Placing People

Take the 1920-30s PCUSA Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy as an example. Undoubtedly, there were real doctrinal issues at stake. Since the 1892 Portland Deliverance, conservatives had focused on five doctrines: biblical inspiration, the virgin birth of Jesus, substitutionary atonement, Jesus' bodily resurrection, and the reality of miracles. And progressives provided a response to those doctrinal concerns--namely, there is more than one way to understand and state those doctrines--in the 1924 Auburn Affirmation. 

But as the controversy played out in the 1920s and 1930s, people who ought to have viewed the doctrinal issues the same way (even the conservatives on the faculty at Princeton Seminary) ended up on different sides of the question, "What do we do about this doctrinal conflict?" 

Why? One potential reason was the associations and loyalties that played out--those who were ultimately loyal to J. Gresham Machen were far fewer than those who were loyal to Charles Erdman. As hard as it is for us to believe today--when most Presbyterian conservatives know who Machen was, but few remember Erdman--it was Erdman that was far more widely known and had a far greater following. 

To be associated with him and his cause--especially in 1925 when he served as moderator of the General Assembly--was to be on the "right side" of the issue. And to be loyal to Erdman, who taught preaching to hundreds of Princeton students and whose expositions were used by thousands of Presbyterian laymen, was to be loyal to the "mainstream" of Presbyterian life. Hence, it was not a surprise that when Machen finally was forced to leave the PCUSA to form the OPC in 1936, that only 5,000 people followed him out. 

All to say, that we might do well to notice the way we "place people" and the way associations and loyalties play out in the various religious controversies that come up in our churches and denominations. We often want to say that we are arguing over "principle"; and sometimes we are. But more often, what drives our commitments to those principles are the underlying loyalties to people and even institutions. For some, where one went to seminary will tell you a great deal about his loyalties; not so much for specific theological commitments as for the general loyalty to a place that was formational for their Christian life and practice.

On the other hand we need to be careful in the way we presume about how others stand on particular issues simply because of their associations and loyalties. While it is natural for us as humans to "place people" in this way, simply because someone is associated by church attendance, academic study, employment, or other factor with someone else or some other institution does not necessarily provide a safe guide for how he will act or what he believes. Some times people will surprise us; we need to hear the voices of others as they speak out of their contexts in order to understand what God may have for us and our churches. Far better for us to listen and speak well, to carry out the practices of friendship, to live the golden rule. 

After all, would I want to be judged for being on the same blog as Rodney Trotter? I think not.