By C. Robert Wetzel
It happened to be Remembrance Day when I visited the Church of Christ in Coventry, England. It was now 30 years after the guns of World War II had been silenced. During the worship service that morning an elder shared his memory of that catastrophic night in November 1940 when the German Luftwaffe carpet-bombed this city of 600,000 people. If it was not the first saturation bombing it was certainly the most devastating up to that time.
As the elder talked about the suffering, there was no bitterness in his voice toward the Germans; only a sense of loss and a tribute to the courage of the Coventry people. After all, the Brits and the Yanks were later to visit an even worse destruction on Germany. The Lord”s Prayer was all the more relevant before Communion that morning: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The one loaf was broken, the one cup was passed, and we remembered the One who bore our sins and forgave us.
At 11:00 am the whole country stood in silence for a full minute. In many places a trumpeter played “Last Post” as the country remembered its war dead.
Not far from the little Church of Christ in Coventry is the new Coventry Cathedral dedicated in 1962. After the bombing of 1940 only the walls were left of the medieval building. Cathedral stonemason Jock Forbes noticed that two charred roof timbers had fallen in the shape of a cross. He set them up in the ruins, where they were later placed on an altar of rubble. The words “Father forgive” were inscribed on the wall behind the altar. Rather than clear the site and build the new cathedral on top of it, the ruins were kept as a memorial and the new cathedral was built adjoining it.
Reconciliation at Coventry
The plain stone altar of the old cathedral, now called the Altar of Reconciliation, is a stark reminder of the tragedy of Coventry. In addition to the cross of charred wood, there is a smaller cross on the altar, the Cross of Nails. It is made from two 12-inch nails taken from the remains of the roof.
After my visit to Coventry I was later to learn about the Ministry of Peace and Reconciliation. Shortly after the war, Coventry Cathedral led in an effort to bring reconciliation between English and German Christians. Not long ago I saw another cross made of nails from the old Coventry Cathedral. It was in the preserved ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. The Cross of Nails was a gift from Coventry Cathedral to the German people. They too had sought reconciliation.
Reconciliation could not have been easy in the aftermath of World War II. I thought of Charles Robinson, an elder in the Ilford Church of Christ in East London. After the war there were still German prisoners of war in a camp not far from the Ilford church. He was able to minister among them and eventually received permission for prisoners to attend the Sunday morning service at the Ilford church. Eventually so many of the prisoners wanted to attend that they were marched under guard from the camp to the church.
This hardly made Charles Robinson”s English neighbors happy. These people were still bitter from the loss the Germans had inflicted upon them. If it bothered Charles and his congregation, he did not seem to show it when he told me this story in 1980.
In fact, shortly after that a well-dressed German and his teenage daughters showed up for worship services one Sunday morning. The man had been one of those prisoners. He had told his daughters the story of the love of Christ he had found at the Ilford Church of Christ. And now his daughters had come to be baptized by the man who had baptized their father when he was a prisoner of war.
God”s Acts of Reconciliation
Such stories of reconciliation are readily understandable to a people who have received the message of reconciliation with God. The apostle Paul reminds us that “While we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). We were alienated from God and powerless to do anything about it until God revealed himself in Jesus Christ. We were God”s enemies because of our rebellion, but we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son. And so we “rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:11).
Those of us who share in the history of the Restoration Movement understand two important dimensions of reconciliation. We grew out of an evangelistic concern to bring the unsaved, the enemies of God, into a saving and reconciling relation with him. But there was also the recognition that division in the church was the greatest stumbling block to the evangelistic witness of the church. It was hard to convince people that they needed to be reconciled to God when those who preached were not reconciled to each other. And so there was a concern to bring reconciliation among warring factions in the church. Hence the restoration plea called for the unity of the church by simply being the church revealed in the New Testament.
The restoration plea was profound in its understanding of the needs of the society in which it found itself and it was simple in the clarity with which it could be expressed. And, consequently the plea found, and continues to find, many responsive minds and hearts. Of course we have agonized when division occurred in our own midst. But it is encouraging to live in a day when we see diligent efforts being made to bring about reconciliation after a century of alienations.
Romans and Reconciliation
Romans is arguably Paul”s most significant theological work. For whatever endurance and encouragement we might exhibit in our Christian walk, for whatever joy and peace we derive from the hope we have in Christ, it is Paul”s prayer that the Roman Christians will be blessed with a spirit of unity. When they “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” it is to be with one heart and one mouth.
In the letter to the Romans, Paul helps his readers understand what is basic to the gospel: God”s plan of salvation and righteousness. The gospel reveals in understandable drama the eternal wisdom of God. God”s plan of salvation resolves the tension between Jewish legalism and Gentile license.
Obviously there were Jews in the church at Rome who were intent on being faithful to the Old Testament understanding of God and his righteousness. On the other hand, there were those Gentiles who may have seen God”s grace in Jesus Christ as nullifying the moral law. The pendulum seems to have swung to both the extremes between fastidious legalism and spineless cheap grace.
Neither extreme represents the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ. Both positions have a certain logic to them and hence are understandable on their own terms. But both miss the profound wisdom in God”s redemptive act.
From Theology to Christian Living
In Romans 1″“11, Paul uses narrative, Scripture, and poetry, but his basic concern is theological clarity. Beginning in the 12th chapter he focuses on the nature of the life that has been transformed by the gospel.
It is as though he is saying, “Here are the implications of what I have been saying in the first 11 chapters. This is what it means to present your bodies as living sacrifices. This is the nature of the transformed life.” He itemizes very specifically the virtues that should characterize the transformed life. And he is equally specific in calling attention to the vices that should have no place in the lives of transformed individuals.
Furthermore, so much of what Paul encourages are virtues that will maintain the unity of the body of Christ, the church: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought.” “Love must be sincere.” “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.” “Live in harmony with one another.” “Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters.” “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”
On the other hand, many of the vices he discourages are those that lead to division in the church: “Do not be proud.” “Do not be conceited.” “Do not repay anyone evil for evil.” “Do not be overcome by evil.” “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.” “Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food.”
It is significant that Paul”s transition from theological explanation to Christian behavior in chapter 12 begins with the word therefore: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God”s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” The call to the virtuous life in Christ is rooted in who God is and how he is at work in reconciling humankind to himself.
Contrary to the ethical systems of Greek philosophy as well as most of those ethical theories that are products of the Enlightenment, our understanding of right and wrong is not ultimately grounded in human reason. And the motivation for living the virtuous life is hardly rooted in human experience. Christian virtue is rooted in God”s revelation, and its truth is demonstrated in the person of Jesus Christ. The more we grow in our understanding of and submission to God”s redemptive work in Jesus Christ, the more we see the wisdom of God, and the more we enjoy the blessings of the virtuous life.
Those of us whose immediate inheritance is the 200-year history of the Restoration Movement can recognize that we are but one chapter in the ongoing efforts of the church to reform itself. We readily identify with the motto, “The church reformed, always in need of being reformed.” The letter to the Romans demonstrates both how difficult the problem is and yet how God resolves the tension between grace and righteousness. Through God”s encouragement the church has endured. We of the Restoration Movement have endured, and furthermore we have found ourselves at a time when there is much to be encouraged about. And we live in the hope that we might be one step closer to receiving that spirit of unity for which Jesus prayed in John 17 and for which Paul prays in Romans 15.
The Lord”s table is the constant reminder of how God reconciled us to himself through the sacrificial death of his Son. And the Lord”s table is a constant reminder of our oneness in the one body, the church. With whatever differences that arise between brothers and sisters, we come to our Father”s table. Because of his love and authority we are reconciled with each other.
From Yesterday to Today
I began this article by talking about the attempts of some English and German Christians to bring about reconciliation between two nations that had brought great destruction on each other. Only God knows how effective their efforts have been. But in faithfulness they sought to bring peace and reconciliation.
Many in the churches of the Restoration Movement have spent a lifetime of ministry to bring about peace and reconciliation in a movement whose great potential for good has often been compromised by division. Today we are seeing the fruit of their labor in ways we could hardly have imagined 40 or 50 years ago. May God continue to find us faithful in the ministry of reconciliation.
Robert Wetzel is president of Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, and a contributing editor for CHRISTIAN STANDARD.
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