|
|
I am Ian Johnson, co-author of Our Oneness in Christ (ISBN 1-4241-6035-9), and am seeking joint authors or lead authors to participate in the completion of three projects on the general subject of Christian unity, starting from seed material linked in the descriptions of the three proposed works on this site. My reasons for seeking other participants in these projects are explained immediately below, starting with the Scriptural support for doing God's work in pairs or teams.
Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.
Proverbs 15:22
For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war: and in multitude of counsellors there is safety.
Proverbs 24:6
After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Luke 10:1-2
Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.
2 Corinthians 13:1b
For more than twelve years, I have been writing material, most of it on the general subject of the unity of the Body of Christ, the reasons we should be demonstrating unity, and the ways to overcome obstacles to that unity. I have been doing most of this work by myself, and posting it on the Internet. My web sites get decent traffic, considering their topic, but very little response, and have little visible effect. But, then I recognize that I've been mostly alone in them. I've been singing a unity solo.
About nine years ago, Lauston Stephens started contributing pieces for one of my websites. We didn't participate much at that point in writing each other's material�my pages were still my pages, and his pages were still his pages� but we were in general agreement about the subject matter.
Then, about two years ago, a third person suggested that we put some of our material together, and join with her in writing a jointly-authored book for print publication. While the third person who suggested the book later dropped out of the project, Lauston and I persevered and, on December 26, 2006, Our Oneness in Christ was published by PublishAmerica.
I have now come to realize that the only way to effectively teach regarding the need to work together in Christian unity is through jointly-authored works. As long as I'm singing a unity solo, it won't be very effective. The books themselves, and the process that produced them, need to be examples of what they teach.
Moreover, I have come to recognize several other needs that can only be properly met through joint authorship: 1) the need for mentoring in my gift; 2) the great advantage of having more than one listening for what God is saying, that everything may be established in the mouth of two or three witnesses; 3)the need for others to be involved in the work to keep it "on course" both doctrinally and stylistically; and 4)the advantage, if possible, of having a joint author who possesses recognized academic and ecclesiastical credentials (without which the organized Church, unfortunately, tends to ignore the message presented).
Therefore, I have gathered most of my last twelve years' work, outside of the book I've already published, into three collections, each of which appears to present the nucleus or the seed for a new book. I solicit contact with potential joint authors who possess the formal qualifications1 I lack and who share the vision of the proposed works. I also solicit contact with any believer who believes he or she is called to participate. The three proposed books are described briefly below.
For the last twelve years, I have been very gradually writing a systematic theology, and posting pieces I have completed on the Internet as I completed them. In this theology, I have attempted to make clear what God's Word says on each subject, carefully avoiding any group's denominational interpretations of Scripture and also carefully avoiding theological terminology not found in the Bible itself. My vision for this document was that it would promote reconciliation within the Church, the Body of Christ, by providing a basis for reconciliation of doctrinal differences that have been used for centuries to justify warfare within the Church.
I have finished first drafts of the first ten chapters, dealing with God the Father, the concept of God as three in one, and Jesus the Son. I also have a tentative outline of the first seven sections of the larger work. I propose that the scope of the first volume published should include only the first three sections, dealing with God, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as set forth in the page found behind the above link. The ten chapters of which I have completed drafts are shown as active links on that page, and you are invited to read the drafts.
Over the years, I have written several collections of material on the general subject of things that cause, or are used to justify, visible divisions in the Church, and ways to reconcile them. I have collected links to these materials on the above-linked web page, along with a proposed outline for a larger work of which some major revision of them would become a part. Where I view the ten already-written chapters of Behold the Glory as the actual foundation for the first ten chapters of that book, I view the pieces I have gathered on the proposal page for this book mainly as providing seeds, sources of ideas or a conceptual framework for this book. The existing material may not necessarily be converted into chapters in the proposed book; how much of the existing material is actually incorporated will be a team decision.
I presently envision this book being written in three sections, though I am certainly open to the idea of having more sections than this and covering more divisive issues than this. The first section, entitled something like "Fallacies: Bases of Erroneous Reasoning that Excuses Division,", will cover the concept that faulty reasoning and bad assumptions are not the underlying cause of most divisions�the underlying cause is our own selfishness, the "lusts that wage war in our members." But most divisions would die with their founders if they did not become institutionalized through organized insistence on the fuzzy reasoning justifying them.
The second section, entitled something like "Worldly Politics as a Cause of Division in the Church," will discuss the role of Church entanglements with worldly political divisions in perpetuating division. Just as fuzzy reasoning is necessary to perpetuate and institutionalize divisions in the Church, worldly political divisions (often, though not always, racial or ethnic in nature), are often the deciding factor which force these divisions to become irreconcilable at the institutional level. Because divisions in the Church tend to defend themselves by wrapping themselves around secular political divisions, reconciliation in the Church must come from the "bottom up"�or, more accurately, down from the TRUE Head of the Church (Christ) through His individual members. It will not arise solely from attempts at institutional union.
The third section, entitled something like "Reconciling the Divisive Issue of Tongues," will approach a moerate alternative position on this divisive issue. The issue of speaking in tongues�or, more precisely, of whether speaking in tongues is the only admissible "initial evidence" of baptism in the Holy Spirit�has divided the Church for the last hundred years. There have been basically only two camps (although more moderate groups are now beginning to arise), one group proclaiming that speaking in tongues is always the initial evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit (so that those who don't have it are spiritually inferior) and the opposing group proclaiming that speaking in tongues ceased to occur after the First Century and those who claim to so do it today are therefore either deceived or demonized. There is a third approach to this subject, however, that recognizes the validity of speaking in tongues and the possibility that it may function as a demonstration of the Spirit's activity in the lives of some, but also recognizes that it is not the only, or even necessarily the usual, evidence of the Spirit's work.
Click here for further explanation of this proposed book and links to the "seed" pieces that have already been written.
Over a number of years, I have written two general bodies of essays regarding how God uses us to bring reconciliation to the world, through worship and through evangelism. I have collected links to these pieces on the web page linked above as the seed of a proposed book, along with an outline that also includes a proposal for a third section that appears necessary to me. Once again, I view these pieces as seeds, sources of ideas or a framework rather than as chapters in the proposed book. Again, the existing material may not necessarily be converted into chapters in the proposed book; how much of the existing material is actaly incorporated will be a team decision.
I envision this proposed book being written in three parts, though I am once again open to the inclusion of additional topics. The first section, entitled "Worship," will set forth the fundamental principle that God brings reconciliation to His Body, and through us, in our unity, to the world, through our worship. However, true "worship"�that "worship" that brings reconciliation�is NOT a musical genre. Rather, "worship" is the sacrifice of our lives to God, which shows in everything we do. This section will discuss various aspects of worship, that is, the ways true worship is revealed in various parts of our lives and attitudes bringing reconcilition in the Church and to the world.
The second section, entitled something like "Reconciliation: Life in Community," will develop the community aspect of oneness which my first book Our Oneness in Christ did not address in detail (although possible points of departure are found in Chapters 3, 4, 7-9 and 12 of that book). In approaching this subject, it will also necessarily address one of the major weaknesses of nearly all modern churches�their narrow emphasis on building a vertical relationship between individual believers (a/k/a "worshippers," a term which clearly reflects this bias) and God through the worship leaders, whose place is emphasized, usually to the exclusion of building horizontal relationships with each other. The organization of the room and the "order of worship" during a "service" is so designed as to make the pastor, priest or minister(s), and the choir or worship team, the sole focus of attention, except for brief periods of encouraged greetings and superficial prayers for each other. To the extent God is allowed to speak to us individually at all during worship services in most mainline churches, it is because the songs impersonally selected and the message the preacher preached (without reference to our individual situations) happened to match something that was going on in our individual minds or lives. In Pentecostal and Charismatic churches, this may be augmented by "words of knowledge" directed at us individually by the leader who is presently recognized to speak. But nothing in our services is usually permitted to approach our deep individual needs on more than a superficial level. We are allowed to be nearly anonymous in our churches, unless we seek out ways to serve within the established program�and, even then, church programs are usually focused on either building the numbers in attendance, on raising money, or on teaching groups (again, focused on a single teacher who is teaching a fixed, approved curriculum that doesn't directly address individual needs). There is little room for interactions that are deep enough to heal us and draw us into living as one. There is little room for true community, beyond merely cooperating functionally in activities for the good of the organization.
The third section will be entitled "Evangelism." God brings reconciliation to the world through "evangelism." Nearly all Christians agree with this statement. But we my not have a clear understanding of what "evangelism" is, who is to do it, and how.
Click here for further explanation of this proposed book and links to the "seed" pieces that have already been written.
1Note regarding qualifications: My own observations over many years suggest the Christian world, for the most part, seems to be very much concerned with an author's or speaker's humanly-granted formal qualifications. We have been collectively taught not to hear, read, or pay attention to any "lay" speaker or writer outside of the Sunday School programs of our own local churches. Outside of these boundaries, most of us will not pay any attention to any teachers who cannot show themselves to be either duly ordained full-time pastors, duly licensed full-time ministers or missionaries, Bible college or seminary professors, or at the very least students engaged in formal theological training to become one of the above varieties of full-time ministers. I do not have any of these qualifications, and I do NOT insist that every member of the team writing the books I have proposed (other than myself) must have recognized formal credentials. If God leads you to volunteer to work with us, please do so, even if you don't have humanly-recognized qualifications to participate.
However, I also recognize that, if the books are to actually reach their Christian target audience and not be ignored, at least one member of each team will have to be able to show on the book cover that he or she has been awarded an advanced degree in an appropriate field by a formally accredited educational institution and/or that he or she has been duly credentialed by some generally-recognized denominational or parachurch organization as a "legitimate" Christian leader or academic theologian. Moreover, I also recognize that, quite likely, it will be insisted that one of the formally-qualified participants in each book must be the lead author. I accept this probability in order to bring the message to the people it must reach�who will simply ignore it unless God brings someone with humanly-recognized qualifications into each project.
Thus, my reasons for seeking other participants in each of these books are different than my reason for asking that at least one participant in each book should have recognized formal qualifications. My main reasons for seeking the collaboration of other participants are to make the books themselves examples of working together in unity, and to have the safety and power of groups of Christians acting in agreement. My only reason for asking that at least one member of each team have recognized credentials is that I realize that, regrettably, most Christians will not even consider reading any resulting book if this is not done.
Books written by others about Ecumenical and other approaches to Christian unity, as a demonstration of what has and has not been written on the subject of the proposed books.
Books written by others about Christian theology generally.
©2007 Ian B. Johnson
Note about context links: Since I announced my effort to find joint authors to convert much of the material below into the seeds for three collaboratively-authored books, I have had several respond, essentially, that they believe everything that can usefully be written has already been written. Thus, they believe I'm wasting my time�and that of my prospective collaborators. In response to this challenge, I'm in the process of building an affiliate bookstore on one of my websites that will attempt to list what is in print on these subjects and offer it for sale (be watching for the opening of this store over the next few weeks). I have also experimentally installed the Amazon.com context links beta on many of my pages. This may give some rather unusual and amusing results at times, but is should also give some additional confirmation of what is, and isn't, in print on the subjects of my writings.
