As you know, I love football.
I don’t play it, obviously, because that would require physical effort that has already been spent getting the can of ginger beer and me laptop ready to watch it and converse about it. Yet I love watching top quality football and everything that surrounds it.
A cause of much interest to football fans is the transfer market – who will be purchased, who will be sold and all of that. This week has seen a big news story as Arsenal’s best player last season confirmed as joining Manchester United. There had been fuss about the player wanting t leave Arsenal after the manager had kept faith with the player after a number of injury-hit seasons. Some believe it is an act of disrespect as well as disloyalty for the player to leave the club after one outstanding season especially to join a dreaded rival for the Premier League.
Alternative arguments, however, may put it that having served the club for so long and yet ended up with no medals and trophies, it is understandable that you wish to move on to a club that is likely to win things. The principle is familiar. If you worked at a company for a number of years and the company wasn’t progressing and had the opportunity to move onto a better job working for a company that was overall better, it would make sense that you would tend to take the move on.
What it highlights, as ever, is the territorial nature of following a football team. It is a tribal thing. It is the same level of loyalty and tribal affiliation we attach to national identity.
It’s also, sadly, something that’s attached to denominational affiliation.
The Body of Christ should be one of those places where such things are rather alien, because as long as you are a brother or sister in Christ then there should be a degree of civility, courtesy, graciousness and amicable treatment however one’s spiritual development should take place.
The reality is, however, in quite a number of cases that for all the talk of ‘getting on fine’ with other denominations, when it comes to it church leaders are very protective of ‘their’ members. Now with a title like ‘pastor’ and the ‘shepherd’ connotations that are linked with that, the protective element can be justified. Yet when you scratch the surface it might not be all that straightforward. Likewise the attitudes of brothers and sisters to such things highlights the tribal nature denominations attach to themselves. Surely with such an attitude, true unity becomes that much harder to realise.
I am not against things such as responsibility and church procedures. I fully support those who wish to ensure that the local family members remain just that. I certainly wouldn’t advocate a fly-by-night approach to being a part of the local church and it is like a shopping deal where you go when its convenient to you. Neither am I a fan of believers behaving like a law unto themselves where no one can tell them what to do and they’ll only do what God tells them to do.
What I am suggesting is that loyalty in the Body of Christ, should be to the Body of Christ, not exclusively to a denomination. This issue pops up when it comes to questions of marriage and the couple don’t belong to the same denomination. (Cue: Dramatic Music). Big deal. They don’t belong to the same denomination, but surely that’s not what Paul was on about when regarding human relationships and being unequally yoked. (Although we now have a helpful modern reading of that which would suggest that is exactly what Paul meant.)
Perhaps this is a way for genuine church unity to emerge. Maybe not. Either way a broader understanding of church from God’s perspective would help us relax when brothers and sisters feel the need to move on. In their moving on, it’s not as though they have to disconnect themselves to relationships, because as long as we’re brothers and sisters that connection will remain. Hopefully on the contrary, the greater appreciation for the diversity of God’s family expands as we make those relational connections. (I am ducking the people who would throw words of ‘compromise’ and ‘heresy’ at me.)
God expects loyalty from His children as any father would from his children. That loyalty is to Him directly, not through man-made structures that can turn into controlling powers.
Just saying.
That is all.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
dmcd
Life With CD 