Who Counts as Christian? Acts 15:1-18 - Fifth Sunday of Easter
A few years ago, I sat down at the Barber Shop in anticipation of my appointment. I was wearing my black clerics, and the man seated in the barber chair asked me, “when are you going to enforce the dress code at your church?”
I was stunned by his question. I asked him, “Have you ever been to my church?”
“No,” he said, “but every time I go by your church, I see people coming in and out in their pajamas.”
At this point, my blood began to boil, because I don’t think he knew which church was mine, and even if he did, no one has ever worn pajamas to church. Not even babies.
After he got up and left, the barber said, “don’t let him bother you; he gives everybody a bad time.” But I saw him a few months later at Happy Day, and he heckled me over the same thing. I was about him with a stern lecture of my own when another person in the restaurant jumped into the conversation, and the two men waxed nostalgic about the time when people wore their Sunday best to church.
Photo credit: churchart.com
And
I get that. But I also get the fact that people want to be comfortable when
they come to church. And people seldom buy dress clothes, either because
they’re expensive or because they don’t need them.
To me, it doesn’t matter what you wear to church, as long as you come to church.
Still, this is one debate among many the Church has faced across the ages, over what constitutes proper worship, authentic Christian living, and who counts as Christian.
One of the very first controversies the early church faced was the issue of male circumcision. This was a surgical procedure performed on eight-day-old baby boys, as well as any converts to Judaism, which served as a sign God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel.
Exceptions were not granted in this matter. You either underwent it or you were not part of the community[1].
But since the Day of Pentecost, many Gentiles (that is, non-Jews) have been coming to faith in Christ who didn’t want to undergo this painful surgical procedure (or have it performed on their sons).
So, Paul, Silas, and several others go to Jerusalem and report these things to the leaders there. Sure enough, many assert that male Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law as a sign that they are God’s people.
In response, Paul and Barnabas share stories about the Holy Spirit bringing people to faith who’d never heard of the God of Israel. The last thing they wanted to do was to put a barrier in front of these believers and their new life in Christ. They insist that faith in Christ is the true mark of a Christian.
After much debate, the council determined that circumcision was not necessary, though they stipulated that converts should still abstain from fornication and the eating of meat sacrificed in pagan rituals. Incidentally, the debate over whether it was proper for Christians to eat sacrificial meat continued, as some Church leaders, including Paul, saw nothing wrong with this, unless it troubled the consciences of other believers.[2]
Still, debates over who counts as Christian and what a Christian life demands are as the Church itself. I want to be clear that in this debate, it would be unjust to designate one side as being right and the other wrong. You could say that those who call for circumcision are the conservatives and those who do not are the liberals; or that this is a conflict between the closed-minded and the open-minded. But personal convictions should never be used as weapons against those who do not agree.
You can (and should) debate “what the Bible says” until Christ returns. The question of what it means to live as a Christian in a pagan world is one that we should never consider settled. We are always tempted to accommodate our faith to the worldly gods of power, profits, and pleasures, rather than subjecting our worldly priorities to the supremacy of Christ. And I know many Christians who’ve lost their jobs, their relationships, and other things they valued by their refusal to go along with the world. Let’s not forget the myriads of believers who’ve chosen death rather than denying Christ.
But there is another danger the Church faces, and that is when we use conflicts and disagreements as opportunities for grandstanding and virtue signaling. Since the very beginning, legitimate questions about Christian identity and faithful Christian living have turned into battles for power and supremacy. Those who do not take a particular side are labeled in the worst possible terms, ostracized, demonized, and sometimes even killed. I loathe to imagine how many souls have been wounded by those who claim to be defending the authority of Scripture or the marginalized neighbor. In the last 25 years, nearly every mainline Protestant denomination has fractured into splinter groups, because one side of a debate sees the other as having abandoned God, the Bible, or the neighbor.
Tribalism is the world’s way, not God’s way.
Even though the Jerusalem Council arrived at the decision not to demand the circumcision of male converts, that doesn’t mean that those who believed strongly about this issue gave up their convictions. But it does mean that they refused to allow the disagreement to keep them from belonging to one another in Christ. We bear far greater witness to Christ by disagreeing about important moral or biblical issues but remaining together, than we would if we simply agreed on everything. That’s not to say that truth doesn’t matter, but love matters, and people matter.
In the end, if I’m right about anything, it’s not because I’m smart or morally upright. It’s because of the Holy Spirit. Truth is not about us, it’s about how amazing our God is, and the transformation he brings when his love grabs hold of you.
The truth is Jesus Christ crucified and risen; the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
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