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Any time one comes to a study or discussion of the Bible, one brings “baggage.” No one begins with a perfectly clean slate. We must be honest about our preconceptions, traditions, pre-understandings. This article suggests five possible pieces of baggage–reactionism, separatism, legalism, misunderstanding how the Bible communicates, and of more recent vintage, increasing indifference to what the Bible communicates.

Restorationism often finds initial roots in reaction against particular misunderstandings or abuses. When this occurs, the shape of a Restoration movement or church, and the faith of those involved, is influenced by the thing reacted against. While this may not be always the case, it at least raises the possibility that our “faith” may not be as pure or as primitive as we often assume.
Historically, many Restorationists have had a tendency toward separatism, if not an outright sectarianism. Thus, many Restorationist churches still operate on the assumption that every doctrinal question is ultimately about who remains in fellowship and who is excluded, including who is going to heaven and who is not. This results in a divisive attitude, even among brothers.
Many Restoration churches have a legalistic attitude about or understanding of the Bible. Such treat the Bible akin to the IRS code with God as the great Heavenly Auditor who sharpens his pencil and puts on his glasses to look carefully for some technicality on the basis of which he can deny us eternal life. While God’s revelation of himself contains instructions to help us fulfill his purpose in our lives and become like him, the gospel of Scripture reveals a God who has gone to great sacrificial lengths to save his rebellious human creation, even to the extent of giving his Son for us.
Our Restoration heritage includes those who have misunderstood and misused Scripture by prooftexting; thus our baggage includes a history of incomplete, insufficient, and even bad and baseless arguments. Some have made the Bible says things it does not. This is related to separatism and legalism, but is a distinct problem.
In reaction against these things, some have in the last twenty to twenty-five years developed a spirit of indifferentism. Mark Shipp calls this the Doctrine of Ecclesiological Indifference. This attitude steers one into the opposite ditch, ultimately arriving at the conclusion that it must not matter very much what the church does when it assembles. Wearied by our past, we ride the pendulum to the opposite extreme.

What is an appropriate understanding? A starting point would be the agree that the New Testament is our guide regarding the nature of Christian discipleship and the shared life of the church. This suggests that we seek to understand the aims of the apostles and the New Testament writers, and that we consider what kind of communities the apostles were trying to establish and nurture, and how the forms of the Christian life and the Christian church functions to further those aims.

“In every church, in every institution, there is something which sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence.” (C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, 94).
If Lewis is right, we would do well to ask ourselves afresh why the church came into existence, how the current church should reflect that origin, and what kinds of things are working against the original purpose. Those of us who stand in a Restorationist tradition must understand the nature of restoration (recovery) efforts. Michael Weed has observed that such movements become predominantly shaped by what they are reacting against. That shape often continues long after the factors that motivated the original reaction are gone. Thus it is that Restorationist movements stagnate, considering themselves successful because the factors against which they originally stood have been eliminated. Along the way, Restoration can become irrelevant because its inherent nature is more reactionary than proactionary. In common terms, more known for what it is against than for what it is for.
The church committed to restoration and recovery must continually keep in mind the original. An oft-used illustration serves well here: those who work to identify counterfeit money do not study the multiple counterfeit possibilities–they study and come to know everything they can about authentic bills.
If the contemporary church’s culture or DNA has derailed, it may be because the church has lost sight of the original plan and purpose of God in establishing the church. A quick New Testament refresher course would go a long way toward correcting any tendencies to turn inward in exclusivity or to diminish the church’s commitment to proclaiming the message of Jesus far and wide through evangelism and missions.
The church is not here to react to the world or to human misunderstandings, but to respond faithfully to God’s love expressed in Christ. That faithful response, guided by God’s word concerning his intent and the purpose of the church, will go a long way toward helping us become what God is calling his people to be.