How familiar Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 1 sound! Chloe's people had reported quarreling among the believers. Imagine that — disagreements in a church! There were rivalries and backstabbing even in the very earliest days of the Christian community. Paul's words are worth examining because factionalism is a perennial issue in the Christian community, found not just within modern day congregations, but between local congregations within a denomination, between churches in a given community, among religious organizations on a campus, or even among cliques and subgroups within a Christian entity.
It is easy enough to understand how the situation had developed. Paul was one of several missionaries who had preached the gospel at Corinth. Not surprisingly, Paul had his following, and so did others like Cephas (Peter) and Apollos. Naturally, different exponents of the gospel appealed more to certain people, and loyalties formed around these individuals. Apollos may well have been a more eloquent speaker than Paul, who was sometimes criticized as a good writer but poor speaker. It seems likely that Apollos may have been more diplomatic in dealing with problems than Paul, who was always blunt and sometimes had a short fuse. Furthermore, there were personal and emotional attachments. Some people had been converted under the preaching of a certain apostle; others had been baptized by one of them, so of course there was a sense of closeness and loyalty to that individual and to others who had been influenced by them.
I want to stress that while Paul was clearly concerned about the factions that had formed around certain leaders, he was not attacking them personally. We learn in Acts 18 and 19 that Apollos was a traveling companion of Paul who hailed from Alexandria. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul explains that his ministry and Apollos' complimented each other: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth." So perhaps the very first lesson for today is that when one raises concerns about factionalism or cliques within the body of Christ it is not necessarily a backhanded way of being critical of individuals or groups. It can be a matter of pointing to some very real problems.
Paul alluded to three perennial negative results of factions within the Corinthian church. First, by referring to themselves as "belonging to Paul," or "belonging to Cephas," these Christians had "divided Christ," he says. We are all familiar with the strategy of "divide and conquer." When the body of Christ is divided into many small subgroups, it can lead to a discouraging sense of isolation and powerlessness. From what we read in 1 and 2 Corinthians, this may very well have been a problem for what we could call the "Paul group." In his absence, members of some of the other cliques criticized Paul, his physical appearance, his lack of tact, and his speaking ability. Those who felt closest to Paul would have surely begun to feel ostracized and alone, and it hurt that they couldn't get these others to stop.
A complaint frequently heard on university campuses, especially large impersonal state universities, but even at small Christian campuses, is that there are no other real Christians on campus. Students text message their friends and email their parents discouraged missives describing how they huddle in their room studying the Bible with the only other true believer out of thousands and thousands of students; it sounds to the home pastor like the persecuted Roman Christians hiding in the catacombs. These people are falling into the trap of conquering themselves with discouragement by dividing the body of Christ into artificially small segments. Just who are the "real" Christians, anyway? If it is only those who attend a church just like back home, or only those who go to the meetings of a particular fellowship or only those listen to a particular Christian artist, or only the "Paul Party," it may in fact be a discouragingly small number indeed.
Even as great a figure as the prophet Elijah fell into this trap. After his great triumph over the priests of Baal on Mount Carmel, he was threatened with death by the wicked Queen Jezebel and fled for his life. Alone on Mount Horeb, he complained to God that he was the only faithful person left in Israel — he might as well curl up and die. The Lord responded not with sympathy but by telling Elijah to stop feeling sorry for himself and to get moving. Then, almost as a footnote, we read God's words: "I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him" (1 Kings 19:18). Seven thousand! Of course Elijah was right in one sense. He was the only prophet who had called fire down from heaven, the only spokesman who had had head to head confrontations with King Ahab, and the only miracle worker who had resuscitated the son of the widow at Zarephath left. But he was not the only faithful person in Israel — there were 7,000 others!
As far as I am concerned, one of the most exciting things about a campus like Houghton is that it brings people together from a diversity of Christian backgrounds and from all around the world. Of course it may well be that few, if any, share exactly the same faith journey, but how exciting it is to see how others have experienced God, how Jesus Christ is made real in a whole variety of ways! The apostle Paul calls all of us "to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours" (1 Corinthians 1:3). If you feel too alone, he reminds us, it may be that you are not counting correctly.
There are, of course, those who fall into the equal but opposite error, individuals who are more than glad to be part of a small, exclusive group of "true believers" and who look down their noses at those outside their clique. This was clearly a problem at Corinth and what Paul was referring to when he said that it was not his task to preach with "eloquent wisdom." He was contrasting himself with those who had developed elaborate explanations of what set their beliefs off from other Christians. Here we are walking a fine line. Does not Paul call the Corinthians to "be united in the same mind and the same purpose"? Yes. But in the context of being "saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours." We all should be firm in our Christian commitment and have a clear understanding of what we believe. But we need to do it in a way that is open to other Christians. There is a saying that is attributed to every great reformer in the history of the church: "In essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity." As one denominational (UCC) statement makes clear, "The unity that we seek requires neither an uncritical acceptance of any point of view, nor rigid formulation of doctrine. It does require mutual understanding and agreement as to which aspects of the Christian faith and life are essential."
You and I may disagree on points of Christian doctrine. I obviously think that I am right or I wouldn't believe as I do. But if I am right, does that necessarily mean that you are wrong? Or is it possible that on many issues we are "called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," in spite of substantial differences? It seems to me that this is clearly what Paul is suggesting.
We know from passages in Galatians and Romans that Paul had a high regard for Christian baptism and had clear understandings of what baptism accomplished and the changes it worked in the believer. Yet in today's lesson, he clearly seeks to minimize the importance of baptism as a divisive issue. He argued that he had baptized few Corinthians — although the more he thought about it the more he remembered — and then he insisted that he was not sent to baptize but to proclaim the gospel. The gospel message — that Jesus of Nazareth is God's good news, and that accepting the love and grace of God made available in Jesus — is what is all important, Paul said. And this is an embracing love; it is God reaching out to us with open arms, arms open so wide that they can accommodate even different understandings of baptism.
When our children were small, we attended a large church with an active program. There was within that large congregation a small group that had been involved in the charismatic renewal movement. They had their own Sunday school class, their own fellowship group, and their own mid-week healing service. They clearly had shared powerful spiritual experiences from which the whole congregation could have benefited. Unfortunately, they were not at all interested in sharing those experiences with others, but rather in making sure that the rest of us understood that our faith was inferior to theirs, our opinions wrong, wherever they differed from theirs, and our Christian experience lacking. Many people in the congregation did their best to ignore them; others felt resentful. They eventually became a divisive force in the church.
In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul compared the community of believers to a human body. Although different body parts have very different appearances and functions, they all need to work together. Similarly, Paul argued, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." The real shame about the church experience I described is that I have known of many other churches where a very small group of highly dedicated people with powerful spiritual experiences has been the leaven in the lump, so to speak, that began a renewal and revival of the whole congregation. But in those cases the people involved clearly understood their responsibility to "the common good."
Years ago, Eileen and I took a group of students to Monterrey, Mexico. Most of us spoke little Spanish, and few of our hosts spoke much English. Pastor Jonás Alvarez reflected with us one day about the time when we would all fully understand one another, when we meet in heaven where everyone speaks Spanish. He was joking. Sadly, there are many Christians who become part of small groups and really do think that anyone worth worrying about looks and thinks and believes and acts just like them. They really do think the whole body is a thumb.
That brings us to the heart of the problem of factions in the Christian community. It can be an outgrowth of either the discouraged group that imagines itself to be all alone or the spiritually proud group that sets itself apart. It is the narrowing of ideas and options that results from being cut off from the larger world of faith. Years ago, a colleague pointed out one of the dangers of college teaching, especially at smaller institutions where you may be the only one teaching a given course year after year. The danger, he said, is that you may begin to think that the topics you choose to put in your syllabus really are the most important topics in that area and that your opinions and the questions you put on your test really are what people should know. Many of us can think of sad cases where a professor's courses have become hopelessly out of date or out of touch with practitioners in that field and research in that discipline.
The same thing happens in Christian circles when a group succumbs to what psychologists call "group think." Only the opinions of the "in" group are solicited, the only ideas that are taken seriously are those that agree with what I already think. The problem is that the group think may drift further and further away from reality until the moment of truth comes crashing in. The bulk of 1 Corinthians is devoted to dealing with a whole series of such issues. Groups of believers had become comfortable with certain behaviors and practices, which Paul felt were out of step with the gospel and out of touch with reality.
On Tuesday, January 28, 1986, Dr. Bob Roberts and I were preparing to lead a lunchtime Bible study at the University of South Florida when the campus minister from next door came bursting in and dragged us all outside. There, in the cold blue sky, we saw the Y-shaped cloud from the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, which had killed the seven astronauts aboard. As awful as that experience was, it was almost as gut wrenching to later learn how the engineers at Morton-Thiokol, the manufacturers of the O-rings whose failure led to the explosion, had tried in vain to stop the launch because of the cold temperatures on the pad. But NASA officials overruled them: It had never been a problem before, therefore couldn't be a problem now. Groupthink. Then on a cold and lazy Indiana Saturday morning, February 1, 2003, with millions of others, I watched as the space shuttle, Columbia disintegrated over Texas, killing the seven astronauts aboard. Once again, we painfully learned how engineers, concerned over the possible damage inflicted on one of the shuttle's wings by a falling piece of foam, were waved off by NASA management who, unbelievably, refused to take pictures of that wing using available satellite technology. Falling foam had never been a problem before, therefore couldn't be a problem now. Groupthink.
Let me share a sad example of this from my own denomination, which has been duplicated in all too many Protestant churches. Throughout most of my 36-year ministry if you ever mentioned the word "sexuality" at any United Methodist meeting — local church, district, conference, general conference — everybody knew what you were talking about: the ordination of gay persons. Tremendous time and energy, meetings and colloquia, study papers and video tapes have been devoted to this issue, which is still a hot potato. I have to confess that in all these years, including many as a member of the South Indiana Conference Board of Ordained Ministry, I never dealt with a gay person seeking ordination. I cannot even count, however, the people with whom I have worked who have been affected by sexual abuse and exploitation of all kinds, struggles with their own sexual orientation and self-image and what that meant, and the explosion of pornography. All too often these issues have flown beneath our radar because we have already defined the really important "sexual" issue.
This is the real problem with factionalism in the body of Christ: We travel in smaller and smaller circles, and become less and less aware of what is going on in the world around us. We become what Henri Nouwen has called "pygmies in a world of very small people." Non-Christians often ask how an affluent church can sit in the middle of a slum and ignore people literally sitting on their doorstep, or why almost identical ministries duplicate or even compete with each other. Paul gives us the obvious answer: instead of envisioning ourselves as "saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ," we think in terms of our small group, its priorities and its opinions. We become small-minded Christians in a big world.
I hope you know, for instance, that churches and synagogues account for more community service work in the US than all other agencies combined. This is why so many church groups have been so frustrated with FEMA's feeble response to Hurricane Katrina. It is not, as some have suggested, wanting the government to do what individuals should do for themselves. It is, rather, hoping that our central government with all its resources could supplement the outpouring of private — mostly faith-based — aid. I also assume you know that Christianity is in the midst of explosive growth around the world: 3,500 new churches are opening somewhere in the world this week and every week and that the church in China is adding 28,000 converts daily and the church in Africa 20,000 a day. Of course, there are 4,300 a day leaving churches in Europe and North America, and that has preoccupied many of us. As Lamin Sanneh pointed out in his 2003 book, Whose Religion is Christianity: The Gospel Beyond the West, "The world was ... in no mood to receive good news about Christianity, not least because it was coming from Africa. A public consensus, shared by many Christians, had emerged, that a tolerant and inclusive secular world required the abandonment of Christian exclusivism."1 What Sanneh called "public consensus" I have called "groupthink."
There are things we should know about the larger Christian community not just because they are exciting, but because modern communication and transportation make the world a smaller place every day. It is even more urgent today than in Paul's time to recognize that we are called "to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours." We need to work hard to avoid the easy trap of factionalism. We cannot be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ and travel in ever smaller circles and think ever smaller thoughts. We cannot become small-minded Christians in a big world. Today, more than ever before, we are called to be big-minded Christians in a small world. Amen.
1. Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity: The Gospel Beyond the West (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2003), p. 16.