You Do You
Of surplices and shibboleths
Photo by Michel Grolet on Unsplash
(An eight-minute read.)
I’m not a scientist nor the son of a scientist, but I’m familiar with Newton’s Third Law of Motion—and I’m sure you are too. Commonly stated, it goes like this: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, the pendulum swings—and we go from one ditch to the other.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately as I’ve been knee-deep in studying church history.
One illustration goes something like this: in the Church of England in the sixteenth century, Bishops required clergy to wear a surplice, which is a white tunic that is worn over a robe. Some, like John Hooper, objected to it, refusing to wear it because it was a vestige of Roman Catholicism and not found in the Bible.
It became a huge battle, known as the Vestiarian Controversy, and came to a head under the reign of Elizabeth I. The church said wearing the surplice was necessary and a sign of one’s faithfulness. The nonconformists, who became known as Puritans through the process, said that not wearing the surplice was not only a matter of one’s Christian liberty, but a sign of one’s biblical faithfulness.
Thus, the argument was simple: religious fidelity was determined on the basis of whether a priest did or didn’t wear the surplice. Conformists insisted that wearing the surplice meant one was being faithful. Nonconformists said that not wearing the surplice meant one was being faithful.
Five hundred years later, we probably think such an argument is silly, and maintain that one’s faithfulness is not determined by whether she or he does or doesn’t wear a white tunic while leading worship.
Another example: Christmas. The Puritans who came to the “new world” and set up their own civil government, based on their biblical convictions, outlawed the celebration of Christmas. Again, it was not in the Bible and was a holdover from Roman Catholicism.
To celebrate Christmas (literally the “Christ Mass”) was therefore to be biblically unfaithful, which flew in the face of not only Roman Catholicism, but the Church of England, both of which insisted that faithful Christians would celebrate Christ’s birth and participate in the various Christian festivals that had been observed for hundreds of years.
I could cite other examples—like Alexander Campbell who, in the nineteenth century, maintained that using extra-biblical words (like “Trinity”) was to depart from Scriptural fidelity. Instead, we must only use words found in Scripture when explaining our faith and doctrinal convictions.
To wander away from the use of these words is to wander away from biblical faithfulness and to go back into theological darkness—to a time when the Church determined who was pious based on the degree to which they affirmed the Church’s creeds and statements of faith (which often employed terms and phrases, like “Trinity,” that were not even found in the Bible).
Essentially, Campbell pushed back against the strict rigidity of creedalism by setting up his own anti-creedal creedalism, legalistically proclaiming that anyone who had a creed, or insisted on using words that weren’t explicitly mentioned in Scripture, was apostate.
Again, you and I perhaps shrug our shoulders about such debates. We probably don’t think that a person’s faithfulness is determined by whether they do or don’t wear a surplice, whether they do or don’t celebrate Christmas, whether they do or don’t use the term “Trinity.”
Indeed, these matters, as I’ve written about before, are adiaphora—they are “indifferent,” inconsequential, unimportant, non-essential.
I cite these examples, however, which are probably fairly low-stakes for most of us, because they allow us to evaluate an underlying principle that has significant practical implications for our own religious life—while maintaining some emotional distance (since these matters have very little to do with our own contemporary debates).
In other words, we can shrug our shoulders at these very specific examples, thinking they’re probably a bit silly, but then have the tables turned on us, and hear the words Nathan said to David: “You are the man.”
That is, we have our own silly arguments and debates, and we all go from one ditch to the other, determining who is or isn’t being faithful on the basis of our own surplices and shibboleths.
As I’ve read about the Puritans’ pushback against the Church of England, or Campbell’s pushback against creeds, I’ve wondered why they were so antagonistic towards these various practices since the use of surplices or creeds is not prohibited in Scripture.
But then I realized that their pushback was so zealous because the powers-that-be insisted that wearing surplices or subscribing to creeds was a non-negotiable and a reflection of one’s spiritual fitness and faithfulness.
The problem is, the Puritans and Campbell reacted with their own dogmatism, maintaining that those who wore surplices or subscribed to creeds were being equally unfaithful. There was thus no middle ground—and each side was eager to declare who God’s true people were on the basis of their man-made standards and interpretations.
Let it Go
It’s within this context that I came across these liberating and magnificent words last week from the Apostle Paul, as incisively rendered by Eugene Peterson in his Message paraphrase:
Welcome with open arms fellow believers who don’t see things the way you do. And don’t jump all over them every time they do or say something you don’t agree with—even when it seems that they are strong on opinions but weak in the faith department. Remember, they have their own history to deal with. Treat them gently.
For instance, a person who has been around for a while might well be convinced that he can eat anything on the table, while another, with a different background, might assume he should only be a vegetarian and eat accordingly. But since both are guests at Christ’s table, wouldn’t it be terribly rude if they fell to criticizing what the other ate or didn’t eat? God, after all, invited them both to the table. Do you have any business crossing people off the guest list or interfering with God’s welcome? If there are corrections to be made or manners to be learned, God can handle that without your help. (Romans 14:1-4)
Simply put: I love this! Don’t you?
Be large-hearted and open-armed. Don’t quibble about minor issues. Be gracious to everyone, remembering they have their own baggage and background. Don’t judge one’s sincerity based on your standards. If someone’s conscience allows them to eat whatever, for example, don’t condemn them. If another’s conscience insists they can’t eat certain items, give them latitude.
In other words: you do you.
And yet Paul has put his finger on what I think lies at the foundation to all religious conflict and challenges: the deep obsession with—and neurotic need to—control and shame others, often by declaring whether we think they’re in or out of God’s favor on the basis of their faithfulness to our standards.
In short, we have an addiction to serving as other people’s consciences.
This cuts both ways. The liberal says the conservative is unfaithful because the conservative’s conscience won’t allow her to wear pants. The conservative says the liberal is unfaithful because the liberal thinks women can be pastors.
And the moderate thinks neither is faithful because they’re judging others.
The Republican says the Democrat is a heretic because he voted for Biden. The Democrat insists the Republican is a terrible Christian because he voted for Trump.
And the Independent thinks they’re both going to hell because they’re putting politics ahead of faith.
This is not to say we can’t have sincerely-held convictions about any of these matters, nor should we avoid trying to convince others of those convictions.
Neither is it to say there aren’t legitimate matters over which to break fellowship (the same Paul who shrugged his shoulders about what people ate is the same Paul who, when writing to the Corinthians, advised them to break fellowship with Christians who insisted on living sexually depraved lives).
It’s simply to say, in a theme I keep coming back to, that worrying about our own faithfulness is a full-time job—requiring enough of our attention such that we won’t have time to police other people’s faithfulness.
In other words (to repeat): you do you.
Of course—and this is a huge topic for another day—the whole reason we prefer to worry about other people’s faithfulness is because we’re so insecure about our own. It’s too painful and unsettling to worry about ourselves because we don’t like what we see.
So it’s not enough to simply say, “Don’t judge others.” We are addicted to judging because it’s a way to avoid our own feelings of guilt and condemnation. And thus we will never stop judging others until we stop judging ourselves—which can only fully happen when we realize God himself actually doesn’t judge us.
But the bottom line for me is summed up in this well-known phrase (which is of contested origin):
“In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
Shawn is a pastor in Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil student at the University of Oxford (what they call a PhD), focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.