Form versus function

As I read through the comments this week, I couldn’t help but think about a missiological principle, that of form vs. function. It has to do with what is done and why it is done.

We know that. We do. We feel comfortable substituting the holy kiss with the warm handshake. We look at John 13 and say that Jesus was teaching about service, not creating a new act of worship through washing feet. Many people feel that “raising holy hands” can be accomplished with the heart. [Sometimes we misuse the word “cultural” by saying “That’s just cultural.”]

There are other areas where we feel that the form and function are inseparable. Most feel that pizza and Sprite aren’t suitable replacements for the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Most members of the churches of Christ feel that water is an intrinsic part of baptism, to such a degree that the term “water baptism” sounds foreign to our ears.

How do we decide? How do we know when fulfilling the function is enough and when to insist on the exact form?

16 thoughts on “Form versus function

  1. Nick Gill

    I asked this in another venue, and I’m curious about the responses I will get here – I really don’t have an answer to this question.

    What meaning would burial-in-water convey to a culture that burns their dead?

  2. TP

    Fascinating way to frame this discussion. Thanks!

    I wonder if there is room here for a G.K. Chesterton quote: “we err when we don’t give our ancestors a vote.” In referencing him, what I’m realizing is that our ancestors in the church of the past two millennia have in some ways “voted” about when we can fulfill the function alone and when we need to pay attention to form, to use the grammar here. Perhaps historical theology is the way forward for help when determining such things?

  3. Daniel Keeran

    As I read scripture, I do not find the questions we often raise in our theological ways of understanding. The scripture simply describes what was taught, preached, and done. Then we can look at history to see how the Christian community continued and modified those ideas. Scripture does appear to describe forms that were accepted without questions about exceptions. For example, the unleavened bread and the cup of wine and their meaning, the immersion of believers and its meaning, elders and deacons and their responsibilities, behaviors that are moral and immoral, the identity of Jesus and his death and resurrection and their meaning.

  4. Travis Flora

    TP and Daniel make excellent points about historical perspective. Additional ways are context (for example, in context the holy kiss does not appear to me to be a binding command for everyone, per se, but a general form of greeting). In other places, the instructions appear to be more binding. There’s also cross-reference study, that is, is the same subject/point/form discussed in more than one passage and, if so, what is the totality of what is taught. Do the multiple passages agree explicitly and, if not, knowing that God does not disagree with or contradict Himself, how do we reconcile the passages so that both are in agreement (for example, as was pointed out in a prior post, the qualifications for elders/deacons in 1 Tim and Titus are slightly different. Do we only accept what is common to both, or do we combine all qualifications?). As you said, in some cases, this may be a form that is spelled out, while in others it is the function or spirit of what’s being said that is being emphasized. Very good question for discussion.

  5. K. Rex Butts

    The question of “form and function” is huge. I agree with TP in that any attempt to answer the question regarding specific issues (i.e., baptism, foot-washing) must take into consideration how our ancestors throughout Christianity have answered the question (that means we must seek to understand why some Christians have historically practiced infant baptism as sprinkling with water before we dare begin to criticize such practice). At the same time, we must be aware that throughout history, Christians have modified the forms of certain practices and that such modifications may be acceptable and may not.

    That being said, I wrote a paper on this subject for a class on Theological Hermeneutics that I had in seminary. In that paper I argued that maintaining the original form is necessary to maintaining the correct function when the particular form is wedded to the gospel itself. So, for instance, the form of baptism as immersion in water is a reenactment of dying with, being buried with, and being raised in Christ. Thus the form is a reenactment of the gospel itself. That is why I teach baptism is immersion in water for confessing and repentant believers.

    Yet, I freely admit that this is still a very difficult question and the conclusions I have reached are still open to questions and criticisms.

    Grace and Peace,

    Rex

  6. A. W.

    I do not think that “history” is going to be the easy answer that some are supposing it is. We can look, in a general sense, at baptism and the necessity of water as an attendant form and find strong support in history. But history seems to be a more troublesome guide when you go beyond that almost self-evident question. It is ironic to see, on a Stone-Campbell themed site, appeals to history with regard to the form of baptism, given that by Chesterton’s own historically democratic standard, the water and the would-be Christian are the only constants; the means for bringing them together are not (e.g. sprinkling vs. pouring vs. immersion or cold water vs. warm water or living water vs. still water or infants vs. new converts vs. those on their death bed). The same flaw holds for the other universal sacrament. Even the materials themselves are not constant as, even today, more than three hundred million Christians belong to religious bodies more antique than the churches of Christ by a long shot which celebrate the Lord’s Supper with leavened bread and consider it a Christological error to do otherwise. Do we inact the form weekly or occasionally, with fermented or unfermented “fruit fo the vine,” from one cup or from many, coming together or seated where we are? These questions of form find no clear answer in history. History, if anything, only proves that the present muddled confusion is the product of a long history of muddled confusion.

    I think the suggestion of context is perhaps more fruitful. Without falling too far into a traditional Baconian hermeneutic, we should consider that whatever is taught as essential has its essence clearly expressed. For example, there seems to be a clear form to baptism plainly expressed and frequently revisited. The mention of lifting hands and sharing kisses are incidental, points toward a larger purpose in the text.

    While I think context is useful, I would probably finally conclude that we are in error looking for a hard and fast rule to discern the value of form vs. function. Instead, we should establish a more dispositional approach which is critical but not adverse to discarding tested forms. We ought to be wise enough–not as individuals, but as the body collective–to pose the question, “What is the purpose of doing things the way we do? What is the value in changing them?” Then, we don’t need to a rule which can positively forbid the use of pizza and Sprite at the Lord’s Supper. We can simply recognize that there is value in changing them and that it may very well undermine the purpose of what we are doing. By that same token, we can tell a village church in the Sudan which has no access to wine that water can serve the same function. With regard to baptism, we can recognize the symbolic value of immersion as an analogical participation in the redemptive act of Christ (as Paul describes it) but still recongnize that a terminally ill person who can be sprinkled but not immersed is not excluded from fellowship on a techincality of form. All this allows for flexibility in the spirit of love, resists doctrinaire legalism or traditionalism, and still affirms that there is value in sacred forms.

  7. Jerry

    A.W.,

    If I correctly recall my church history, pouring for baptism began in death-bed baptisms – which may make it an example of what you said in your final two sentences.

    With regard to baptism, we can recognize the symbolic value of immersion as an analogical participation in the redemptive act of Christ (as Paul describes it) but still recongnize that a terminally ill person who can be sprinkled but not immersed is not excluded from fellowship on a techincality of form. All this allows for flexibility in the spirit of love, resists doctrinaire legalism or traditionalism, and still affirms that there is value in sacred forms.

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  9. A. W.

    Actually, the first reference in the historical record we have to baptism by affusion is in the (arguably) first century Didache. Here is the relevant text:

    7:1 But concerning baptism, thus shall ye baptize.
    7:2 Having first recited all these things, baptize {in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit} in living (running) water.
    7:3 But if thou hast not living water, then baptize in other water;
    7:4 and if thou art not able in cold, then in warm.
    7:5 But if thou hast neither, then pour water on the head thrice in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
    7:6 But before the baptism let him that baptizeth and him that is baptized fast, and any others also who are able;
    7:7 and thou shalt order him that is baptized to fast a day or two before.

    Note that there is no mention of terminal illness with regard to the baptism by affusion. Additionally, note that pouring (like all baptism in the earliest records) was done three times: in the name of the Father, THEN in the name of the Son, THEN in the name of the Spirit, contrary to the contemporary practice of once in the name of the FatherSonandHolySpirit (one breath; no pausing). Finally, consider that the mode of baptism seems to be of secondary importance compared to the more critical issue of fasting for two days beforehand, a practice which has gone out of fashion among us credobaptists.

    My point is not that any of that should be normative–though I think there would be value in instituting a pre-baptismal fast again and that it says something important about our theology (proper) that we baptize once rather than thrice–but to indicate that history is not only not a sure guide, it is hardly a guide at all. Scripture never answers the multitude of inane questions that we have devised to put to it about the particulars of baptism (which, curiously, is where I thought we had committed to “being silent”), and church history provides us with a multitude of answers. The earliest post-apostolic record shows a surprising degree of flexibility with regard to issues of form that we find important and an equally troubling degree of rigidity with issues which no longer even warrant our attention. That is only in a single text mind you. We must progress from there to the teachings of Tertullian vs. Hippolytus or the example of Gregory the Theologian vs. that of Constantine and countless others. As time advances, the answers and the degree of approbation they receive from various Christian groups multiples exponentially.

  10. Darin

    Maybe we start by recognizing that they never did what they did because multiple verses matched up? I don’t want to sound harsh but I think you start by understanding that they didn’t make decisions on importance based on number of mentions in the New Testament or even the history fo the early church. They couldn’t have done either.

    We are actually studying the fact the early church worship is simply taken from that of the synagogue. There practices are not new or invented but simply a continuation of what was culturally understood for their day. The idea of deacons and elders and responsibilities, non-instrumental worship, all come from the Jewish forms of worship developed between the Babylonian captivity and Pentecost.

    So they are not rooted in though shalls but culture. I would think the next step would be to see which ones transcend that development and therefore have greater significance in God’s Kingdom. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are ones that I can think of that transcend these cultural developments. Baptism was clearly immersion and done by choice. The reason so many could be baptized at Pentecost was because of the many Mikvah found at the temple and obviously the Lord’s Supper.

  11. Tim Archer Post author

    Though you know, Darin, there are scholars who argue that singing was a Christian addition, that the first century synagogues didn’t include music.

    Just adding that thought.

  12. Darin

    Not sure what you mean. Maybe I have not read who you have read. I didn’t know anyone disagreed that chanting scripture without instruments was the normal practice.

  13. Tim Archer Post author

    Actually, I was re-reading some of Danny Corbitt’s info: http://missingmorethanmusic.com/Research/EarlyChurch.htm

    The history we learned said that Christian worship adopted its practice of singing from the a cappella, first-century synagogue. In contrast, J. A. Smith summarizes the consensus among modern scholars: not only is there absolutely no evidence of singing or chanting in the first-century synagogue, but also the church did not adopt its worship from the synagogue anyway.

    “I can only confirm the fact that in the Rabbinic literature there is no mention of singing in the early synagogue.” -Levertoff
    “The synagogue service was in ancient times always songless.” – Mowinckel
    “Meetings in the Jewish synagogue were primarily for reading, instruction, and prayer, but not psalm-singing.” – David Hiley
    “To state it as simply as possible, there was no singing of psalms in the ancient synagogue.” – James McKinnon
    McKinnon once suggested that there may have been chanting in the early synagogue, but Smith has pointed out that McKinnon based that possibility solely on a document dated centuries later, and therefore, “its relevance to the ancient synagogue is very doubtful.”

    It was only after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. that the synagogue began to evolve into what we think of today. Hiley summarizes, “In the decades after the destruction of the temple, which removed at a stroke the whole focus of Israel’s religious life, something like an ordered service of worship became established in the synagogue, a partial substitute for what had been lost.”

    I haven’t researched the subject much, but found the quotes surprising.

  14. Tim Archer Post author

    Modern synagogues have a hazzan, commonly called a cantor. (Did you ever see Neil Diamond in The Jazz Singer?) Is that what you’re thinking of?

    My nephew is marrying a messianic Jew. She likes to make the joke: “I don’t sing. I cant.”

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