An Open Letter to the Community of Christ Church

Peace, wholeness, human diversity, individual worth, justice – these are all worthwhile concerns. The Community of Christ church has taken these issues unto itself and made them in essence the modern CoC gospel.

Perhaps you have found that this current theology, while certainly in line with much of mainline Protestantism, is barren and incapable of satisfying real, inner needs. It may offer avenues for intellectual exploration, but there is little if anything there which fully, truly satisfies. The membership is participating less, contributing less. There is little personal knowledge of, or relationship with God. In fact, when current CoC theology is examined, one finds that God is reduced to a vague idea, with less and less actual, literal personality. And a god who is distant and impersonal, and who therefore cannot be related to as a Person by a person, is inherently unsatisfying.

I could speak of specific problems I see in the institutional church. I see a multitude of doctrinal problems, both from the traditional RLDS standpoint and from a Biblical Christian standpoint. Yet, lists of problems and quotations to back them up are available elsewhere. I urge you to examine these problems. They form a body of evidence which, when taken as a whole, makes both the liberal and fundamentalist factions of the church other than authentically Christian.

But, I do not intend to discuss this vast array of serious difficulties. Instead, I wish to offer an alternative to a desert of cold intellectualism, the barren tyranny of human reason over faith, the mentally nauseating morass of vague theological explorations and terminology. I wish to offer a reality that is beyond imagination.

I wish to introduce you to Jesus. Not an impersonal “the Christ” but a real, living Person. A Person named Jesus lived and died, and rose from the dead and is alive today. I want you to know Him. He is, by His own claim, God. He insists that only through Him can you be saved, and He claims the sole right to define salvation. He is rather obstinate and narrow minded in a way — which merely increases our sense of the reality of His Personhood — insisting that He and He alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But, He is also extremely broadminded in another sense, for He doesn’t require great learning, intellectual ability, theological modernity, or anything else that is part and parcel of accepted liberal CoC life. He simply requires you. The Bible says, “For it is by His grace you are saved., through trusting Him; it is not your own doing. It is God’s gift, not a reward for work done. There is nothing for anyone to boast of….” (Eph. 2:8-9 NEB). The New Jerusalem Bible puts it this way: “Because it is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit.”

Does this seem anti-intellectual? It isn’t — it merely recognizes that God is able to be and do that which we do not and cannot comprehend with the mind alone. Does it sound as though it does away with the necessity of being socially conscious and active? Not at all; the next verse declares that the very ones who are saved apart from their own merit were saved to perform works that God prepared beforehand. Does this sound too easy? Believe me, it isn’t; it cost the father His Son, it cost Jesus His life, and it will cost you, if you are saved at all, everything you now depend on to bring you to God. But Jesus is waiting, Jesus is real, and Jesus will receive you. Trust in Him alone, now, and you will never have cause to complain.

Robert McKay