Under Whose Banner?

By Matt Watson

People hate labels. It’s part of society’s post-modern suspicion of establishments and institutions. They make us feel caged up and boxed in. And as the chaos around gender identity has shown us, people don’t want to be mislabeled.

However, labels exist because identity exists: What you want to be known for is what you will live for, and vice versa. If you want to be the best tennis player and throw yourself, body and soul, into tennis, then you will be known for really being into tennis. If you want to be known for your love of our Lord King, then you will throw yourself, body and soul, into following him.

For example, the church is the bride of Christ, not "friends with benefits" with the world. That identity matters. We ride under his banner, not under anyone else's.

Tribalism

Even though the church is united in Christ, it is made up of a bunch of different kinds of people with different opinions, interpretations, cultural contexts, and experiences. We sometimes form ourselves under different tribes or denominations as an expedient way of organizing our theological interpretations, while remaining faithful to the singular and objective Word of God. There are many nations, but one Word.

Tribalism is about who is inside the tribe and who is not. The church is not the world, and the world is not the church. Christians and Muslims are not the same thing and cannot be. This is a kind of tribalism, and it is a good kind. Being able to tell the difference between someone following Christ and someone who doesn’t is wise discernment, not bigotry, because there are exclusive, closed-handed, or primary issues that cannot be punted down the field. If I were to deny the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead, a closed-handed issue in Christianity, then I would fall out of the bounds of orthodox Christianity. If I were to deny either the humanity or deity of Christ, then I would again be outside the tribe of orthodox Christianity.

However, there are also secondary, or open-handed issues that are still important, but not something that excludes you from the team. For example, I am Presbyterian by confession but I attend a church that isn’t. The theological distinctions between me and someone at the church who isn’t Presbyterian, or even Reformed, are secondary issues, but not unimportant issues. Yet, it doesn’t keep us from being included in the family of God and feasting at our Lord’s table. We march under the same King’s banner. When I give my allegiance to my particular theological camp more than I do my Lord, then I have committed tribalism.

Beware of Intramural Tribalism

Do not be mistaken: there are areas where lines must be drawn. The windowless Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Hall down the street from my house is not a brother in arms because they deny the deity and eternality of Christ. But someone who goes to a megachurch and someone who goes to a house church are brothers as long as they are truly united to Christ. We have no right to deny someone a place at the table by mutating secondary issues into primary ones. When we do so we engage in friendly fire and have slipped into intramural tribalism. We are brothers and sisters in the same family under the same banner fighting each other.

We have all sorts of tribes within the nation of the church. We have Baptists and Presbyterians, Reformed and Arminian, those who believe communion is only a memorial and those who think it is something more, those who thought the rapture was going to occur during the eclipse on Monday, and those who don’t believe in a rapture at all. Tribes are just an organizational tool for these ideas, not grounds for waging war.

This was the mistake made by Jephthah and the men of Ephraim (Judges 12:1-7). These two groups were cousins, part of the same family. A conflict arose between them and it escalated into warfare. Instead of fighting for the protection and defense of Israel, they fought each other. This is intramural tribalism.

Scotland is a nation made up of many clans, or families. I am a proud member of Clan Buchanan and I unashamedly wear my kilt, an eye-straining combination of green, red, and yellow. Intramural tribalism would be if my ancestors had sailed across Loch Lomond to fight Clan Colquhoun rather than cross the River Tweed to fight the English (I’m sure they did both).

Likewise, the U.S. Army is made up of various units of infantry, cavalry, artillery, special warfare, etc. That is good and proper, for not every military unit accomplishes the mission in the same way. However, it would be bad if the 3rd Cavalry attacked the 82nd Airborne; they both fly under the same flag.

Remember the enemy, Remember your King

We need to stay in the fight, but we need to stay in the right ones.

For me, it looks like fighting my arrogant attitude toward other brothers and sisters in the faith. I work at a Christian non-profit, and I am the lone Reformed guy there. I value confessions, psalms, and reading the Puritans, and most of my coworkers do not know what a confession of faith is and value songs by Bethel. At every staff meeting, I must fight my urge to cringe, but even more, I must fight my sinful heart and its attitude towards them, my siblings in Christ.

The men of Manasseh (Jephthah’s men) and the men of Ephraim fought the wrong fight because they fought each other. They lost sight of the mission and who their enemy was.

For the Christian, our enemy is sin and Satan.