Christian Unity Within a Divided Protestantism

              M.ENNONITE BOARD OF MISSIONS AND CHARITIES
memo to
from
date
subiect
To Whom It May Conc~rn
.John H . Yoder
April 26, 1966
Christian Unity With in
1711 PRAIRIE STREET , ELKHART, INDIANA 46515
The .fo llowing position paper is being dra:f'ted in response to
r equests coming e~-pecially from two directions: a) £rom Mennonite
missionary a gencies, which find themselves invite d to enter
cooperative relationships, both in home administration and in
overseas work, with other Christian bodies of many kinds ; b) from
Mennonite Student Services Committees, called upon to advise students
about patterns of Christian fellowship, on many university campuses
where denominational representation is limited and the wider Christian
fellowship agencies are not unified.
!t is dependent for its accuracy on whether it fits the e)cperience
of various persons and perspectives; it is therefore being shared
with numerous individuals who might have had experience relating
to it , with the request for any kind of critical response, but
especially for personal testimonies relating to the last parag r aph
o f text, V- F.
I t is appropriate that in both 0£ these connections; the student
and the mission contexts, Mennonites must react to the same t wo
factors: First of all they both £ace the. dividedness of the
efforts of American Christians at cooperation. In each of these
contexts there is a division with (at least) two different orgar.i-
:zati ons each attempting to be expressions of Christ ian unity and
mission, so that t he instruments of. coordination become themselves
instruments 0£ division. Secondly, both of these connections are
in the context of mission broadly understood, so that the concer1i
for coordination and Christian unity can be tested, among other
'things , by its relevance to the responsibi lity of Christians for
witness and service in and t o the unbelieving world.
1. The :framework of any study or this kind must be not denomi-national
but biblical. Although I shall come bac k to the
quest ion of specific appl ication by Mennonite agencies such
a s thos e which request this study , what we need first of
al l i s not a Mennonite position paper but a biblical one.
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A. In our age ~e no longer assume thut f1<.1ch denomination
has a clear bold on its own identity and jl1sti.fication
for existence, and that t he proper answer to any questi on
is to develop a denominational position derived .from
denominational distinctives .. Thus the :first reason
for beginning with the Bible is simply that that is
the right place to begin with any question .
B ~ Yet further reason for this can be seen in the current
uncertainty of the various Mennonite and affiliated
denominational bodies as to what normative Mennonitism
would be if we wanted to £ollow it . Is it derived from
the sixteenth century? Why should one particular age have
that kind of authority? Or is the Mennonite identity to
be seen in the cultural strengths of the rural Mennonite
communities of the last century in North America? If so,
can we claim that this identity persists with the
increasingly rapid abandoning of that rural cultural cont ext ?
C. Our approach shall therefore be to attempt to delineate
a stance in interchurch relat ion; which would be dictated
by fundamental biblical considerat ions, seeking to
develop it as if there were no specific Mennonite position
to draw upon . Then this attempted statement should be
tested with a view to its applicability; does it describe
with any degree of £aithfulness how Mennonites have .found
themselves behaving, in the past oz how they would like
to behave in the future, in the :face 0£ t:he questions of
church unity and mission?
If the stance here sketched should appeal to numer•.,us
Mennonites as descriptive or how they have been trying
to behave or would like to, then perhaps it might repre-sent
as wel l the orient ation of several other kinds of
persons and church groups; of other denominations which
:find themselves ttbetween the camps" , s uch as evangelical
Friends ox the Mission Covenant Church, of 'the Bible
societies, as well as 0£ many individuals whose denomi-nations
are clearly affiliated with one "side" or the
other, bu't who themselves would prefer a less onesided
position .
II. The Main lines of New Testament guidance on the subject as
illuminated by comparison with current thought.
(The sketchy statements here are based on fuller treatment
in °The Ecumenical Movement and the Faithful Church", which
I shall not attempt to repeat )
A. The basis of Christian concern for the unity of Christians
is theological and not merely practical.. The point is not
simply that time and effort are wasted when different
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Christians work independently and thus wastefully, or
at cross purposes and thus in a mutually defeating way;
though that is bad enough~ Nor is the reason for conc~rn
for unity merely practica l on the deeper level of which
much is currently made : that the Christian witness is
less credible when Christians themselves cannot be u ni ted
in presentin9 it; though this of cours e i s true as well ~
This reason finds expression i n frequent quotat i on of the
prayer ot Jesus (John 17 : 23) but even then it is a purely
practical concern .
The deepest reason for concern tor Chr isti an unity is the
f aet that, especially according to the message of
Ephesians, chapters 2 and 3, and Romans 9 - 11, the
gathering together of different kin<ls of people in one
body is itself a constituent element of the 9ospel. If
men of different kinds and races are not reconciled in
one body, then the gospel is not fully true . Thus even
if it were not the case that a more faithful expression
of unity coUid promise greater results in institutiona l
efficiency or even church growth, the imperative would
remain the same.
B. The concern of the biblical writers for Christ ian unity
was a concern for wholeness and not for richness. Again
in contemporary discussion of church unity much is made
of the great variety of convictiona and traditions r epre-sented
in different parts of Christendom, with the idea
that each of us is missing out on something if he does
not find ways o~ learning what others have to contr i bute .
This is a.gain quite true on the level of cultures and
traditions; but it is not an unimbiguous truth, for there
is much t hat each Christia11 herit age would like to contri-bute
t o the c011111on fund which is falseor dan9erQus .. The
i mperative of Christian unity applies to t hose from wham
we have nothing in particular to l earn {assuming hypothet :i.cal ly
that there cat) well be such) ; the basis of this concern is
· not the me rit of particular Christians or Christian bodie s ~
their gifts or their heritages , but tbe work of Christ .
The apostle Paul 1~ver explained his concer n f or keeping
in fellowship wit h the Judaizing wing of the .Yerusaleta
church on tbe basis of what the Judaizers had to contri-bute
to a futur e united church. As a matter of fact be
could see very little good coming from the special ideas
or the in~titutional operations of tbe Jewi sh wi ng of the
church. Whatever there was of good in the Jevrl.sh heritage,
he h3d good reason to believe he h ad a lready worked into
his OWtl systemo His reason for continuing to invest, in
a costly way, in fellowship with Jewish Christians, was a
more objective and a less instrument al reason; it was that
the work of God in making one new humanity where there
bad been two ho5tile races le.ft him no choice. He could
no longer regard men from a human point of view; the
.Judaizer as a Jew aid the Greek as a pagan.
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c. The sociological expression of Christian unity will be
most appropriately in the .for m o~ mutua l recognition rather
than .great concern for either uniformity of expression or
c ent r a l izat ion of administration. The early chur ch must
certainly be thought of as expr essive of t he ki nd of
co ncern f or unity which the authorized apostles imple-mented.
Yet there were two quite dist inct missionary
organi2ations with different politie s, and more than
two schools of thought with regard t o patterns of worship
and common life - We find specific argument against t he
demand for unifor mity with regard to ritual a:atters
(Acts 15, Romans 14) and no eftor1: t o coalesce admi nis ..
trative structures . Between Christi ans of d i ffering
convictions in one place it was asked that the}~ r e cognize
one another, accept one mother, and c ommune at the Lord's
t abl e, but not that they agree fully; betwe en Chr ist ian
groups in dif ferent places it was asked that t he y reeognize
one another, send and receive visi tors, and shar e in material
aid according to the need; but there was no concern foL any
kind of common process of administration or hie rarchy of
authorities ~
n.. It i s 1:he duty of the apostle to go more than half way. The
attitude of extr eme f l exibili ty port rayed by Paul in
I Cor inthians 9 demonstrates that he who understands best
the fullness or God ' s purposes wi ll be the one investing
the most effort i n the kind of f l exibi lity that permi ts
him to be all t hings to all men But t.he ~eason £or this
:fle xib i lit y is not s imply .the est abl i shment of superficial
agre ement nor of common organization, but 0 that I might
win some" for the church and her mission. Our concern
in relationship between d ifferent kinds of Christ ians is
therefore not adequate ly expressed a s s i mply one of
coordi nation or efficiency, but as mi s s i on ; as a r e spons i-bili~
y to communieat~, ~o e ach t ype of per son in his own
language, a nd within the fr amework ot b i s OM'J capacities
to understand, a message wbicb is greater t han what he
h~s thus f ar understood, and to whi.ch he needs to be "won"~
III o Tbe positio~ we seek must be more ecumenical than t hat of the
"eeuaenical mainstream"
The label 0 ecumenie al mainstream" i s int~ntionally vagueo
Much of what will be 9aid would r · tate mos1: appropriately to
the City, National and tt.brld Councils of Churches or to the
Student Christian Movement • . Within the scope of various
agencies and operations which belong within this "mainstream"
there is of course great variety, to which the following
characterization may well fail to be fully fairo Nevertheless
it can be said that this hasty summary is based on considerable
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e''J)erienee and :friendly contacts within t he world of which
I am trying to speak ~ My auggestion is that although seeking
to be "ecumenical°', namely to express Christian unity in a. whol~­some
and relevant form, some of the positions taken or patte~ns
used in the councils of churches and other ecumenical agencie s
are not adequately expressive of all that truly open ecumenical
experience and expression would demand.
A ~ It is not sure that ecumenical agencies are always fully
responsible in the way they mix representativity and
l eadership. On the one band most of these agencies are
set up with great care to be rep.resentative, and to have
a kind of legal existenceov~ which the member churches
through their delegated representatives have a measure
ot real control . And yet. at the same time there are
usually a few especially weighty members of t ·he executive
committees and the staffs of these agencies : persons who
do not conceive their role as only one of representation
at points where there is a genuinely common conviction
to be expressed or commonly desired action to be carried
out .. These persons have frequently been able to commit
the organizations to positions which would not be supported
by all (and sometimes perhaps not even by most) of the
member agencies if there had been adequate time and machim~ry
~or fully responsible deliberation .
Now it is not the point of the present observation t:>
suggest that we need only representation and not crea·tive
leadership; but only that the two cannot necess arily best
be provided by the same organism. There are times at
which I have agreed with creative new suggestions comi ng
out of the conciliar movement, or at least with the fact
that these questions were opened up for discus s ion in a
way that called for serious attention o Yet while grateful
at such points, I must still ask whether there are not cases
of such initiative where the capacity o! the agency to be
an expression of existing unity among the supporting churches
was weakened by the use ot that plat:f orm for the communi-cat
ion of minority convictions (even where they happen to be
right); or where its capacity to be an organ of ~,!algg among
variant traditions is destroyed by premature statements or
consensus .,
One expression of this difficulty can be :rather easily
discerned in the study processes e arried on by the councils
of churches .. Alt hough set up as " studies", with the initial
appearance of coming t o a problem trom all sides, at least
seveJ:"al of these study processes have turned out to be more
promotion than research; they have tended more to provide a
sounding board for the propagation 0£ a particular positi on~
which happened t o be held and conimunicatcd persuasively by
persons exercising l eadership within the process, than to
be i nstruments for asking all t he possible critical quest ions
which would need to be raised from the perspectives of all
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the participants. T~ is seems to me t o be the case £or
the current emphasis on the mission o f the ch1.u-ch to get
out within the structures of the world and see what God
is doing ther·e ~ I welcome the questions which are raised
in this connection, and agree with some (only some) ox
the answers . The total fermentation process precipitated
by the various ecumenical studies and conferences around
this topic will probably in the long run be wholesome;
but this does not change the £act that it has not really
operated as a study.. There has been no rigorous effort
to make sure that those positions most naturally critical
of this new slant would be adequately represent ed or
their criticisms heard ~
B. Parallel to this observation, one can disc ern a certain
preference for new ideas. Old ideas axe those held by
the separated churches; if the ecumenical movement is to
establish itself, it will have to come up with someth ing
new. Sometimes these new discoveries are genuinely that
and are helpful # At other times however it seems to
some not basically unsympathetic observers that novelty
is being pursue~ for its own sake; this can become a positive
disservice to the concern for unity, since it simply
increases the number of variant positions which need to
relate to each other. I do not challenge the feeling
that there are many areas where new answers are really
needed, and certainly much of this search for novelty is
motivated by a desire to renew the church r s mi ssion to the
world which has got out o:f touch. But if it is to be the
church that has a message to be p hrased in new concepts , we
need a discipline, which is not always provided, to make
sure that the new concepts actually still carry the old
message. A structure of interchur ch relat ions should be
e specially qualified to ask these questions as well; but
thel:'e are t imes when they do not seem to achieve t his ..
some " e"•angelical" critics of the ecumenical movement
hold that it is a :front for liberal Chr istianity,
see~i ng consciously to reject the faith of the Chr i stian
tr adition in f a vor of something more acceptable to modern
man. This is certainly an unfair cr i ticism when measur ed
by t he doctrinal basis of the Worl d Council of Churches
or by t he cKeedal positions of the member chu:rche5;
nevertheless some of the kind s of literature circulated
in the journals and produced by staff can, by its concern
for novelty 1 give some justification to such e~pressions.
c. Neither in the New Testament nor in t he o:f.:ficial t heology
of a ny Clu:istian tradition does Chri stian unity i nclude
everyone TA'ho claims to be Christian. The.re a re here-tics
and apostates who exclude themselves from the chur ch of
J~sus Christ ,. No expression of Christian unity c an claim
to have done its job without racing as well the t a sk of
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discernment and rejection of heresy or apost asy . If
it is felt, with good reasons , th at the traditional
ways in which denominations have excommunicated each
other have been wrong, the proper repl acement for this is
not do away with the distinction between Christi anity
and that which is counter to it, but rather to find a
more biblical and more effective and more evangelical way
of recording for our time the difference between what is
Christian and "nat is not . This is not a concern which
runs counter to genuine Christian unity; the question of
truth is a part of the concern for unity . At many points,
in fact, the ecumenical movement has helped liberal American
denominations to be more aware of the reality of the line
between belief and unbelief; but this concern for the
identification of apostasy is not built into the system ~
D. The initial eeunenical thrust is always related to
evangelism and to mobility . The origins of the current
e cumenical movement i .n the 'YMCA and the Student Volunteer
Movement are clear signs of that kind of rootage .. Here
the expression of Christian unity did not begin by
as suming everyone was Christian and asking how to get
them all together, but rather by assuming that the
committed Christians were a limited nullber and that they
needed more effectively to work together for the s ake of
t he ir mission in the world . Thus in i t s origins the
ecumenical movement had a ''free church" kind of structure
and a missionary concern .. Increasingly, especial ly North
America, the official ecumenical agencies have a much
more "christendom" stance in their readiness to act as
the religious dimension of a Christian civiliz ation, and
a relatively less "evangelistic" concern (in the traditional
sense of th at word, as it relates to c alling individuals
to specific conscious decision and coamitment to a visible
community) •
E ~ Any organization as large as these council s of churches
·have now become can hardly avoid the normal temptation
to move along with the convic tion of the majority and the
stronge st leaders ~ leaving behind those who dissent.
Numerous sensit ive individuals within the Councils of
Churches are concerned about the g ap, which is widening
in s0111e eases, between those who a.~e members of the
council and those who are not; but meanwhile t he wheels
continue to turn and at certain points the unconvinced
minorities are farther from being in the conversation
then a generation ag o . Thus the e cumenical a ge ncy , by
its very ef£ectiveness in moving peopl e along in a commop
program, tends to. solidify the dividedness which leaves
out numerous other Christian groups and similarly the
dissent of growing numbers within member churches.
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Thus the NAE , while claiming c learly to work onl y
within the realm of agreement on "essenti a l s" already
existing, has clearly developed a momentum of it s own
with regard t o prayer in the schools, the war in Vietnam,
and the military chaplaincy, and the use of t he good
offices of the State Department to aid missions overseas,
concerning which not all member agencies agree . The
World Council, equally careful in principle, likewis e
seems in practice to be leaning toward the "new" again s t
the old, and currently (e wg . ) toward particular
"secularizing" concepts of the mission of the Church
_in society which are not representative of the member
churches.
IV .. The biblical position on church unity should be more evangelical
than that of the "evangelicals" .
Again we must group t .ogether under a common label various
movements , like the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship on the
university c ampus and the National Association of Evangelicals
in North America, without due reference to var i ety in these
movements in and changes in their character with the passage
0£ time . Again this generalization will be sure to 1:ie less
than fair at certain points and yet it can still be helpful .
A. Evangelicalism is now broadly committed to a creedal definition
of what it means to be a believer in the gospe l . Until
l e ss than a century ago , evangelicalism was anti-creedal.
Numerous churches of this tradition would . stil l r eject in
theory the idea that Christian fidelity can be measured
either positively or negat i vely by subscription to a
fixed number of doctr i nal points. And yet evangelicalism
has clearly accepted, on the contemporary church scene,
the assumption that the way to know who is faithful is
to ask a ~ew very basic doctrinal questions about the authorit y
0£ the Bible, the person of Jesus, or other matters deemed
of central importance; yet other very important questions do not ~e t
i n .the lists; and it i s not yet sure that enshrining these
logically important matters in specific p hrasings is the
best way to know who is i n and who i s out. Just as con-tempo_
rary -"ev angelicalism" is made up of several di fferent
streams of church hist ory which flowed together around
1900 in the fundamentalist controversy, (conservative
oxthodoxy in t he major denominational traditions, frontier
evangelicalism of an anti-creedal form, and the Darbyist- Bible
Church tradition with its formal rejection or past churches),
so it attempts t o merge biblicism and creedalism i n a common
protest against modern unbelief. A fully biblical evangel ical
position would not give the kind of t ouchstone status to
s pecific creedal issues wh~<rid fundamentalism with its five
or six .fundamental poi nt s,rother O?ltlines do . Both for
what ~hey include and f or what t he y exclude, such concen-t
rations on non-biblical verba l for ms fall short of both ~he
f reedom and the exclusiveness oi t he Gospel .
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B. Much of "evangelicalism" finds expression in a new
kind of ecclesiastical definition. In the InterVarsity
Christian Fellowship and in ''faith mission" agencies
for other kind of tasks, instrument s of Christi an
fellowship and collaboration are established which have
all of the theological characteristics of a denomination
but without taki.ng full responsibility £or all of the burdens
of the denomination . They have structures of handling
money {koinonia), recognizing ministers, distinguishing
between true and f'als·e doctrine, between who is a spokes-man
and who is not . They develop from one service (whet her
radio, mass meetings, missionary sending, schools, or
publication} progressively into the others . These are
the distinguishing marks of. the denomination. That they
do not have the classic way of channeling the support cf
the grassroots believers i nto the central office is ~ r eal
difference; but does not make them any less a "denomination".
This is not to suggest that these agencies are illegitimate,
but that even their proponents are generally not fully
aware of the n~w complexity which they b.ring into the
concern for church unity by making it possible for their
members to belong to more thi'n one "denomination" at the
same time, and by dodging certain of the responsibilities
for faithful expression of Christian unity by virtue of
the fact that they are "not churches".
c. Those who in North America call themselve s "evangel i cals"
by and large take a specific conservative and social and
poH.tical st ance . With regard to polit ical economics they
9enerally take a middle cl~ ss position. ~~th regard to war
they are rather uncritically patriotic. Wit h regard to
race they came alive slowly and often co~tinue to be more
concerned about what cannot be done by legislation than
about what must be done by the church~ This position is
confused by the explicit statement, often made sincerely,
th at the church should not be concerned for these matters;
as a matter of fact i t would be a more accurate statement
of what is really meant to say that the church should
favor leaving thita gs by and large as they a.t·e socially,
which of course is a very decide d kind of social act ion~
Not only do evangelicals at large have very little
understanding for the biblical basis of a Christian re-jection
or war or racial segregati on; they are at least
sometimes driven by a marked concern to be seen in company
with v;ealthy men, rulers and soldierst as if the great men
of this world were especially strategic in the work of the
gospel.
D. Certain "evangelical" agencies talce a very particular and
very closed i nstitutional stance. They dra w :from the (correct)
ur1de.rstanding that the Bible calls for distinction between
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belief and unbelief, an institutional exclusivism which
does not follow either from that biblical teaching or
f r om the redemptive concern of the Gospel. Some (not all )
" e vangelical" agencies therefore require of all who would
relate to them, that they renounce any kind of fraternal
relationships to other Christian bodies or to other
specified Christian groups ~ This kind of institutional
definition, and especially attributing to another agency
the negative value of defining whom we may fellowship with
only in terms ot who does not belong to something else
certainly is a denial of evangelical concern and spirit .
V. Specific applications of the above concerns in the mission of
the church in campus, city, and overseas .
Let it first of all be clearly understood that the position
sketched above, naore ecumenical than the ecumenical agencies
and more e;.rangelical than those who call themselves evangelical,
represents a vision . Although I shall suggest
later that this vision has a particular social relevance to
Mennonites and some others, it is stated in terms of biblical
imperitives and not as a denominational claim to particular
virtue .. I do believe that some individuals rooted in the
Anabaptist-free church heritage have found themselves taking
a position like that sketched above; but certainly many have
not ~ Most Mennonite individuals, churches, and church agenc i es
have rather in the past been less ecumenical than the
evangelicals and less evangelical than the ecumenicals .
Furthermore, any understandings and faithfulness in mission
which can now be discerned among Mennonites can usually be
traced to origins outside of the Mennonite heritage . It is
not by studying Mennonite history or even An ~baptist origins
that Mennonites have been led, to the modest extent to which
they have, into worthwhile activity in our century; they
learned this kind of thing from Moody and Mott, from the
Wesleyan Revivalists and the Presbyterian educators .
A .. Given the existence of the two "camps", a biblically
oriented (and Mennonite) position will in principle be
open to responsible collaboration and conversation in
both directions, according to need and opportunity 5 In
both directions there are both practically and theological
imperatives for such contacts . Beyond the specific common
goals which may make it appropriate to relate one way or
the other in a given context, there is furthermore a specific
testimony involved in the very fact of being open in both
directions, whereas many in one or the other of the camps
cannot afford this same openness.
B.. With regard to the "mainstream" Christian agencies , we
shall find common interests with respect to responsible
organizations in such matters as mi$5ionary
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medicine, r elief services, gove.rnment .relations,
Christian agencies of higher education, and in No:rth
America matters of social concern, peace witness, civil
rights ~ It is :furthermore often the case that in these
concerns one encounters a respectful and tolerant manner
of dealing with differences, with institutional problems
and matters of public ethics, whereas journalis~ic and
admi.nistr~tive irresponsibility are more often encountered
among the more free wheeling "evangelical'! groups.
c. On the "evangelical" side we shall often find ground £or
common action in the evangelical concern for the element
of personnel decision and commitment, both in evangelis1a
which calls for such a decision, and , on the level of
sezv:!.ce and witnessing, in a quality or devotion which
reflects the self giving response of sincere conversion .
Bible study and a desire to be guided by it, openness to
the voluntary contributions of nonprofessio11al Christian
workers, a readiness to do what is right on the ground of
revelation without calculating results~ a willingness to
be different for the sake of onets faith, and a willingness
to sacrifice other worthwhile things for a superior Christian
goal, are traits found somewhat mo.re often in "evangelical"
circles .
D. The fact that relationships in both directions are not
only possible but desirable and in fact mandatory does not
decrease but rather increases the need and the occasion
£or a clear definition of one's own identity . Being
related in both directions means never finding one•s
id~ntity fully and simply in any one place, and always being
responsible to be aware of the limits of identification at
eitheK point . This not only contributes to a greater degree or consciousness of one's own identity as a brotherhood
with a distinct t radition; it also heightens the .responsi-bility
to define at each point just what coliilmo.n task it is
which brings us t og~ther ~ Debating an issue together requires
one kind of common commitment; operating an institution
togeth~r requires another. Sending ministers into a united
church requires still another level 0£ mutual recognition .
E 0 Our concern, once we have renounced the idea of settling
all probl ems of Christian fellowship by saying yes or no
'to an over- all identification with one "side" is the
dis~e:nmen: of j u st what is proposed by way of common
activity, Just what type of common comnd tment i s required
to ma~e . that c ollaboration meaningful , and just what are
the limits at1d the 2.u thm:i "!:Jt o:f th-e joint process.
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F . The above has all been outlined from a perspect ive of
b iblica l and theoretical objectivity . But i f such a
suggestion were to make sense, · it wou ld ha ve to connect
somehow with what individuals Mennonites in different
places have found themselves already doing about t he
same problems . It is therefore suggested that at this
point a later, fuller form of this present outl i ne should
refer in a corraborative way to the e~-perience of Mennonite
congregations, ministers, and agencies in maintaining this
kind of position "between the camps".
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