The Church of Christ Uniting (COCU): An Analysis of the Theological Issues

While last summer’s General Assembly adopted changes in the proposed structure of ministry outlined in The COCU Consensus: In Quest of a Church of Christ Uniting regarding the role of bishops on covenanting councils, no alterations were made in the theological definitions which underscore the whole understanding of faith and worship in COCU. This is especially notable in light of the published study on the COCU documents done by Dr. Joseph D. Small, the Coordinator for Theology and Worship in the Presbyterian Church (USA). In his little booklet entitled Essential Things: A Study of The COCU Consensus and Churches in Covenant Communion. Dr. Small raises a number of important questions regarding the treatment of theology and doctrine in COCU. Specifically, he states,

The COCU asserts that “it is now evident that an essential core of theological agreement exists and continues to grow … in matters of faith, worship, sacrament, membership, ministry and mission.” This claim may be greater than the documents themselves demonstrate, however. Detailed discussions of sacraments and, especially, ministry are not matched by explications of theological convictions regarding central elements of Christian faith. The COCU discussion of “The Faith” identifies the ‘sources’ of faith – Scripture, Tradition, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, worship, mission and inclusiveness – but not the ‘substance’ of faith. (italics mine, p. 17)

Dr. Small has rightly noted that there is not a clear statement of “theological convictions regarding central elements of Christian faith” in COCU. This alone should be troubling in a document recommending any kind of proposal for church union. There is, however, I believe an implicit theological agenda in the COCU proposals which is even more disturbing. This can best be seen by noting three basic themes which run throughout the theological statements of The COCU Consensus: the authority of Scripture is limited to that of a primary source document, subjective personal experience is elevated to authoritative standard, and an ideological agenda is made a foundational element of union.

The Authority of Scripture

As members of the Reformed theological tradition we Presbyterians place a great weight appropriately on the authority of the Bible. In our Book of Confessions the Scriptures are repeatedly referred to as the Word of God in written form (Book of Confessions 5.001 5.002, 6.002, 8.04, 9.27). The Reformed conviction is that the word of Scripture through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is the living voice of Christ in the church (Book of Confessions 10.4). The Scriptures are the Word of God (Book of Confessions 5.003, 6.004, 7.113, 8.04, 9.30).1 It is highly significant that The COCU Consensus refers to the authority of Scripture several times (pp. 18, 29, 31) and also to the Word of God (pp. 19, 20, 36) but never equates the two. In a clear departure from all the documents in the Book of Confessions, the authority of Scripture in The COCU Consensus is significantly limited. While the Scriptures are referred to as authoritative, it must be asked, what is the nature of their authority? The Scriptures are described as having authority (p. 18). They are “the normative authority for knowledge of Jesus Christ” (p. 18, italics mine). They are the “source” of faith (p. 29) and “new life and light” (p. 30). They are the record of the revelation of God (p. 30). We are told that “Christ is the Word to whom the Scriptures and the Spirit testify” (p. 30).

What is striking here is that the authority which the Scriptures have in The COCU Consensus is a very indirect one. In reality, according to COCU, the Scriptures have only a relative authority. Theirs is the authority of a primary source document. They are presented here as a conduit or a means to encounter Christ who is the Word of God (p. 30). The Scriptures are not to be obeyed as the Confessions state (Book of Confessions 6.004, 7.113, 8.04). COCU’s view of Scripture is consistent with the idea that the Scriptures’ authority essentially lies in their giving us knowledge or information about Jesus Christ. They comprise an authoritative source without being a content which we are to believe and obey. What COCU has done is effectively to drive a wedge between the written Scriptures and the Word of God.

Several implications emerge here which have been on the rise in certain circles of academic theology for some time. In a recent book, David Tracy, Professor of Christian Theology at the University of Chicago Divinity School, expresses a view different from the Confessions when he states, “It is the revelatory event and not the witnessing texts which must play the central role in Christian self-understanding.”2 He goes on to say,

The complexities intrinsic to any Christian theological interpretation of the scriptures becomes clear. For Christianity is not, strictly speaking, a religion of the book like Islam. And yet “the book” does play a central role for Christian self-understanding. Christianity, in more explicitly hermeneutical terms, is a religion of a revelatory event to which certain texts bear an authoritative witness.

It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this distinction between event and text for Christian theological self-understanding. To fail to grasp the distinction is to lead into two opposite difficulties. To make the text into the revelation is to turn Christianity into a strict religion of the book on the model of the place of the Qur’an in Islam. Then the route to Christian fundamentalist readings of the scripture under the banner cries of ‘inerrancy’ soon takes over.3

It is a view like Tracy’s which appears to be operative in The COCU Consensus. The essence of this view lies in drawing a distinction between “revelatory event” and “non-revelatory Scripture.” This, however, is no small distinction. How is the “event” authoritative or “central to our Christian self-understanding” without a written text or narrative which gives it shape and definition? The Reformed tradition is not “fundamentalist,” as Tracy suggests, when it insists that the written text, the biblical story of redemption, is itself a form of revelation revealed to us in the witness of the Holy Spirit (Book of Confessions 6.005). This is the heart of the issue. Is the Bible itself the Word of God in written form and therefore revelation, or is it only a source or witness to certain “revelatory events” which lie outside it?4 Can Jesus Christ as the Word of God be made distinct from the written Word of God? The COCU Consensus seems to agree with Tracy that the two must be separated. Yet, if this is the case, it changes the whole nature of biblical authority as Reformed Christianity has understood it.

The Authority of Personal Experience

We can never deny the importance of personal experience in the reality of Christian faith. The question at issue, however, is, “In what sense is personal experience an authority for Christian understanding?” The defining reality of modern Protestant theology, along with modern European thought in general, has been the sovereignty of the individual. At the risk of oversimplification one could say that the sixteenth century Reformation introduced the freedom of the individual where the eighteenth century Enlightenment presented the autonomy of the individual.

The key figure in the dawn of modern, as opposed to Reformation or Evangelical, Protestantism is Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78). Simply put, Rousseau replaced the idea of revelation with the worship of nature. He extolled the idea of an autonomous individual in touch with nature, unfettered by civilization or standard codes of morality. He celebrated reason, not in an abstract logical sense, but rather, as the true expression of nature. For Rousseau, experience was the sole guide to truth. He denied the reality of original sin and praised the feelings as the source of true knowledge of the divine. This feeling for nature was for him the only certain guide in religion. He rejected any objective revelation, especially, that which could be written in book form.5 It is difficult to overestimate Rousseau’s influence. Philosophically, he points toward the view that an objective knowledge of the world is impossible. For all his emphasis on nature, his conviction that only the heart (or experience) can know what is true led to the idea that philosophy can only analyze the act of knowing, not the object of knowledge. We can only know our sense experiences but these may have little or no connection with external reality. With this view we could never know an objective revelation from God since we are only in touch with our subjective consciousness.

Rousseau believed that only a religion based on the experience of the heart in conformity with nature was genuine. Nature, for Rousseau, is not an object of the senses but rather of the feelings of the heart. Nature alone is the basis of justice and freedom. It is also the sole basis for religion. Rousseau rejected any concept of doctrine in his understanding of religion or any claim that any particular religion was superior to any other. He extols the fact that the ancient City States of Greece each had their own god with no god having any claim of superiority over any other. In fact, for Rousseau, particular “gods” are only imaginary beings. Religion is a matter of the individual heart. It is not based on some obscure divine revelation.6 Rousseau’s views culminate in his political theory. Since all are free and autonomous, how is any kind of society possible? Rousseau responds with his concept of the “social contract.” Individuals must surrender their individual freedom for the cause of social unity and cohesion. In this sense Rousseau’s view of “freedom” or “democracy” is severely limited. Ultimately, Rousseau chooses equality over freedom or liberty. Under the social contract, people can exist as equals but they may not enjoy any real sense of liberty. In this regard, Bertrand Russell sees Rousseau as a forbearer of both the French Revolution and Nazism.7 Mary Shelley may have had Rousseau in mind when she created the character of Dr. Frankenstein, who is in her words, the “modern Prometheus.”

I have included this discussion of Rousseau because of his enormous influence on Protestantism since the eighteenth century. According to Karl Barth, Rousseau is the real father of Liberal Theology as it has developed since the nineteenth century.8 At present, Rousseau’s influence, far from diminishing, seems to have reached full fruition especially in mainstream American Protestantism. This is borne out by The COCU Consensus where the content of Christian faith becomes a vague notion of “spirituality.” This harks back to Joseph Small’s observation that the COCU documents lack any concrete substance of faith. Consistent with Rousseau’s point that one cannot equate God’s revelation with a written source like the Bible, it follows that there is no concrete standard for one’s faith. Faith essentially becomes a matter of personal experience. Going beyond the simple point of respecting another’s point of view, whether Christian or non-Christian, COCU maintains that denominational insistence on any specific doctrinal position is simply wrong (how can one perspective or viewpoint ever be superior to another?). In fact, COCU warns against holding onto a Church’s “attitudes and institutions, customs and practices.” COCU concludes, “Everything treasured by the Church”(!) should be “constantly re-examined and reconstituted for the sake of greater faithfulness in thought, life and work” (p. 20). But what is the standard by which this “greater faithfulness” is judged? The Word of God? But what is that since clearly it is not the Scriptures.

The COCU Consensus is confusing on this score to lay persons and pastors alike. Much of the language is biblical or at least recognizably theological but it is divorced from any objective referent.9 It has an emotional appeal but its content is hard to define. On the one side, church members are told that it is “especially important” that they “learn how to develop and express their own contemporary interpretations of the Christian message and life”(p. 26). On the other, the point is made that no confessional statement of any member church will be permitted “to become a basis for divisions in the community”(p. 31). In effect, COCU is saying, theology does not matter, unity does matter.

COCU’s refusal to allow theology to divide becomes clearer when the discussions regarding the two oldest and most universally accepted creeds in the Christian Church, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are examined. These are defined as “unique, ecumenical witnesses of Tradition to the revelation of God recorded in Scripture.” Without getting into a lengthy discussion of “Tradition” as opposed to “traditions” (p. 30), it is striking that the elaboration on these Creeds speaks of them as “ancient” and “widely accepted” (p. 30). They are praised for “their continuing power to set forth the reality and mystery of God’s reconciling work in Jesus Christ” (p. 31). The Church Uniting “will teach the faith of these creeds” (p. 31). This language is certainly not wrong. It is, however, remarkably vague. There is, for example, a notable difference between “the faith of these creeds” and the faith expressed and defined in these creeds. To see how vague the COCU proposal is at this point, one only has to consult our Book of Order, chapter II, which defines the confessions as guiding the church in its study and interpretation of Scripture, summarizing the essence of Christian tradition (small “t”), directing the church in maintaining sound doctrines and equipping the church for its work of proclamation (Book of Order G-2.0100).

The whole tenor of The COCU Consensus is away from any emphasis on defined belief or authoritative standards for belief. While Scripture, Tradition, and Creeds are invoked in various ways throughout the document, they emerge as little more than sources to be consulted. The emphasis seems to be on sharing “spirituality,” “contemporary interpretations” and “earnest thought concerning God’s will for the world and the Church … .” (p. 25), while at the same time warning against becoming “encrusted in traditionalism” or carrying “unnecessary ecclesiastical baggage” (p. 20). It is hard to disagree with these statements. The problem is that their meaning is by no means clear. Throughout COCU’s discussion, the authority of personal experience, on the order of Rousseau, seems far more significant than any objective definition of Christian faith and life. The whole concept of obedience seems to be lost. This leads to a final point.

The Authority of Ideology

More than a proposal for denominational unity, The COCU Consensus seems clearly to advocate a particular ideological point of view. Ideology in the popular sense refers basically to a political or social agenda of some sort. It should also be remembered that as Karl Marx originally used the term it referred to an attempt to mask reality, to hide the true implications of a social phenomenon or process. One could argue that COCU uses ideology in both senses. The real issue here is not whether one agrees or disagrees with the ideological thrust of The COCU Consensus but rather, given the stated goals of COCU, should any ideological program be advanced as part of the consensus sought by COCU? The fact that such an agenda is not clearly noted in the document as an ideological emphasis suggests the original use of “ideology” as hiding or masking something.

The COCU Consensus is committed to the ideals of diversity and inclusiveness in theology and community which results in such a broad ideal of diversity and inclusiveness in theology and church life that the net result appears to be a relativistic idea of truth in general. The content of Christian faith in COCU is sufficiently vague to embrace all manner of personal spirituality. Stemming from a vague theology, the community is perceived to be inclusive and diverse without a clear concern for a faith commitment.

Condemning Churches who would limit membership, in its opening chapter The COCU Consensus calls for “much more work” in defining “institutionalism and congregational exclusivism.” This introduction assures us that “the matters of racism, sexism, and prejudice against persons with disabilities are now addressed throughout this text” (p. 8). In the section on membership, the Church is rightly called to account for its past discriminatory policies. The conclusion is then made that “a vigorous struggle must be waged against all such abuses of human diversity” (p. 24). We are then told that

The full meaning of life together with Jesus Christ and with one another exceeds the limited conceptions which the churches, in their divisions, have. The Church Uniting will not grant exclusive validity, or impose on anyone an obligation, to any of those specific historical conceptions … The Church Uniting will dedicate itself to the removal of any and all impediments in its life which prevent it from receiving into full membership all members of the particular churches. (p. 24, italics mine)

While the emphasis on diversity here is clear enough, the ideological program being envisioned is less so. The nature of the “vigorous struggle” being called for is not defined. We certainly acknowledge that all particular churches have suffered from “limited conceptions” of the Christian faith but are we prepared to have those defined for us presumably at some later time in the course of the union imagined by The COCU Consensus? What also are the implications of the commitment to “the removal of any and all impediments” to full membership especially in the light of the implied rejection of the so-called “specific historical conceptions” of the member churches? Is this a reference to the issue of ordination of gay and lesbian persons? One might assume this is the case, since the companion document, Churches in Covenant Communion: The Church of Christ Uniting, states that,

A covenant communion of churches is, by definition, committed to become truly inclusive. Each partner is enriched by sharing in the gifts that God has given to the other. Each partner works to take down walls of alienation that exist between the churches, and to overcome attitudes which tend to marginalize persons in regard to race, class, disabilities, marital status, sexual orientation, and positions of power and powerlessness, and to live toward a church in which all participate in the wholeness Christ. (p.10)

Churches which resist this unity in community without common belief are declared to be sinful. The COCU document states, “In covenanting, the churches will make an act of common repentance for the sin of disunity among them, and for the sins which inhibit community within the human family” (p.10). Churches are told further, “To repent of sins that divide Christ’s body…being ready to change, especially in these idolatries which alienate and cause pain to sisters and brothers in Christ” (p. 11).

COCU seeks visible unity of the community without theological unity under Christ. When unity is not a result of theology, but an end in itself, what other theological beliefs will have to be revised to facilitate unity? What about the use of female language for God? There are already those who claim that referring to God as “Father” is offensive and causes dehumanization of women and therefore disunity.

All of these emphases remain undefined in terms of their full meaning. It seems hardly helpful to be told repeatedly by advocates for COCU that none of this is really going to impact the particular standards of the individual participating churches. What then is the meaning of the call for “a vigorous struggle” or the concern about the churches’ “limited conceptions?” If these phrases do not imply some imagined action, why are they even in the document?

It is striking that in the section on “Confessing the Faith” that “Inclusiveness” is mentioned in the same list as Scripture, Tradition Creeds and Confessions, Worship and Mission. In this section the Church is called to take a strong stand against all forms of discrimination and to “affirm the diversity, equality and dignity of all persons” (p. 33). The point at issue is not the importance or validity of these stands but rather their centrality in “Confessing the Faith.”

This concern is heightened when one notes a rather evident assumption of Universalism running throughout the document. Under the term inclusive (italics original) we are told that “Jesus’ ministry embraced all” (p. 16). But is this really true? One can say Jesus called all “to repent and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15) but did his ministry embrace all? Did all respond? What about those who did not repent, the Rich Ruler and the religious leaders, Herod and Pilate, and so on? In the section on “Ministry” we are told that “Jesus Christ called all humankind to conversion and to repentance,” but again did all respond? We are left with the impression that being called is the same as being saved or reconciled.

There is no reference to evangelism in The COCU Consensus. Under “Truly Evangelical” we are told “the Church offers new possibilities and resources for both individuals and institutions” (p. 18). Is this the same as salvation or new life in Christ? Or is it the case that everyone already is redeemed so that the focus of mission is now “to address the contemporary issues of public life” since “Christ has redeemed the world to God?” (p. 32).

In discussing reconciliation, it is significant that 2 Cor. 5:20 is not mentioned which refers to the call for people to “be reconciled to God.” It seems to be the case then that “Inclusiveness” is an article of faith for COCU, one which in its logical extension carries into a basic understanding of Universalism and a particular social and political agenda which, while strongly emphasized, is never delineated.

Conclusion

In conclusion, The COCU Consensus presents a theological perspective which is a continuation of the understanding of Liberal Protestant Theology going all the way back to Jean Jacques Rousseau. It should not be surprising that the latest trend in this perspective, with its rejection of objective revelation and emphasis on experience, is now toward pagan celebrations of nature and even goddess worship.10 The theology that is at least implicit in the COCU documents strongly suggests an affinity with these tendencies which have surfaced several times in recent years in ecumenical events associated with the member churches of COCU.11 Themes such as cooperation among the churches, inclusiveness, diversity, and a critical examination of tradition are all important subjects to be addressed. But, they should not be addressed the way The COCU Consensus defines them. Nor should local congregations have requirements imposed on them by the COCU covenanting councils.

The theological issues raised by COCU thus far have not been given the kind of analysis and attention they deserve.

This is all the more disturbing since the Book of Order clearly requires that an ecumenical statement approved by the General Assembly “shall be submitted to the presbyteries for their affirmative or negative votes … .” (G-15.0302). This should have been the case with the COCU documents but was not. The formative documents of COCU: The COCU Consensus: In Quest of a Church of Christ Uniting, 1985 and Churches in Covenant Communion: The Church of Christ Uniting, have not been submitted to the presbyteries for their vote. Before we proceed further with COCU, we need to analyze clearly its theological position. COCU represents a serious departure from the very foundations of our Reformed theological belief.

This article first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 2, No. 6 (Nov/Dec 1996).