First Contact – Part 15 – Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

As I mentioned in my last post, the Christian Church Disciples of Christ (CCDoC) was one of the offshoots of the Restoration Movement of the 19^th century. The thing that sets this church apart from the other two major offshoots, the Church of Christ and the Christian Church, is that it is much more liberal. By liberal I primarily mean the position that the Bible can be interpreted in a very loose manner. For instance, perhaps Jesus was no more the son of God than you and me. Or perhaps Jesus was not born of a virgin. Or perhaps Adam and Eve were not actual people, but rather symbols that represent generic men and women. You get the point. The Bible should be understood in light of the people who wrote it, the culture of which they were a part, and their intent rather than as a document inspired directly by God. Of course the looseness of interpretation varies from one church to another and from one person to another. But this is true of many different churches.

Back when I was a Christian in the Church of Christ, this liberal view of the Bible by the CCDoC was anathema to me. I did not interpret the Bible as strictly as some of my brethren, but I certainly didn’t go as far as the Disciples of Christ. But now that I have rejected the Bible as being the Word of God, I better understand their position. It makes sense to me now.

Interestingly, back in 1989, the CCDoC and the United Church of Christ approved a partnership of full communion, mutually recognizing each other’s sacraments and ministry. The United Church of Christ is the church that my wife grew up in. As I mentioned in my previous post, she left that church and joined the Christian Church while in college. Kathy’s mother eventually left also and joined a Baptist Church. The last straw was when her Sunday School teacher questioned the virgin birth of Jesus. Eventually Kathy’s dad also left and joined the same Baptist Church that his wife attended.

There is one CCDoC church in the city where I live. I have known about it for years, but had never attended. My first contact with this church was through my son. He is a student at our local university and is majoring in history. He took a lot of religion classes as part of his coursework. One professor that taught a number of these classes was also the minister at the local CCDoC: Dr. Carl Gebhardt. Andrew liked Carl’s approach to studying and teaching the Bible. He believed we should just present the facts as best we know them and let the cards fall where they may. Don’t start with a preconceived doctrine and then seek to prove it, but rather honestly try to understand the Bible properly and let your doctrine follow.

Andrew soon became friends with Carl and was given a parking pass for the church’s parking lot. This was very convenient for Andrew because the church was right across the street from the university buildings in which many of his classes met. Andrew even started having lunch with Carl occasionally. Most of the time they were joined by a Jewish man that was a mutual friend.

Given Andrew’s friendship with Carl, Kathy and I decided to attend a Sunday morning service so we could hear him preach. Unfortunately, he was not present that day and another person was filling in for him. Interestingly, this man was someone we had known from years before in the Church of Christ. We also discovered that a number of couples we had also known from the Church of Christ were now members at the CCDoC. What was going on? How did these former members of the conservative wing of the Restoration Movement come to jump over to the liberal wing? I still don’t know.

Some time later Kathy and I went to the CCDoC again, and this time Carl was preaching. After getting to meet him, I felt compelled to get together with him for a one on one discussion. So I contacted him, and we met for lunch. Over time, Carl and I met several times to discuss religious ideas and our personal lives. When I found out he had an interest in photography just as I did, we arranged to go on a photography expedition to a local nature preserve. We had a great, but exhausting, time.

Around the time I was getting to know Carl, I was finishing up my book “God Is”, which details my thinking of the Bible and how I came to reject it as being the Word of God. I had asked a number of religious friends to read and critique an early copy of this book, but most rejected my offer or failed to follow through with an acceptance. Interestingly, two pastors and a Bible teacher offered to read it. One pastor, Jerry, was from the Baptist Church where my wife is a member. He read part of it, and we had a good discussion about it in his church office. The other pastor to read it was Carl. He actually read the entire book and gave me some written and verbal feedback. The Bible teacher, Joel, was from the Christian school where my wife works and has a PhD in the Old Testament. I appreciated that Carl and Joel were willing to write endorsements for my book. You can read their endorsements, along with several others, in the Editorial Reviews section of my book’s page on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ES61B5K).

Recently, Carl spoke a few times at our local Unitarian Universalist church. I will talk about this church in my next post.