By Nathan D. Wilson, DisciplesWorld contributing writer

INDIANAPOLIS (8/3/09) — Before a capacity crowd of 461, the Council on Christian Unity and the Disciples of Christ Historical Society dinner celebrated the history of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) as a people of unity.

After welcoming words and introductions from Robert K. Welsh and Glenn T. Carson, presidents of the Council on Christian Unity (CCU) and the Disciples of Christ Historical Society, respectively, Richard Spleth, Indiana regional minister, presented the 2009 Craddock Award for Excellence in Preaching to Callie Smith, a Disciples minister serving as manager of the Lifelong Theological Education project at Christian Theological Seminary.

Chair of the CCU board of directors and pastor of First Christian in Arlington, Texas, Andy Mangum introduced the evening’s speaker: Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA and member of Park Avenue Christian in New York City.

Kinnamon began by reading portions of a letter from Sam Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, praising the leadership of Welsh in the ecumenical movement. Welsh’s numerous involvements and roles of responsibility were noted as well as his “consistent and faithful” ways of negotiating church controversies.

In addition to this year, 2009, being the 200th anniversary of Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, Kinnamon noted that next year, 2010, is the 100th anniversary of the Council on Christian Unity, started by Peter Ainslie. Ainslie proposed the idea of a “council on Christian union,” in his presidential address to the American Christian Missionary Society in January, 1910.  Ainslie suggested that the church in its essence is not only apostolic, but one; so the church should have not only a mission society, but also a unity council.

Kinnamon reminded attendees of the well-known line from Ainslie’s address: “I beg your pardon if I speak too frankly, but these are serious times and soft words will not suffice.”  Kinnamon effectively used this line — “These are serious times and soft words will not suffice” — throughout his speech to make several points about the Disciple’s fundamental identity as a movement for unity and wholeness.

“Take Christian unity out of the message of the Disciples,” suggested Ainslie, “and our existence only adds to the enormity of the sin of division by making another division.”  Added Kinnamon, “As I see it, it is this passion for unity, this readiness to die for the sake of our calling, that has given vigor to our evangelism, an edge to our social witness, and particular content to our worship and preaching.”

In case the urgency from Disciple theologians and church leaders was not enough to convince his audience, Kinnamon referred to a speech from Archbishop Desmond Tutu in which he said, “A united church is indispensable for the salvation of God’s world.  We can be safe only together.”  Tutu contextualizes his remark by saying, “Apartheid is too strong for a divided church.”

“At our best,” said Kinnamon, “Disciples have understood — in our bones, at our core — that church unity is not just another programmatic emphasis but the key to all our programming.  We have claimed as our distinctive purpose to make this known in the wider church.”

In the strongest move of his speech, Kinnamon said, “In recent years, if I’m not mistaken, we have begun to think of ourselves more and more as simply another denomination. And without this particular sense of calling to promote the visible unity of Christ’s body, it is no wonder that we find ourselves searching for direction and purpose.”

Misplacing our historic, core and distinctive purpose of promoting unity within God’s church and wholeness for all of God’s creation relegates Disciples to nothing more than being “brand Z on a shelf that already has (brands) A through Y.”

Rather, Disciples are to be “a community with a passionate sense of particular identity that isn’t sectarian because its particular identity is to be a healer of the universal church! And if we have lost this, then not only we but the wider church is impoverished.”

Encouraged by the use of the Disciples’ 2020 Vision Team’s identity statement, Kinnamon noted that the word “wholeness” is used rather than “unity” because for too many people, unity is associated with institutional merger. The hope is that present and emerging generations will understand wholeness as past generations understood unity: “a diverse community of which one part cannot say to another ‘I have no need of you’ because each is enriched by the other.”

Kinnamon listed several Disciples who were both prominent advocates ecumenists and peacemakers, including Ainslie who understood war to be the ultimate church division, and by contrast, church unity as the ultimate witness to peace. 

From this grounding, argued Kinnamon, the Disciples “should have no problem passing a resolution that names ‘peacemaking as an expression of Christian unity’” he said, in reference to Resolution 0919, “Christian Unity and War,” which the general assembly voted on Thursday to refer to the CCU with the instruction that CCU be in conversation with Disciples Peace Fellowship. He named his own vote to refer, and then said “In two years, we had better be able to say to the world that unity and peace go hand in hand!”

In typical fashion, Kinnamon identified four commitments Disciples must make to be a viable movement for wholeness: First, model wholeness in our own lives. Second, welcome those excluded by society.

Third, teach the vision of unity and wholeness to future generations. Finally, support those parts of the church that uphold our identity as people of unity and wholeness. After all, asked Kinnamon, “What is our heart, if not unity and wholeness?”

In his final comparison, Kinnamon encouraged Disciples to “stand up and be counted” for healthcare reform, which will not an easy national debate just as church unity was never going to be easy.

“Now … is precisely the time for Disciples to stand up and be counted, to reaffirm to ourselves and the world that the reconciliations of those who were estranged is not only our calling and identity, it is the gospel.”