Of Politics and Harry Potter: Loving in the Gray
My friend and colleague Dr. Craig Schill, Lead Pastor at the Grove Community Church in Rowlett, Texas, delivered a great presentation at the GO Conference in Burke, Virginia, several months ago. I found his content timely, well researched, and full of grace and truth. So I asked him to share some of his research with our readers. Craig wrote a book titled Gray Church you need to know about. Here’s how he answered some key questions about it:
SG: What gave you the idea to write Gray Church?
CS: When our kids were little, well-meaning Christians reprimanded my wife and me for letting them dress up for Halloween. Later we took flack for allowing Harry Potter into our home.
While this was happening, I felt a call into pastoral ministry and became fascinated with what Christians fight about. As a result, during my time in seminary I surveyed hundreds of churches asking them to identify their most common sources of conflict. Overwhelmingly, I learned that Christians fight about gray issues.
Pastors report that up to 80 percent of conflict arises from secondary or debatable matters. This is tragic because Scripture tells us to accept other believers and their different points of view if the issue is gray.
After I planted my own church, my studies went from theoretical to practical as I saw my flock threatened by gray-issue bickering. As a result, I immersed myself in the Bible’s teaching on Christian unity and the result was this book.
SG: What exactly do you mean by a “gray issue”?
CS: A gray issue is an issue of theology or culture that is either not addressed in the Bible, or while addressed, leaves room for legitimate differences of interpretation for those holding a high view of Scripture. In other words, these are issues where we can agree to disagree, agreeably. Paul tells us to “accept one another” (Romans 14:1) when an issue is disputable.
What do you want to see as the outcome of your work?
The subtitle of my book captures my heart’s prayer and desire: “It’s time to stop fighting about gray issues and to embrace the unity Jesus has for us.”
I focus on gray issues in this book because they are our most common sources of conflict. However, greater unity among Christians is the greater goal. I pray my book helps us see the purpose of our unity is not our own comfort, but to provide evidence that the gospel works. In Jesus’s final prayer, he stressed that our unity proves the authenticity of His message:
“I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.” (John 17:21, NLT)
SG: How do you define Christian unity?
CS: I think, first, it is important to note that biblical unity is not the same as uniformity. Biblical unity is born from different opinions of diverse people about disparate issues.
Theologically, our unity originates by the Holy Spirit as a byproduct of the gospel. God gives us unity as a gift of grace. Our responsibility is to diligently preserve this unity as part of our sacred stewardship. Spirit-led church leaders, then, have the responsibility to maintain unity with all diligence and to restore it quickly when lost.
SG: Can you share a high and low in terms of the book’s contents? Something you loved writing and something that was hard to write?
CS: A high point for me was sharing the results of my research. In my doctoral program I conducted a national survey, collecting data from over six hundred evangelical Christians from all fifty states. I am particularly excited to share this book with other ministry leaders, because its conclusions are not merely anecdotal, but research based.
The most difficult part of my writing, was researching the execution of Michael Servetus (chapter 4), a man burned at the stake by John Calvin on October 27, 1553. For hundreds of years, the way we (Christians) dealt with conflict was to kill those who disagreed with us. Uncovering the depth of our animosities in the past was deeply troubling—a gut punch— but necessary to highlight new paths forward.
SG: What are some of the topics Gray Church covers?
CS: In the first section of the book, I examine four “hot potatoes” causing wide-spread division today. These four areas are politics, end-times theology, leadership styles, and worship wars. I also share, more broadly, about twenty-five other conflict-causing gray issues, and offer a debrief on our intense conflict during COVID.
In the solution side of the book, I present a new framework for establishing unity which I call “The Three Buckets.” When I have the opportunity to speak on this topic, I find this tool to be of great help to other leaders. In addition, I provide pastoral insight on some of Scriptures’ most important passages about unity, such as Ephesians 4, Romans 14–15, John 17, and Psalm 133.
SG: What is the main message you want readers to take away from Gray Church?
CS: I want my readers to see the beauty of Jesus’s unified church. It is the hope of the world.
I hope my readers will come away with the belief that we must care less about more things and care more about fewer things. While gray issues are not unimportant, they are not so important as to stand in the way of us being of one mind in Christ.
Our ministries do not normally split over disagreements about the deity of Jesus, the virgin birth, His death, bodily resurrection, or our Lord’s future return. We gripe over the gray. It is time to stop fighting.
You can find more from Dr. Schill, poetry and pastoral reflections, at www.comeochurch.com.
