AN ENCOURAGING “FIRST” FOR CHURCHES OF CHRIST

I say it is a “first,” but it may not be. It is insofar as I know, and I find it encouraging, another indication that we are changing for the good.

The Cahaba Valley Church of Christ in Birmingham recently invited Krister Stendahl, professor of New Testament at Harvard, for a series of lectures, which included preaching at the Sunday a.m. service and sharing sessions with the congregation. This news item especially interested me, not only because I know that church and because Prof. Stendahl was my thesis director in my studies at Harvard, but also because I see it as phenomenal for our people.

We have been so exclusive a church that we “hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil” except in reference to our own folk. We hardly ever visit other churches, nor do we hear other ministers. We are so terribly inbred that we are seldom exposed to any new ideas except such as come from our own tribe. If someone is called in to “hold a meeting,” you can be sure that he is a Church of Christ man, and oftentimes he must be of a particular breed within that fellowship. Only the daring ones among us read stuff other than what has been written by “a faithful member of the Lord’s church,” and fewer still dare to quote Barclay or Stott or Trueblood in a Sunday School class.

And for a Baptist or a Presbyterian to be invited to fill the pulpit. . .it is unthinkable. It simply doesn’t happen, regardless of the ability or the spiritual depth of the man. I am persuaded that many, if not most, of our people would delight in such an experience, but they are denied the privilege. We are a deprived people, self-deprived, in that we cut ourselves off from much of the great resources of the church at large.

It was therefore significant when the Birmingham church invited a “liberal” theologian, a Swedish Lutheran (from Harvard of all places!) into its pulpit.

So interested was I in this turn of events that I asked my friend, Joe Black, minister of the church, to send me the tapes of Stendahl’s presentations. Knowing that old Krister was also having a rare experience, I wanted to hear what he would say to a Church of Christ. The scene that conjured up in my mind --- a high church Lutheran, clerical collar and all (“I guess you think I’m dressed funny,” he said to them) in a southern Church of Christ pulpit --- was almost too much for me. But from all indications it turned out very well indeed, very nice, as the professor likes to say.

Prof. Stendahl was impressed with our singing. “The congregation is the choir,” he courteously observed in passing, “or the choir is the congregation.” Tape after tape revealed how he opened up the Scriptures, providing helpful insights into the innards of the word, as Krister can do so well. He observed that it is important for us to realize that there is much that we do not and cannot know. He told about the preacher who would describe hell as “the weeping and gnashing of teeth.” When he was asked about those who have no teeth, he replied, Teeth will be provided! The professor was satisfied that the divine did not really know that teeth would be provided!

In giving his views on Christian witness, he named his favorite Scripture: “Let you light so shine before men that they will see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Jesus did not say that they would thus be “converted,” but that they would glorify God. He sees the zeal of Christians in witnessing not always zeal for God as much as zeal for a sect and as often as not it is an ego trip. He is persuaded that the most effective witness is the quiet life that reflects the likeness of Christ, and he is suspicious of those who “pontificate about the lostness of everybody else.”

He thinks the church must be careful in “converting” Jews, lest more harm than good be done. He told of a Jewish girl whose parents died in the holocaust who was adopted by Christians. When she came to see the riches of her Jewish heritage, she concluded that she had lost something in becoming a “Christian.” In a treatment of Rom. 9-11, where Paul says so much about the Jews, Stendahl noted that the apostle does not call for a mission to the Jews. They will return to God, the apostle is assured, but in God’s own time and way, and not necessarily through Christian mission.

While it was unintentional, Krister relieved our premillennial brethren of the problem of the Scriptures ever referring to the church as Israel, which, if true, is embarrassing to their position. But Gal. 6:16 seems to do just that, and I have so understood it. Paul says, “Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God.” Following the Greek text, Stendahl sees Paul saying, “Peace on all who walk by this rule (the Christians), and mercy upon the Israel of God (the Jews).” I notice that Barclay gives a similar rendition. Krister insists that in the Scriptures Israel is always the Jewish people, never the church, but I am sure he could not care less how that might relate to the millennial issue.

He would now and again drop some of his philosophy which I recall from Harvard days. Being more realistic than pessimistic, he lamented that noble causes are often lost --- “love’s labor is often lost,” which many a parent, wondering what he or she did wrong, is likely to agree with. But still God is with us and that is what counts, he assured our people. He is not concerned about the secularization of society, but of the secularization of the church. “If you spend enough money, you can sell anything, even Jesus,” he complained, and he doesn’t believe in “selling Jesus like you sell toothpaste.”

It was kind of the church to present him a copy of my history of our people. Krister remembered his old student when Joe Black revealed that they had a friend in common, and I take it that his judgments were balanced. While he remembered me as somewhat different from the Harvard breed, he also recalled that I plied him with questions that sometimes reached beyond the subject at hand. Since he had taken the place of the old professor with whom I had done most of my work, Henry J. Cadbury, who did not believe in the deity of Christ, I recall asking him if he believed in the empty tomb. Maybe I shouldn’t have, maybe it was none of my business. His answer was yes, to the extent that Harvard profs ever say yes or no to most any question. “There is no way to explain the faith of the apostles,” he assured me, “except that there was an empty tomb.”

But my favorite Harvard story about Stendahl is when one of his students, pressing him on what he believed about the resurrection, asked, “Suppose one had a Brownie that Easter morn and took a picture, what would the picture show?” Krister, undaunted, replied assuringly, “He would have a picture of the resurrection!”

Well, if one wonders whether those “liberals” at Harvard have any spirituality at all should hear Krister Stendahl pray --- in a Church of Christ in Birmingham! “You are so wonderfully, wonderfully great. We can never fathom the depth and the height and the breadth of your wisdom and grace. Deliver us from stifling worries about ourselves, the church, and about your work, and let us breathe deeply in faith. Thanks for the day. Cleanse what was dirty, and if You find anything worth the future. . .Goodnight, God!”

Goodnight, God! It must have been a blessing to all at the Cahaba Valley Church of Christ in Birmingham, a noble “first” in our long trek into the mainstream of the church catholic. While Krister was in the city, he lectured to medical students and a hospital staff on medical ethics, taking the imperative of the sanctity of human personality into the medical classroom.

More experiences like this will show us that we have nothing to fear in “coming within understanding distance,” to use one of Alexander Campbell’s phrases, with those down the street or uptown. The most important thing we learn is that we have far more in common with our Christian neighbors than we have differences. And if we are truly a unity people, will we not emphasize the commonality?

The plain truth is that we all have far more in common that we have been willing to admit. And we always grow when we get outside our fixed molds and sit down with those “strangers” who are actually our fellow pilgrims.

After all, we have one precious truth in common, the truth of the empty tomb. If the stone was never rolled back and if no angel could proclaim He is risen!, then nothing really matters anyway. But if we believe that the Christ is a living reality here and now, we have a precious fellowship to share --- from Cambridge to Abilene! --- the Editor