Summer 2009 - Brethren in Christ Church

One Christian to anothertold they are wrong, are more than happy to take theirbusiness elsewhere. As one pastor recently told me, “It’shard to enact discipline when the church down the streetis happy to receive one more member.”The Old Order Amish and church disciplineThere is, of course, one North American Church thatcontinues to function in opposition to the religious marketplace.The Old Order Amish, who, as Anabaptists, sharetheological roots with the Brethren in Christ Church,function much more like a family than shoppers in aChristians, if they are to flourishspiritually, need people in theirlives who ask probing questionsand offer honest counsel.department store. Their local churches are small, and thepeople who attend them know each other well. It’s not unusualfor persons to be born into, to receive baptism, andto live out their entire lives in a particular Amish congregation.Since Amish congregations are geographically based,Amish people aren’t allowed to transfer their membership.Choice may be the hallmark of consumer capitalism, but ithas not yet made its way into the Amish Church.Whether you hold the Amish in high or low regard,it’s hard to deny the potency of Amish disciplinary practices.This potency flows from four factors:1. The Amish have a clear set of shared standards, calledthe Ordnung. The Ordnung is not typically writtendown, but church members are keenly aware of itscontents and, at baptism, they vow to keep theseregulations for life.2. The Amish have a willingness to enforce these standards.Although there may be exceptions, Amish churchleaders vigorously embrace the responsibility toenforce their district’s Ordnung. If the bishops don’tenforce the Ordnung, then the jig is up, and thecommunity will soon cease to be Amish.3. The Amish have a deep familiarity with their fellowchurch members. One of my friends who converted tothe Amish said the hardest part was not giving up hiscar, but rather his privacy. Minding one’s own businessmay be a virtue in some circles, but if you’re Amish,you’re supposed to mind other people’s business.4. The Amish enact a form of discipline—shunning—thatis profoundly painful to the wayward person. This ritualizedpractice of social distancing, which the Amishbase on I Corinthians 5:9–13, varies from communityto community, but the goal is always the same: torestore the wayward person to the church. Shunningsometimes works, though its real power lies in thethreat of it, for it deters Amish people from establishingtheir own set of rules for living the Christian life.As far as I know, shunning has never been practiced inthe Brethren in Christ Church (and I suspect most of usare grateful for that). But even if we leave shunning aside,I’m not convinced that contemporary Brethren in Christchurches demonstrate the other factors that make rigorousdiscipline possible in Amish communities. We may havea set of shared ethical standards, but that set is relativelyminimal; we don’t know our fellow church members verywell, especially if our churches are large; we tend not to putour noses into “other people’s business”; and our churchleaders are often quite reluctant to enact discipline.But if traditional forms of church discipline requirethe sort of community that most North AmericanChristians no longer inhabit, what are we to do? Is selfdisciplineall we have left?Accountability as a complement to disciplineGiven the perils inherent in this area, it’s tempting togive our full attention to the more impersonal (and oftenaffirmative) forms of Christian discipleship: preachingand teaching. These are crucial activities, and churchesand pastors are wise to devote their best efforts to them.Nonetheless, the New Testament assumes more personal,and at times confrontational, forms of correction.Consider Matthew 18, I Corinthians 5, and Colossians3. These texts presume that the Church exists, at least inpart, to correct those who go astray.IN PARTINPART.ORG