The kerygmatic reconciliation of the New Testament is between God and man, accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ. But the reconciliation to which many in the churches today are devoting their efforts is exclusively horizontal reconciliation between man and man, group and group, race and race. Apparently it is accomplished, at least in part, with money.

To speak about these matters is to risk being branded negativistic, judgmental, intolerant. Is it not right, however, to cry out for biblical reform and spiritual revival when the Church becomes choked with unbelief? A necessary part of this is to call attention to unbiblical teaching in denominational literature and colleges and seminaries, and to the leftward and radical turn of the mission boards and women’s societies and other denominational agencies. To speak out on these issues seems to me to be within the great tradition of the Old Testament prophets, and in tune with the hard words of our Lord and with the highest traditions of Protestant and evangelical faith.

I do not believe that evangelical pastors and churches are polarizing the Church. The evangelicals I know are simply trying to survive and to bear some kind of witness in this time of apostasy. Humanly speaking they are weak and powerless within the new church. I believe that politically powerful caucus groups that are making non-negotiable demands, demonstrating, and insisting that budgetary items be cut back and the money given to them with no strings attached—these are the ones who are polarizing the Church.

No one can deny that Protestants are losing ground. In this day of great population explosion, church membership rolls and monetary resources are in a state of decline. More and more members of established denominations are silently leaving their churches. They are not marching and demonstrating. They simply have had it, and are seeking spiritual food elsewhere. The silent slipping away will no doubt continue and perhaps increase as the prospect of a super-church of a dozen denominations looms larger.

Could there be a connection between the decline in membership and contributions and the radical leftward swing of many denominational boards and agencies? My experience has been that some agency officials will quickly deny this, offering some reasons for the great decline. But some agency officials have acknowledged the connection without hesitation, and have cavalierly dismissed it as “the price that must be paid by a truly prophetic church.” And so the polarization within the Church continues at great and terrible speed.

We have looked briefly at the social and political polarization within the Church, but I am sure that the deeper division is theological.

Suburbia Rediscovered

The big news in the religious publishing field in 1971 will be the flood of books and articles that emphasize the importance and the potential of the suburban congregation. Instead of denouncing the suburban church as irrelevant or as overly concerned with a ministry only to its members, these authors will point to the suburban church as a potential power center with the capability of accelerating the pace of planned social change.

This view will be reinforced by the detailed reports from the 1970 census of population. These reports will show a sharp increase in the proportion of the black population living in suburbia. These reports also will reveal a sharp increase in the number of the poor living in suburbia.—LYLE E. SCHALLER, city planner and United Methodist minister, in a article syndicated by Associated Church Press.

Increasingly it seems to me that the real issue of this hour within the Church is whether God hears and answers our prayers. The issue, then, is the supernatural. We are not divided into pietists and social activists so much as we are divided between those who believe and those who do not. There are those who believe that God is there, that he does hear and answer our prayers, and that he does act in response to our entreaties. And there are those naturalists and humanists in the Church today who deny not only the miracles of the New Testament but also the real miracles of this hour. This, it would seem to me, is the real division point.

It is a combination of social concern and evangelistic passion that is the real heartbeat of the Church. The parish church I have served for almost two decades is now an interracial church in an interracial community. This church has a great heritage and tradition of missionary concern, evangelistic passion, and intelligent biblical witness. But it also has great concern for the world at its doorstep. For many years it has given generously both of its sons and of its funds to the world mission of the Church. And for many years it has attempted to reach out into the nearby community to meet the needs of the poor and the dispossessed. For this church, social concern and evangelical outreach has never been an either/or proposition but always both/and, and never more so than in today’s split world. The evangelical church must not only come alive; it must truly begin to care!

What we may now begin to see in the evangelical churches is the start of a great new movement of the Holy Spirit, not only among young people but in the total life of the Church. This is not to be a movement of emotionalism; we have already had that, and it has failed. But this can be a deep and quiet movement of the Spirit touching every area of personal and social living.

Only a spiritual movement in which men become right in their relationship with God and then in their relationship with their families and their fellow men, is worth being called an awakening. Francis Schaeffer keeps reminding us that it is both revival and reformation in life that we so greatly need in the Church today. And we are starting to see this in the life of some local parishes.

I believe that only our Lord can do this, by his Spirit, in the kind of world in which we live today. I do not see sociologists producing a transformation in character and personality, nor do I see money—whether large or small sums, from government or private sources—producing this result. Despite great expenditures, the failure of social and governmental agencies to rebuild the City of Man is clearly visible all around us.

One other positive word remains to be said. Those of us who are believers in this One who has come down out of heaven to deliver us must be more clear and more certain in our witness of him today than ever before. We must stand up and affirm for all men to hear our faith in his saving blood and our trust in him, and in him alone, for salvation. It is the gift of eternal life alone that is our hope for a non-polarized Church—and for a new world!

C. Philip Hinerman has been pastor of Park Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis for nineteen years. He has the B.D. from Asbury Theological Seminary and did graduate work at Pittsburgh Seminary.

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