The Position, Not the Party

Not long ago I tried to describe where I stand, and I noticed that every sentence came out the same shape. I am Reformed, but not like the Reformed. I am a baptist, but not like the baptists. I am a complementarian, but not like the complementarians. I believe everything that exists is a thought in the mind of God, but I am not like the philosophers who came near that claim and then wandered off into the fog with it. And after I heard myself say it, I stopped and asked an honest question. Is something wrong with me? Am I simply contrary? Does some part of me refuse to belong anywhere so that I can stand off at a distance and feel special?

I have sat with that question, because it deserves a real answer and not a reflex. Contrarianism is a real disease, and I have watched it eat men alive. But a contrarian sheds his positions the moment they stop being provocative, because the attention was the point all along. That is not what has happened to me. The positions I hold are the costly ones. I hold doctrines that get me put out of one room and doctrines that get me put out of the opposite room, and I hold them at the same time. A man chasing attention picks better positions than these.

So let me tell you what I think is actually going on, because I suspect this has happened to some of you as well.

When a man takes up a label, he is handed a box with the label printed on the side. Inside the box is the doctrine, the thing the label actually names. But the box also carries everything the party glued on over the years, and the party will not tell you which is which. The only way to sort it is to go back to the source. Take the box to the Scriptures and test every item in it. Keep what the Scriptures give. Hand back what the party added. That is the whole method, and I commend it to you. The trouble is what happens next, because when a man keeps what Scripture gives and hands back what the party added, the party never says thank you.

Jude told the saints to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). Once delivered. The faith was handed down whole at the start, and everything bolted onto it since is not the faith, no matter how old the bolts are or how beloved the men who tightened them. Contending for the additions is not contending for the faith. It only looks like it from inside the box.

But hand back one addition, just one, and watch what happens. The party does not hear a man being careful with the Scriptures. The party hears betrayal. You can affirm the doctrine itself as loudly as you please, and it will not matter, because you have declined the package, and the package is what the party actually loves. I have worn the compromiser label for years over exactly this, for handing back things the Scriptures never taught while affirming everything they do teach.

And for a long time I thought that was the whole story. I thought I was doctrinally homeless because of my positions, because my particular mix of convictions fits no existing party. But I have come to believe the real reason lies deeper than the doctrine. A camp, a party, a tribe, call it what you like, is not merely a set of beliefs. A camp is a boundary, and a boundary has to be policed. Full membership costs more than affirming the confession. Membership means guarding the gate. It means running the membership test on other men and excluding the ones who fail it. Those are the dues. And those are dues I will not pay. I will gladly affirm large pieces of nearly every camp's confession. But I will not stand at anyone's gate, and a member who will not guard the wall is not experienced as a member. He is experienced as a hole in the wall. So the camps put me out, and it took me years to understand that they were not putting me out for what I believe. They were putting me out for what I would not do.

Paul watched this disease break out in Corinth while the apostles were still alive. Every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? (1 Corinthians 1:12-13). Notice that the positions themselves were sound. Paul was a true apostle, Apollos was a mighty preacher, and Cephas was a pillar of the church. The corruption was not in the teaching. The corruption was the of. The moment the saints organized themselves into parties around the positions, Paul heard it as Christ being carved up, and he refused to let his own name fly as a banner.

And the Lord Himself received this same treatment, only infinitely worse. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them (Luke 15:2). Consider what actually offended them. His table offended them. Every faction knows itself by the sinners it refuses to receive, and He received them all. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out (John 6:37). A man with a table that wide cannot be claimed by any party, and the parties do not forgive it. They did not crucify Him for being too narrow.

I will not pretend this way of standing costs nothing. It is lonely out here. I have been preached against by men who never once called me to talk it through. I have watched doors close on rooms full of people I love, and my hands were open when they closed. If you take the position and refuse the party, some of that grief will find you too, and I will not dress it up as a small thing. It is a real wound, and it does not fully heal on this side.

But hear where the Scriptures put the Lord when the gatekeepers were finished with Him. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach (Hebrews 13:12-13). Without the camp. That is not where the failures end up. That is where He is. And if refusing to guard the gates leaves a man outside every camp on the map, he should lift up his eyes and look around, because he is standing in good company.

So I have stopped asking whether something is wrong with me, and I have settled into the only test I ever find in the Scriptures. The question is not which camp holds your card. The question is whether you are resting in Christ alone. If a man is resting in Christ alone, he is my brother, whatever label is printed on his box and however much of the party glue is still stuck to him. Mine came off slowly too. And I will keep a table with no gate for as long as the Lord gives me strength, because the gated rooms are quietly emptying, and the people walking out of them will be looking for a table exactly like the one the Lamb keeps. Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. He said it, and He has never once broken it.

Grace and Peace, Brandan