Christian Unity in a Polarized World

Darrell Bock 

Welcome to The Table Podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relevance of theology to everyday life. I’m Darrell Bock, one of the hosts for The Table, and we are talking today about unity in the church. And my guest is Craig— 

Craig Schill 

Schill. 

Darrell Bock 

Schill, yeah. I was going to start to say “shrill,” and I know that’s not right. Shrill wouldn’t be an appropriate name for what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about the unity of the church and the pressures on the unity of the church today because of the polarization that we’re in. Craig is pastor of—is it Grove Community Church? 

Craig Schill 

The Grove Community Church. 

Darrell Bock 

And where’s that located? 

Craig Schill 

It’s in Rowlett. 

Darrell Bock 

In Rowlett, yeah, okay. 

Craig Schill 

Two suburbs east of Dallas. 

Darrell Bock 

And how long have you been pastoring there now? 

Craig Schill 

19 years. 

Darrell Bock 

19 years. I thought— 

Craig Schill 

do you remember when I first started? 

Darrell Bock 

I do. 

Craig Schill 

Yes, I can tell the story. Yeah, I sure can. You were on the elder board, and we were a church plant from that church— 

Darrell Bcok 

From Trinity Fellowship.  

Craig Schill 

The board was trying to decide whether to do this church plant, and the same issues were getting kicked around over and over. You stopped the group and you said, “Men, the question is, are we pregnant? Are we gonna birth this church or not?” That was 19 years ago. Yeah, and I’ve been pastoring that entire time. I’m grateful and humble to keep pastoring that same church. 

Darrell Bock 

That’s great. Well, I’m glad to see that you’re about to hit adulthood. I don’t know what it means when you turn 21, but we’ll figure that out when the time comes. You’re also an adjunct faculty member here at Dallas, correct? 

Craig Schill 

That’s correct. 

Darrell Bock 

And is that in pastoral ministries? 

Craig Schill 

It is, yeah, it is. I mainly teach preaching classes. 

Darrell Bock 

Preaching classes, so you get to listen to all the prospective sermons that are coming. And how long you been doing that? 

Craig Schill 

I got my Doctor of Ministry in 2018, and so since 2018, I’ve served as an adjunct. 

Darrell Bock 

Very cool. Yeah. Well, so the standard question I ask someone who’s a guest on The Table for the first time is: what is a guy like you doing in a gig like this? What in the world triggered your interest? And of course, you have a book that’s a part of this. So, why don’t you tell us about that as well? 

Craig Schill 

Yeah. In terms of ministry, I was really impacted by The Navigators campus ministry, and felt the first inkling that maybe God would call me to vocational ministry at some point. Then I went into a career in human resources, got an MBA, worked for 10 years in higher education HR, still wondering if God would ever lead me in that direction. And finally, really felt the call as my wife and I talked about it and discerned it. And I just love the local church. I just love that, from the babies to the seniors. And so the pastor who married us was a DTS grad, Dr. Tim Savage. 

Darrell Bock 

Oh, sure. 

Craig Schill 

And so we came out here, and Dr. Harold Hoehner showed us around, and we were just delighted to do the teaching in Arizona. We lived in Flagstaff for 12 years before coming out. And we made it. So that’s how I got into ministry, and I always knew I was going into pastoral ministry—just the call to shepherd and just the beauty of the church when it’s working well. 

Darrell Bock 

Yeah. 

Craig Schill 

And in terms of the idea of Christians getting along together in Christian unity, it’s— 

Darrell Bock 

Kind of a basic biblical idea. 

Craig Schill 

Yeah. When I was an elder before I went to seminary—I was a young elder—and I was amazed at what kind of issues came to the board. We had one family that wanted us to install an altar at the front of the sanctuary. We had another growing group of people that said we needed to change our music style to reach the community. And just very diverse issues came at us, and I was wondering: how can we do a better job triaging these issues and knowing how to respond to them rather than grouping them all in the same category? 

Darrell Bock 

In the same serious category, is that what you’re talking about? More of them than they really represent. 

Craig Schill 

Yeah, that’s right. So the altar example, I remember well. We looked for the right answer. We wanted the biblical answer to that. So we’re talking about altars in the Old Testament and the sacrificial system, and really, they just wanted a place to pray at the front. But we were looking for the right biblical answer, and in retrospect, we should have had much more flexibility on that one. 

Darrell Bock 

Interesting. Yeah, I remember I interned at a church in North Carolina between my first and second year in seminary back in 1976. And the key issue for the church then was they had just built a new building, and they debated whether the carpet should be red for the blood or blue for the color of heaven. 

Craig Schill 

Oh, that’s interesting. 

Darrell Bock 

Yeah, exactly right. So who’s going to win that argument? And I want to see the position papers on this! Yes. So it’s amazing what sometimes gets us hung up. 

Craig Schill 

It is. 

Darrell Bock 

So you’ve done a book. Tell us about that. 

Craig Schill 

I was particularly interested, and especially coming into being a pastor, having a front-row seat, came to the belief that most of the time we argue about the wrong things, and that we’re well known for friendly fire. Disunity that we experience in our churches is mostly self-caused and unnecessary because we treat all issues as if they’re equal. And so when I was doing my ThM and then in my doctoral work, I did research in the area particularly of these gray issues. There’s the cardinal issues, and there are what I call the clear teachings of the Bible that are mostly not debated. But then there’s all these gray issues, and wanting to understand the theology of the gray issues. 

So that has sent me down 20 years of rabbit holing. When I did my research for my book and then my doctoral program, I did a national survey with about 630 participants—half of them pastors, half of them laity from around the country—and had them rank the things that their churches fight about. And the number one cause of discord in churches is gray issues, as I defined it and sort of explained it. 75% said, “Yeah, that’s the majority of our squabbles.” And when I just looked at pastors, it went up into the 80% area. 

So we’re not necessarily fighting about the deity of Christ very often, or the bodily resurrection, or the virgin birth. We’re not in our evangelical circles arguing that we shouldn’t forgive our enemy, or we shouldn’t be generous, or getting drunk with wine is actually okay. But it’s the color of the carpet, the role of women in ministry, music styles, Harry Potter, politics—that really get us turned around. 

Darrell Bock 

So the title of the book is— 

Craig Schill 

It’s called Gray Church. 

Darrell Bock 

Okay. 

Craig Schill 

And the subtitle is “It’s Time to Stop Fighting About Gray Issues and to Embrace the Unity Jesus Has for Us.” 

Darrell Bock 

Okay. 

Craig Schill 

So the idea being that a church that embraces the gray is going to be a church that’s unified. 

Darrell Bock 

So this was an extension of your dissertation work? 

Craig Schill 

That’s correct. 

Darrell Bock 

And DMin, I take it? 

Craig Schill 

Correct. 

Darrell Bock 

And in the midst of that, that usually involves surveying or some type of study of churches, that kind of thing. How did that work? 

Craig Schill 

I did a national survey asking pastors to respond to a number of questions: 634 usable surveys, 12% from the Northeast, 53% from the South, 15% Midwest, 21% from the West. Half were pastors, half were laity. 38 different denominations. Pastors came from 72 different schools. And so I wanted to get a broad range of input into this idea of gray issues and what churches fight about. So it was based on collecting that data that this book was born. 

Darrell Bock 

Okay, now I’m going to ask a question that hopefully is clear. When I think of gray, I think of clouds and that kind of thing. So define gray for us. When you mean gray church, what exactly are we talking about? 

Craig Schill 

Right. Let me define gray issues. Obviously, not a biblical word, but probably the word that’s most commonly associated with issues that are neither here nor there. So I define a gray issue as an issue of theology or culture that is either (1) not addressed in the Bible, or (2) it is addressed, but in a way that allows for valid but very different viewpoints from those who hold to a high view of Scripture. 

Darrell Bock 

Okay. 

Craig Schill 

So it could be theology, it could be a cultural item, it could be not addressed at all, or the Bible does talk about roles for women in ministry, but there are very different viewpoints of that, and baptism, and other areas of theology. 

Darrell Bock 

So I’m listening to you, and I’m thinking, wow, this is an old problem—the nature of gray issues and differences within the body of Christ goes back to like the New Testament, right? There are discussions about how to celebrate certain feast days, issues of diet, that kind of thing that Paul explicitly marked out as not being central to salvation, but obviously enough of an issue that he had to write about them. 

Craig Schill 

That’s right. Yeah, and Romans 14 and 15 are a key landing point for this discussion. Some people argue that that’s one of the major purposes for the book: that the theology of chapters 1 through 11, and then the application, gears towards this church in Rome of precious believers that was imploding because of meat and drink. The Christians weren’t getting along, and Paul said, “You both need to accept one another because God has accepted you”—not just tolerate the person with a different opinion, but accept them, and be of one mind with them, because it’s okay to have completely opposite viewpoints on these issues, Paul said. 

Darrell Bock 

Yeah. I think it’s important to set this in the context of the New Testament, and that basically these combinations that you’re dealing with in the New Testament are because you’re bringing Jews and Gentiles together who are coming from completely different social spaces, with a history between them that’s not exactly—I’ll just characterize as not exactly friendly. You know, the Maccabean War that predates the New Testament by more than a century was an attempt by Gentiles really to wipe Jewish faith off the face of the earth. And Jesus comes along and says, “Oh, I have a wonderful plan. I’m going to put you Jews and Gentiles together and make you family.” Pretty radical. We don't think about how radical that is today in terms of what’s being asked. And so inevitably, you bring these people together from different backgrounds, different social spaces, and they have to sort out: how are we going to function together as family? So how did Paul help with that tension? What did he do to give them the space to be able to function together side by side? 

Craig Schill 

It’s really all there in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul is planting all these churches, and then after a short period of time, all of these churches are on the brink of not functioning anymore; they’re on the brink of closing. You can hear in some of his language how frustrated he is, and he has to get across the idea that, yeah, there’s some things we fight about, and there’s other things we don’t. We not only shouldn’t fight about them, but it would be sinful to fight about that. 

So to the Galatians, he says, “You’ve let go of the gospel.” That’s what you ought to be fighting for. And to the Roman Church, he says, for those of you who are vegetarians—probably the Jewish population that goes even beyond the Jewish law, which is now not required because of Christ—Paul’s like, it’s okay if you continue to have different eating preferences. And then the Gentile believers that didn’t grow up with the law at all, they’re eating whatever they want to, and they are saying, “How are we going to grow the church with these traditionalists over here with all these rules?” And the group with the religious background is saying that they’re making a mockery of our faith. 

So Paul’s very strong, and I think that’s why he takes so much time in the letter to the Romans in chapters 14 and 15 to kind of repeat the same point over and over again: Don’t judge. Don't ridicule. Accept your brother in Christ. And he says in the first part of chapter 14, don’t try to change their mind, don’t argue them to your side. It’s okay. I call it “divine elbow room,” and that’s beautiful. 

And then it goes deeper than that, I think, with Paul, because our unity proves that the gospel works, like in Ephesians 2—that an outcome of the gospel is the bringing together of Jew and Gentile into one new person. And so the unity that we’re supposed to have because of the gospel is a byproduct of the gospel. It proves that it works, and so when we’re not unified, then it puts to question the whole system. 

Darrell Bock 

It’s an interesting observation because numerous texts in the New Testament say, “They will know you by your love,” which is an appeal to unity. Jesus’ final prayer before he goes to the cross is for unity. So obviously, it’s an important concept. Paul rebukes the Corinthians for not being unified and for having broken down into tribes. 

Craig Schill 

Almost every one of his letters is dealing with disunity in the church. 

Darrell Bock 

Interesting. Yeah. So talk about what advice you give in this regard. Well, let me ask you one other question before we go there, because we’re still framing the conversation to some degree, and that is: we were talking before we started recording here about the pressure that pastors are feeling in the ministry. Talk about that a little bit. You’re a pastor in a church; you’ve been doing it for 19 years. I see that your hair’s gotten a little grayer since when I knew you earlier. So talk about the pressure that pastors are feeling and what’s creating that pressure for them. 

Craig Schill 

It’s really tough out there, and pastors listening will nod their heads. It’s really hard, and a lot of the battles are over gray issues. You come to seminary to learn theology, to learn how to preach, and then we’re arguing about these lesser things. 

One of the surprising results of my survey: I asked the participants, “Have you been part of a church where a large number of people left because of a conflict?” I was sort of expecting maybe a third of them would say that, but two-thirds said, “Yeah, part of a church split.” And of the two-thirds that were part of some sort of major rift, two-thirds of those were caused by gray area issues. And so there’s nothing close to the arguments we’re having about lesser things. 

Within the Protestant world, of course, that’s kind of our legacy from the time that the Reformation happened down through the ages: we are the splintered arm of the Christian faith. Most denominations were founded because of convictions about secondary issues, and it makes it very hard now for us to all get along together in one church, much less get along with other churches. But it’s really hard out there for pastors; it could be any number of issues. I talk with Paul Pettit in the Career Placement Office, and he talks about pastors that come back to DTS looking for jobs, and most of them are beat up because of these kinds of fights that are going on—not from the outside, but from the inside. 

Darrell Bock 

So what advice do you have for churches and people to help them with this? Because obviously, it’s a significant problem if you’ve got two-thirds of the people you probed saying, “I’ve been through this.” What advice do you have for that? 

Craig Schill 

I really want to elevate the theology of gray issues as a category. There’s the theological term adiaphora, which comes out of the Reformation. Luther and Zwingli couldn’t get along. They couldn't get along because of instruments in worship; they couldn't get along because of differences at the Lord’s table. So these two major movements couldn't get along. Melanchthon, Luther’s disciple, said, “There’s got to be a better way.” And so this idea of adiaphora sort of became a theological umbrella for these kinds of issues. 

It’s a word we don't know as evangelicals. In my survey, about 70% of people knew eschatology and ecclesiology; only 8% of the laity had heard of adiaphora. And so we don’t even have the vocabulary to have the conversation. We have a foreign word to describe it. We’ll talk about a particular gray issue—women in ministry, or worship style, or Lordship Salvation versus Free Grace salvation—but what about the category? And that’s where we can take Paul’s teaching and say, regardless of the type of issue, now we know how to deal with it. So that’s a first step: it’s education. 

Darrell Bock 

Education on the fact of even having the category, knowing what it is, so that it doesn’t get elevated to a status that it probably shouldn’t have. 

Craig Schill 

That’s right. 

Darrell Bock 

Okay, so that’s interesting. Before we leave that, let me come to a couple of things that you raised, because someone listening to this might go, “Well, I think I know what adiaphora is and what neutral things are.” But you mentioned a couple of things and how they end up in that category. You mentioned the role of women in the church, and you mentioned Lordship Salvation versus Free Grace salvation. And I could see either response being: “Well, with regard to women in the church, Scripture is very, very clear about what the role of women in the church ought to be,” and of course we have the complementarian and egalitarian debate that goes as a part of that. And then you’re going to argue that the difference between Lordship Salvation and Free Grace salvation is a neutral thing, when it looks like it’s a pretty central soteriological idea. 

So how do you sort that out? How do I know what gets elevated to being an important doctrinal challenge versus the conversations that I’ll call our in-house family conversations? 

Craig Schill 

Right. I think that’s really, really important. Going back to those three categories: if we can identify cardinal issues first—and there’s probably less than [a dozen], though there’s even debate over what’s a cardinal doctrine that defines the Christian faith—the key word is fight. We fight for those. That’s what we go to the lions for. And if we get that wrong, we have heresy. 

For the clear issues, the key word is we obey them. It is love for God to obey His word. And if we get the clear issues wrong, then we live in sin. We live in inadvertent sin because we think something’s gray when actually you’re not supposed to live with your girlfriend before you get married, kind of thing. 

And then gray issues is the biggest category: an issue of theology or culture, either not addressed in the Bible, or if it is addressed, it allows for differing opinions that are valid based on a high view of Scripture. Because I think if we give up Scripture, then there’s no way to adjudicate it. 

And there is going to be debate over what falls into what category, and this is where we have to have—let me say this: I’m not arguing that gray issues are not important, that adiaphora is not important. I’m not trying to even change someone’s mind on an issue. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have robust discussions about those issues. But when it comes to separating fellowship, when it comes to not putting arms together for the kingdom of God—if we break fellowship over these issues, then we have violated the gospel message, as Paul would put it. 

And so, in terms of that, the first thing, as these issues come, is to sort of label them correctly so that then we can respond to them appropriately. The biggest problem in evangelicalism is when a true gray issue is seen as a clear issue, and so we put “Thus saith the Lord” behind it. And then we’re fighting for that gray issue with the same fervency that we fight for the cardinal doctrines like the bodily resurrection of Jesus, and that causes deconstructionism. 

Take a young Earth seven-day creationist. If that’s taught as a “Thus saith the Lord,” that that’s the only way to read the Book of Genesis, someone might deconstruct their faith to get away from that teaching, when I like the idea of young Earth creation, but I know there are old Earth creationists, and these are Christians that hold to the same gospel that I do. I know there’s now theistic evolutionists that are arguing their points who are going to be in heaven with me, and so I don’t have to worry. I can go to bed at night with peace in my heart. 

I remember the first time someone that I really respected—I was in seminary—told me he was having doubts about the rapture, whether the rapture was clear or not clear. Well, I thought that that was a clear teaching of Scripture. I came to learn that there’s millions of Christians that have a different view on that. And so I might have a strong conviction about a gray issue, but I’m not going to lose sleep or try to argue people that have a different view into my camp. 

Darrell Bock 

So a gray issue—you’re not even saying that a gray issue may not be an important issue. It may be an important issue, but the question is: what level of priority do we give to this? 

If you think through the great creedal statements of the early church and what they are defending—things like the Trinity, the uniqueness of Christ, the uniqueness of salvation by faith in terms of Christ being the answer for the human problem, the idea that Christ will return and that you’re accountable to God in judgment—those are the major themes that resonate with the historic Orthodox Christian faith. Does that kind of a category help us with discerning what’s really important? 

Craig Schill 

I think it does, because in discerning gray issues from clear issues from cardinal issues, we do exegete Scripture, but we also look at historical Christianity and how theology has developed, and we look to creeds. The Nicene Creed, when we were planted by Trinity Fellowship, we took that as our statement of faith as a church, along with the NAE Statement of Faith, because they’re all cardinal doctrines. 

In my survey, it found that 42% of statements of faith included gray issues—mostly eschatology issues. And so I’m telling people you can’t come to my church if you have a different view of the end times. 

And the four biggest issues of conflict that I found in my research: one was leadership decisions, the vision and mission of the church. A second was worship wars—we still fight about that, even though it’s been 50 years since contemporary music came on the scene. Number three was politics, although that’s probably bumped up to number one right now. And number four was eschatology. We evangelicals love to be certain about how the end of time will roll out. 

Darrell Bock 

That’s an interesting list. So someone’s listening, and they go, “Okay, I get this. How do I, as a member of a church, think about my contribution to this space in working for church unity? What advice would you give to a person who’s attending church and maybe in an environment where this is going on or the threat of this might exist?” 

Craig Schill 

I think most members of a church need help from leadership to discern these kinds of things because it’s not talked about much in evangelicalism. Because we don’t even have the vocabulary for it, I think a lot of the responsibility falls on the shepherds, because the members of a church are looking to the shepherds to help guide them. And when we get the gray issues wrong, we have legalistic churches where we’ve got all these rules, and it makes it very, very difficult. 

A couple of things that I suggest to churches: one is offer options where you can. In terms of leaders helping the congregation, if it’s a gray issue where you don’t have to draw a line on it, don't draw a line on it. It’s okay. Have both wine and juice in the communion cup. 

Darrell Bock 

You’re messing with us now! 

Craig Schill 

Yeah, which we did for many years! We had people from church backgrounds where wine was very important to them as a part of that. We had other Baptist backgrounds where it would be a sin for them to let alcohol touch their lips. Those are very different people that have different convictions; we don’t have to draw a line. So I think that’s important. 

I think churches also need to make decisions graciously. That really helps the flock. For example, when our church started a few years in, we organized a deacon board, and we had to decide whether it was going to be an all-male deacon board or whether we were going to have women. After looking at Scripture, we have deaconesses, so both men and women can serve on our deacon board, knowing that that’s an issue where people have strong opinions, but believing it is a gray issue. We said, “Here’s the decision that we made. If you don’t agree with it, that’s okay, but here’s why we made this decision.” And I think if we’re not painting it as right and wrong when it’s truly gray, it helps someone with a different view not worry about it. 

I think it’s important also for us to get outside of our own circles. I really encourage my members to fellowship with other churches, to be part of community outreaches with other churches. Once we get outside of our own orbit, we begin to see that God is working in other orbits with people that have some very different beliefs than we do, but we all believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead. 

Darrell Bock 

Okay, so what I’m hearing is there’s a core idea at the center that is the basis of not just our association to the church, but the basis of our association to other believers. 

Craig Schill 

Yes, the cardinal doctrines. 

Darrell Bock 

The cardinal doctrines. And then there’s the stuff that goes around it that you say is clear, and that has implications for how we live, but it’s not the same as a cardinal doctrine. 

Craig Schill 

It’s not defining the borders of Christianity. But if someone comes to me and they’ve been offended by someone, they’re going to have to forgive them. Jesus commands us to forgive, and so it’s hard, but it’s clear. 

Darrell Bock 

And then this last category is the gray area. The gray areas tend to land in certain areas of praxis. They tend to be: Do I do this or do I do that? Do I observe this day? Do I sing music that goes this fast or this slow? Do I repeat the chorus multiple times, or does something have to be written from the 19th century and be a hymn in order for me to sing it? Those kinds of things. 

And you’re right. I’ve seen churches fight over that. When we had the music wars at Trinity Fellowship—and you know this—we had a rather eclectic approach. We had a mixture of hymns and choruses, and what we tried to say to the congregation is: look, some people appreciate and are moved by the worship of hymns, and other people in our audience are moved by the role choruses play. If you’re singing a song that you go, “Well, this isn’t my type,” just remember that your type is coming! And we’re trying to minister to the swath of what we have in the room, recognizing that there really isn't anything about orthodoxy at stake. This is about people’s tastes and what they connect with, and handling it in that kind of a way. 

Craig Schill 

And the beauty of it is that this was God’s design. The gospel should be powerful enough that people with very different opinions about a whole lot of things can get along in perfect harmony. That broad area of freedom is intentional—God gave us these gray areas, these gray zones, in order to prove that the gospel works. 

I love the verse at the end of John that says Jesus did many things—he preached many more sermons, did more miracles, that the whole earth wouldn’t be full of the books. We could have gotten more information from the Lord, but He said, “This is what you need; it’s not all there is.” And so, if we can have a very diverse group of people that are all unified under the cross, what a testimony that is to the world! 

Like you said earlier, it becomes really the authenticity sticker for Christianity. When Jesus said to his disciples, “Love one another as I have loved you, so that the world will know you’re my disciples,” and in John 17 he says, “Be unified, so they’ll know that my Father sent me”—the very essence of the Christian faith is centered on our unity. That’s how important it is. 

Darrell Bock 

Yeah, it’s a great point. And it’s significant to highlight because sometimes we think this doesn't matter very much, but it actually does. And it is the variety of what God is able to help us cope with in areas that don’t matter that show the beauty of what it is. 

Revelation is about how there can be many people, many tribes and different nations as part of heaven. I say to my students on a regular basis: I might be standing next to someone in heaven who’s very different than I am, coming from a very different place, and yet we’ve managed to get along. And in a world that’s as tribal as ours is, where everything needs to be aligned in order for me to think about relating well to you in many environments, to have a church that says, “No, you can come from a different place. We are all humans at our core. We have the same needs for God, the same needs for forgiveness, the same needs for redemption, and we all recognize that we don’t get there on the basis of our own strength, but we do it through the goodness and grace of God, and that’s what connects us to one another”—that’s a very important basis for unity. 

Craig Schill 

Yeah. I think one of the problems that we have is gray areas are often kind of seen as a joke: “Yeah, it’s the color of the carpet, and it’s these things that crazy Christians can’t get along about.” But we need to elevate it as a category of theology to say, “No, the validity of the gospel is linked to this.” If the main thing that we fight over in the New Testament throughout church history to today are these gray issues, then that’s preventing us from really reflecting the gospel that Christ has entrusted to us. So I say it this way: we need to learn to care more about fewer things and care less about more things. Not that they’re not important, but they’re not that important—not as important as the gospel. 

Darrell Bock 

And the analogy I sometimes like to make is that some of these are family discussions. It’s the discussion I have with my sister, or a discussion I might have with a cousin, who may not see the world quite the way I do, but we’re still family, and I owe them that level of engagement and respect as I engage with them by keeping the main things the main things, and then letting the other things be up for family discussion—recognizing that some things are a function of culture, some things are a function of taste. They’re not a matter of right or wrong; they’re just the way people are wired. 

Craig Schill 

It’s true. The preferences that people bring—in terms of size, cardinal doctrines fit into a Campbell’s soup can. Clear issues are in a five-gallon Home Depot bucket. Gray issues are in an oil tanker on the ocean, filling its cavernous belly. That’s how many there are! 

And one challenge that we have as evangelicals is a wrong view of our high view of Scripture. We have a high view of Scripture, so it’s hard for us to admit that it doesn’t cover everything with equal clarity. And so what happens sometimes when pastors begin to lead and teach their congregations to have tolerance and accept people with different views, they can be perceived as being soft on the Bible, and maybe going liberal in their theology, when actually, no, it’s a very biblical thing. But some of the pressure comes from within, even when we begin teaching about this, because a lot of the language of unity comes from more of the liberal sphere of the church. 

Darrell Bock 

That’s an interesting observation. We view Scripture as true in expressing the truth, but the point that you’re making is there are different kinds of truths that are being expressed in the Bible. When you’re making the distinction between cardinal, clear, and gray, you’re saying, actually, those are differentiations that exist within the truth of Scripture. So some things are true as cardinal doctrines, some things are true as clear doctrines, and some things are true as gray doctrines. And I need to handle those accordingly and not treat everything as if it’s cardinal. 

Craig Schill 

Yeah. Otherwise, I believe I’m fighting for God on this issue when I’m actually destroying the church. 

Darrell Bock 

Interesting, yeah. And denying the level of importance that God has already assigned to whatever this is. 

Craig Schill 

Yeah. That’s the thing: gray issues are so interesting because our unity is tied to the gospel itself. I go back to that phrase all the time: our unity proves that the gospel works. If Christians are just another group that can’t get along, they don't need another group of people who can't get along. But if they find a church where there’s really different people with really different backgrounds, but they’re all unified under this one beautiful thing—wow, there’s no place else. 

Darrell Bock 

Yeah, I handle our discussion of politics in a similar kind of way. I say if the church is like a special interest group, there are lots of special interest groups in the world, and I’ll take my pick, thank you very much. But if the church is really unique in what it is forming because of what it says about the human condition and what’s needed by God’s grace to meet it, and it’s claiming to be an exceptional entity in the world—it’s not a special interest group in that sense. Then it’s offering the world something that’s of a different category. 

Craig Schill 

Yes, and it allows for churches to be more diverse in many ways: more diverse in terms of ethnic backgrounds because ethnic backgrounds have different forms of worship and different preferences for all kinds of things; different age groups to be multigenerational. My seniors listen to different music than Gen Z, but if we can all be in the same church, what a beautiful thing that is. 

Darrell Bock 

This is a place where diversity is not a negative term, but a positive term. 

Craig Schill 

It’s a positive term, yeah. Like you said about when we get to heaven one day—in almost every depiction of heaven, what’s emphasized is the diversity of the people that are there: every tribe, nation, and tongue. 

Darrell Bock 

And said in multiple ways. And of course, what that shows is that Christianity is not a tribal religion; it’s not related to one group. It’s actually—I tell people God is in the business of bringing estranged peoples together, which assumes that in their natural behavior they tend to separate, they tend to be distinct, they tend to be in conflict with one another. But they’re actually designed to engage together. 

I actually think this takes us back to the creation. In the creation, God creates man and woman, and they’re designed to collaborate together. I say the point of the creation mandate about being fruitful, multiplying, and subduing the earth is that we’re supposed to make the creation hum. We’re all supposed to be hummers! And we’re supposed to make the world functional. Well, if you watch the news, the one word you don’t give to our creation right now is functional—it’s dysfunctional. But we’re supposed to collaborate together, cooperate together in the midst of difference in such a way that I recognize that the person next to me, who’s different than me, brings stuff to the creation that I’m not able to bring, and I need that person. 

Craig Schill 

We need it, yeah, absolutely. 

Darrell Bock 

And to deal with that diversity—and then I go back to the story of Adam and Eve to try and picture this, and then raise the question about what we’ve done with it. When Adam was created, he was created in such a way that God said, “You know, I’m going to find you a helpmeet. You don't need to do all this creation thing on your own.” And so He parades the creation in front of Adam, and Adam goes, “No, no, no, none of them matched.” And then He created Eve, and he went, “Whoa, man!” And she’s created as a helpmeet. “Help” is a strong term; it’s the way God describes Himself. It’s someone who comes alongside and helps to meet the needs of managing the creation well. It’s a word God uses of Himself, and the creation gets promoted from good to very good as a result. God created the genders, and the genders were supposed to collaborate and cooperate with one another so that the creation flourished. 

Craig Schill 

Yeah, and it hummed. 

Darrell Bock 

And those differences work together to make them stronger and elevate them. And what have we done? We’ve made it into a competition. 

Craig Schill 

Yeah, and that’s tragic. 

Darrell Bock 

And it undercuts what God has been about in making us man and woman. And I think the same is true with the different ethnic groups and races. The variety that God has created us with is intentional, and it was supposed to help us function better as human beings—to be on the one hand the same (we’re all human), but different tribes and different nations at the same time. And we’ve used that and turned it into a competition, something that’s threatening, rather than something that helps us collaborate. 

Craig Schill 

We’re fragmented into homogeneous groups that are very small, and it’s not what the gospel says. 

Darrell Bock 

And very self-focused. Yes, you know, the other thing that it creates is a kind of self-focus that can be damaging in churches, where God was in the business of bringing estranged groups together. When I first became a believer, I said, “Why is there so much Jew-Gentile stuff in the Bible?” I just didn’t get it. Where did this all come from? Well, actually, it’s a key part of the story. God is taking different people of different backgrounds, different social spaces, different life experiences—one raised up in monotheism, the other raised up in polytheism—and saying, “I’m going to mold and shape you in such a way that you can be family and brothers and sisters to one another.” 

Craig Schill 

Where today they’d be in two different branches. They’d be in two different churches, two different denominations, and they’d maybe meet at the grocery store once a month. 

Darrell Bock 

Exactly. So how we view one another is important. Well, I think this theme of unity is important. Is there anything your church does to work to promote that sense of unity? How do you help people? 

Craig Schill 

That’s a good question. It’s a significant part of what we look for on our elder board, so I think it starts there. We’re an elder-led church, and so we talk quite a bit about these things at the elder level. And then with the congregation, I preach at least once a year on unity, and other times more, because I’m passionate about the topic. But we want that to become part of what we talk about and part of the culture. In our onboarding classes, we talk about the diversity and what we have in common and preferences. Even our bylaws and our website—on our website, it talks about how you’re not going to find a church divided by politics. From the first click, we want to put out there that this is what we’re about. And so I think it seeps into every area of a church if it’s a priority, and together those things help shape a culture. 

Darrell Bock 

And I like the word you used here at the end about: I have certain preferences, but that doesn’t mean that my preferences encroach on your preferences if they’re not in an area that’s cardinal or clear. 

Craig Schill 

That’s right. I may give up my preference for the sake of love, because I love you. That’s a very biblical thing to do. But I’m not going to argue. I’m not going to try to push for change. I’m going to be at peace with you and let that testimony be the most important thing. 

Darrell Bock 

Yeah. You know, Romans 12, before we get to Romans 14 and 15 talking about how believers interact, says that we’re supposed to live at peace with all people as much as it is possible for us. 

Craig Schill 

Super, yeah. Very, very important verse: “As far as it depends on you, live at peace with all people.” And we need to take that seriously. 

Darrell Bock 

Yep. Well, Craig, I really appreciate you coming in and spending time with us and sharing your book. 

Craig Schill 

Glad to do it. 

Darrell Bock 

It’s good to reconnect. It’s been a while, and we wish you all the best there at The Grove Community Church, and keep Rowlett sane, all that kind of stuff. 

Craig Schill 

That’s right. 

Darrell Bock 

And we thank you for being with us here on The Table. 

Craig Schill 

It’s been a privilege. Thank you. 

Darrell Bock 

You’re welcome. And we thank you for listening. If you like our show, please leave a rating or review on your favorite podcast app. It’s a great way to show support and help other people discover who we are here at The Table. We hope you’ll join us again next time when we discuss issues of God and culture to show the relevance of theology to everyday life. We’re glad you’ve joined us here on The Table, and hope you’ll join us again soon.