I preface my following post with the disclaimer that I speak this as an individual member of the Church of God and not in any capacity representing any organization within that denomination, though I have my own very clear identities and perspectives within the Church of God community. I wish to make it plain that my thoughts and views are mine alone, however.
A little while ago I posted on the crisis of trust and a little bit on its relevance to the Church of God as a whole and its troubled history [1]. This post is a follow-up to that one, dealing with specifics about the specific organization I normally attend back in the United States, the United Church of God. During 2010 that organization had a particularly troubling time, involving a long-existing internal divide that, due to a combination of ferocious tempers (one of them my own) and personal ambitions reached a level to where brethren could no longer see each other as brethren.
As part of the public and vocal campaign of lies and innuendo directed at some people (myself included), there was a little bit of truth mixed in (for this is how the father of lies operates), and it is that matter I wish to discuss today. What I wish to discuss is the fact that self-fulfilling prophets have no justification in calling themselves prophets for properly recognizing the godly development they sought to prevent and stymied or so long while at the same time misrepresenting the motives of those changes.
Let us get to brass tacks and talk about specifics. There is a cultural problem within the Church of God community that law and grace are pit against each other. There is the mistaken belief that a concern for caring for the wounded brethren who have faced family and church histories of emotional, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse [2] means being lax on doctrines. There is no contradiction between law and grace, for mercy and justice are the higher matters of the law, which we should do while we obey the ordinary laws of the Bible, including Sabbath and Holy Day observance, tithing, and the like (see Matthew 23:23). Rather, by showing love to our brethren, we obey the law, for there is no law against the fruits of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:22-23).
Likewise, there are fears that a focus on Christ, or Christ-Like Servant Leadership [3] and on love [4] mean a rejection of God’s law. Such either/or Greek Thinking is a gnostic heresy [5] [6] and is to be rejected by any believer. Love and law goes hand in hand. For one, the same Christ that commanded us to love each other (John 13:34) also said that not one jot or tittle of the law would be done away with until heaven and earth pass away (they haven’t; see Matthew 5:17-20). I happen to believe in both Christ’s gracious love towards others, including the undeserving, as well as in the reality of judgment both now and hereafter. Nor are my beliefs on the Sabbath [7] anything less than strict, though I also believe in providing counseling for business owners on how to obey the Sabbath (and other biblical laws still in effect relating to business practices) rather than simply condemning them for moral laxity [8].
I wish to talk at some length though about a specific moral laxity that those who have accused me of being “liberal” with regards to the enforcement of God’s law within the Church of God here and now have severe problems with recognizing themselves. If we keep the whole law except for one point and stumble on that one point, we are guilty of all, transgressors of the law (James 2:10-13), and we all stumble (Romans 3:23) and are worthy of death (Romans 6:23) unless our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, by whose name alone we can be saved (Acts 4:12).
In both Houston, Texas, and Santiago, Chile, areas where I extensively visited in the past in my own unsuccessful efforts at finding love, the precise same epidemic of lawlessness has erupted in congregations led by prominent leaders of Cogwa. Unmarried girls (sometimes even girls with no known boyfriend at the time) have become pregnant out of wedlock, with the result of suspensions from church, shotgun marriages, and revelations of secret relationships and shameful activities. Some of these situations have occurred to people who were very fond friends, and nowhere among the defenders of the law I saw pointing their fingers at others (myself included) did I see the consistent and just enforcement of the biblical law that deals with precisely this situation, found in Exodus 22:16-17, a law which discourages fornication by making the guilty male pay extensively and by providing for marriage without the possibility of divorce due to the dishonorable way the wife was gained [9]. Why do we not study, apply, and enforce the whole law? If we pick and choose laws we prefer without bothering to understand how they apply and what they mean, we are antinomian Gnostics, just like those we criticize for ignoring the Sabbath or clean & unclean meats.
And so we come back full circle. Selectivity and partiality, gnostic heresies about pitting law versus grace, and people who put spin on self-fulfilling prophecies trying to blame others for what they are guilty of has been part and parcel of this whole period of time post-1995 within the Church of God. Truth be told, we have to move beyond the paradigm of progressive = liberal and conservative = biblical models that some people have in their minds [10].
We have to do this for one because few people understand or obey God’s law in any depth, because many people within the Church of God are “conservative” about what in fact are ungodly models of church government (the satanic model of rigid hierarchies and leaders who lord it over the brethren as the Gentiles do). Likewise, being deeply concerned about God’s law need not make a person less loving or generous towards (Boaz, an extremely loving and generous man, was himself a type of Christ, and extremely generous and considerate towards the lovely and young Moabite widow who later became his wife, Ruth). Let us therefore seek after justice, mercy, and truth, without neglecting the other matters of the law that are less weighty, and let us love without being hostile to obedience. For God calls us to be gracious and obedient, just and merciful, loving and righteous.
Let us note in closing, that before we seek to point any fingers at others, we must look at ourselves. If we wish to say that others are unloving, and point to a specific standard by which they are unloving, we set that standard to judge our own behavior, which may fall short of the demands we place on others. If we say that others are dishonest, even if we are right we set a standard to judge our own honesty and integrity, which may be lacking. By the standard we judge we ourselves will be judged. If we show no mercy, we will be shown no mercy. As for me, I show compassion even for Satan’s slaves. For I know there is a Supreme Judge over heaven and earth, and I know someday I will stand before Him alone to give account for every word I have ever said (and written) and everything I have ever done or thought. May God have mercy on us all, and may we all repent, so that none of us enters into condemnation.
[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/a-matter-of-trust/
[3] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/some-thoughts-on-christ-like-leadership/
[6] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/the-trouble-with-gnosticism/
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