WHAT KIND OF UNITY DO WE SEEK?
Fred Thompson, Jr.

Concern for the unity of all God’s people is inherent in the ethos of the Restoration Movement. Our leaders of the last century were deeply distressed over the dismemberment of the Body of Christ by the denominational system. They wept over the lack of fraternity between those who confessed loyalty to the same Savior and professed obedience to the same Lord. They determined to take measures toward the healing of this bleeding wound in the church.

These insightful men issued a call for a movement within the church (discernible as genuinely existing under the unlovely overgrowth of sectarianism) to rediscover and restore the bene esse of the original apostolic church. Theological traditions and creedal formulas, though undeniably meaningful and valuable, were respectfully put to one side. The authoritative resource to which all questions relating to salvation and the nature of the church were referred was the New Testament. Jesus Christ was acknowledged as Lord of the church, the New Testament as the vehicle of His authority. The one definitive source of information and guidance for Christians was the divinely inspired record of the Church’s founding and early history. Only apostolic standards were to be regarded as normative for the faith and life of the church in all subsequent time.

Thus the Restoration Movement began in an effort to re-focus the attention of divided Christendom on the origins of the church. It was a plea to reconsider the nature of the church. It was a call to recover its essential character and to reproduce its blessed fruits. On this basis it was believed that the people of God could unite and the broken segments of the church be restored into a perfect whole.

The Campbells did not intend nor desire to effect another division in the church of Christ. They and their brethren assumed separate identity only after years of fellowship within the Baptist communion and only after tensions created by this association became irritants provoking controversy and strife. At this point the Restoration Movement ceased to be a movement within the church and became another fragment of the whole, but with this significant difference . . . it was a fragment protesting against the fragmentation of Christ’s followers and fervently praying for unity on the biblical and Catholic ground. This remains the anomalous status of our people within Christendom. We do not claim to be the whole body of Christ. We are not the only Christians. We are an identifiable religious communion, distinct from other religious communions, and thus only a fraction of the church. Our separate existence as a people is somewhat mitigated by the fact that we have never been content with this situation nor have we ceased to plead for the recovery of the wholeness of the original church, a restoration of the apostolic faith.

Our current status as a Christian body, separate from other Christian groups, brings us face to face with some uncomfortable facts. These we should be willing seriously and penitently to face.

Fact: Despite our historic commitment to the enterprise of unity our own fellowship has been split with one overt and one incipient schism. Either we have not found the key to unity or we have not learned properly to employ it.

Fact: We have been, and are, afflicted by two divergent attitudes which have developed into sharply contrasting positions in this century --- the liberal attitude which has discarded the concept of restoration as illusory and invalid, and the creedal attitude which has created an unwritten set of dogmas against which to measure the orthodoxy of brethren and by which to survey the boundaries of fellowship. This latter includes a uniform theory of the inspiration of Scripture, a congregational ecclesiology, and a methodology of missions. (None of these items was regarded as essential to the unity of the church by our early leaders).

Fact: We have adopted a de facto sectarian posture while loudly denying that we are a denomination. We have “our” literature, “our” Bible Colleges, “our” conventions. Moreover, we take typical sectarian pride in the statistics compiled under each of these categories.

Fact: We have created the impression amongst our religious neighbors that we think we have essentially restored the New Testament church. That the job is done. That we have found the pattern and have reproduced it without serious flaws. What they must do is to become like us in every respect.

Fact: We exhibit an intellectual and theological complacency which appears to stem from our confidence that all the answers to the religious difficulties in Christendom were given by our nineteenth-century giants. (We have not produced many twentieth-century giants). Therefore, we need not engage in the theological dialogue now taking place in the world. We need not undertake a serious and continuous restudy of the Scriptures in the light of the data furnished by recent historical and biblical scholarship.

Fact: In the great swelling tide of ecumenical interest in the modern world, the little eddy of our movement is scarcely noticed. We are not even addressing ourselves to this development for which our founding father prayed.

In the light of these facts, brutally but honestly stated, a penetrating question emerges: What kind of unity are we calling for? Do we deep down believe that Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, etc., must join us in order to effect Christian unity? Have we become the beau ideal for Christendom? Do we contend that there is no true church except that which practices congregational autonomy, engages only in “independent” missionary ventures, identifies itself by the name “Christian Church”? I think we would not so affirm. Dearly as we may cherish these and other features of our brotherhood life, we confess that they are not of the esse of the church. They are therefore not germane to the quest for Christian unity. Only that which is of the essence of the church is essential to unity.

The Nature of The Church

The Christian ecclesia mentioned in the gospels and described in the early chapters of Acts was not identical with the church which is spoken of in the Pauline epistles. It was an almost entirely unstructured fellowship of disciples of Christ. Christ was the magnetic living center of an assembly of men and women drawn to Himself in utter commitment. Faith in Christ as the only Son of God, Savior and Lord, and mutual love, loyalty and respect were the cohesive factors binding them together. “Fellowship” is the word most descriptive of the ecclesia. There were no institutional forms, no organizational patterns, no doctrinal catechisms to distinguish Christ’s followers. There was rather the living body of Christ, quickened and ordered by the Holy Spirit, a koinonia of faith, hope and love. To be called by the Lord Christ from a world dying of sin’s fatal infection into the deathless Kingdom of heaven, to receive forgiveness of sins and to become an incarnation of the Holy Spirit, to join one’s life to other lives similarly redeemed and vitalized, was to become a member of the fellowship. All of the terms descriptive of the life of the ecclesia are dynamic, living, incandescent terms.

It was a fellowship of flaming faith, of quenchless love, of intrepid loyalty. It was a way in which the disciples were traveling, a way of holiness and righteousness that led to eternal life. They were a witnessing community, manifesting the transforming grace of Christ in lives made radiant and transparently new by the power of the Spirit. Prayer, disciplined learning at the apostles’ feet, and table fellowship were the hallmarks of their corporate life. To know Christ was their heart’s desire, to follow Christ their passionate determination, to bear testimony to Christ their supreme vocation.

The baptismal experience which brought them into the Christian fellowship was not a formal institutional sacrament hedged about with ecclesiastical sanctions, but an exquisitely personal and spiritual co-inherence with the Savior in an imagery of death and resurrection. It was in very truth a new birth, life from the dead, crucifixion and re-animation. Those whom sin had slain presented themselves in contrite faith at the baptismal waters for interment. God brought them forth from this death-sealing immersion bearing the infant form of new divine life, quickened out of the corpse of sinful selfhood, freshly and eternally alive unto the Father in Christ Jesus, the Son. Baptism was into Christ, i.e., into His body, the dynamic fellowship of those reborn from the dead. It was the springing fountain of a stream of endless miraculous consequences --- forgiveness of sins, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, inclusion in the fellowship of saints, inheritance of life everlasting.

The Lord’s Supper was not a frosty ceremony regulated by the canons of hierarchical procedure, administered by officially qualified and credentialed “priests.” It was rather a eucharist, a solemn and moving thanksgiving to the Father for the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ displayed on the Cross. It was a communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, a commitment of life to the redemptive mission which brought Him to His Cross. It was a sacrament of remembrance of something done, once and for all, in time and space, by virtue of which sinners may become saints. It was a sacrament of refreshment and renewal, the feeding of the soul on divine nutrients without which we become stuporous and moribund.

These two decisive and crucial experiences of the New Testament Christians were by no means perfunctory rituals recommended by a religious institution. They were not merely means to membership in a cultic group. They were, and are, intrinsic to the essence of the Christian faith, unifying the believer with the Lord of the church and sustaining the union thus created. Traditional and institutional Christianity has overlaid the sacraments with stultifying dogma, a development which has concealed their true redemptive and regenerative character from millions of honest believers.

The word of God, by the hearing of which men are brought to faith, is a constitutive element of the church. It has pleased God to communicate the good news of His grace by the preaching of men. Where the word of God is truly preached and obeyed in faith, there is the church. The church is created by the word, of which the sacraments are multi-dimensional expressions. Word and sacrament amplify, illustrate, and intensify each other. They are not two divine entities but one. These are the authentic marks of the Christian ecclesia, the Christian church.

Approaches to Christian Unity

Unhappily, these vital and essential divine powers ebbed early in the history of the church. Men grasped for security by replacing them with vastly inferior forms. As Emil Brunner observed “The living Word of God is secured, and at the same time replaced, by theology and dogma; the fellowship is secured, and replaced, by the institution; faith, which proves its reality by love, is secured and replaced by a creed and a moral code..” (The Misunderstanding of the Church, p. 53) The triumph of the institutional concept of the church profoundly affected the nature of the approaches to unity throughout the entire history of Christendom.

The first kind of attempt to stem the tide of divisive influence in the history of the church was creedal definition. It was thought that by defining the orthodox Catholic faith heresy would die of exposure. Athanasius was hopeful that the Arians would renounce their Christological error and embrace anew the true faith. He was disappointed. Exclusion of heretics by theological confessions did not serve them and never has served since to heal divisions in the church. To insist on doctrinal agreement as a condition of unity is to predetermine failure. Every discovery of a neglected doctrinal truth becomes the occasion for the formation of a new denomination or sect.

Rome’s ascendency to preeminence in the West gave rise to another type of effort to unify the church. Coercive force backed by the authority of the developing hierarchy was employed to whip into line non-cooperating Christians. The Roman church, then as now, saw unity as a possibility only when the papal flag flew over every outpost of the legions of Christ.

The embarrassment occasioned by disunity in the ranks of the Reformation congregations, coupled with an understandable dread of ecclesiasticism, led Luther and Calvin to emphasize the dogma of the Invisible Church. The legacy of this fiction has been dearly cherished by Protestants to this very hour. In the Invisible Church perfect unity already exists. It is to the credit of an increasing number of Protestant communions that they are no longer willing to tranquilize their consciences over their separation from Christian brethren by this expedient. Few will any longer deny that our Lord’s prayer for the unity of believers requires visible expression.

Several types of interdenominational associations were developed in the last century, some of which are still alive and breathing. They have served to broaden the range of fraternity but have not been irresistibly effective as instruments of reunion.

Currently the attention of ecumenical enthusiasts is centered on denominational mergers as the modus operandi for answering Christ’s intercessory prayer. Extend the fences, add new wings to the headquarters building, dilute or delete disputed theological convictions and stand back to let the detached ecclesiastical pilgrims in. This approach tends to reduce Christianity to the lowest common denominator and results in a nondescript religious society. What is more important, it assumes that unity is achieved by organizational inclusiveness. The institutional concept of the church is dominant and decisive. Apostolic norms become obscured by pragmatic considerations and functional requirements in the expanded churchly corporation. The simple outlines of the original church are obliterated by the towering superstructure and the impressive machinery of a great institution.

Our Plea For Unity

What relevant word do we as a people committed to work for Christian unity have to say to a divided but seeking church? I think we still have somewhat to offer.

We have contended that the indispensable items in the church of Christ are those which are necessary for making and keeping a man Christian. What saves us unites us with others who are being saved. No group therefore has the right or authority to impose additional qualifications for membership in the Lord’s Body. The consensus of the whole church has always been that four things are essential to man’s salvation, the gospel, faith, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper: the divine message, the human response, the continuing communion. To this four-fold pillar of evangelical Christianity we seek now to direct renewed attention.

1. The mission of the church is to proclaim the one gracious message in order to elicit the obedience of faith from all who have ears to hear. Let all who love and worship Christ join univocally in the publishing of these glad tidings.

2. We remind the great denominational families that they have kept their fences mended by the retention of theological confessions of faith. For 150 years we have been indefatigable critics of this divisive stratagem. We have maintained that the creed of the first Christians was personal, not doctrinal. It was a confession of faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Alexander Campbell argued that belief in that one fact was the only creedal requirement for admission into the apostolic church. The late Frederick D. Kershner, in his book, How To Promote Christian Union, wrote: “Surely the only rational and certain basis for creedal harmony is to return to the apostolic order. The acceptance of this creed does not prevent a man from accepting and believing whatever theology he pleases. He may be a Calvinist or an Arminian, a sacramentarian or a liberal, but if he accepts Jesus with his whole heart as his Lord and Saviour, he is a Christian in addition to, or in spite of, whatever else he may be.” (125-6).

We do not require doctrinal impeccability as a term of fellowship between Christians for the simple reason that to do so would exclude everyone who is not infallible. Most of us are in the non infallible category ! We know that we know in part only. It is cause for great rejoicing that the Scriptures make clear that we are not saved by knowledge but by faith in the Son of God. Let all Christians similarly confess. Let us witness together the one good confession which pledges us to Christ in faithful discipleship.

3. We call for sacramental unity as imperative to the mission and harmony of the church. There are four criteria which we regard as decisive in determining the truth of the sacramental practice of any group: (1) the word of Scripture, (2) the example of the original Christianity community, (3) the congruity of form with meaning; (4) the consensus fidelium (the mind of the whole church). New Testament authority, apostolic precedent, theological consistency, and catholicity are gauges which reveal the adequacy or inadequacy of the baptismal and eucharistic policies of any tradition within the church. We are firmly convinced that the sacramentalism of the people of the Restoration Movement passes all four tests and we plead with earnest believers in all denominations to bring their practices into line with these standards. Indeed, we see no other possibility by which unity on these vital matters may be brought about.

4. We do not advocate the kind of Christian unity which results in organizational uniformity. It has always been our understanding that the church is not at base in institution but a fellowship. The great fact of the church is the Holy Spirit who lives in it and whose power propels it. Unity is created by the Holy Spirit who draws together into one body those who have been begotten again by the word of God and who are made one by the one Lord through One Faith and One Baptism. Members of the community of saints have fellowship one with another because all have been cleansed by the blood of God’s dear Son.

Under this conception, Christian recognizes Christian as beloved brother irrespective of the varying institutional stalls in which each feeds his soul. The institution is secondary. The fellowship in Jesus Christ is primary. We shall work and pray toward the end that every institutional form of the church may make visible the one Lord in preaching and sacraments, and the one Spirit in fellowship and fruit. But we shall not withhold our brotherly love until this desired objective becomes historical fact. We do not insist that all institutional and organizational forms except those we have developed be suppressed and exterminated. (Many of them, including our own, may needs to be fumigated and ventilated and inspirited, but not annihilated). We do not demand theological and liturgical uniformity. The spontaneity and variety created by the Holy Spirit must not be smothered.

We do plead for the recovery of the original ecclesia within every tradition in Christendom. We ask the Anglicans to allow their distinctive Angelicanism to diminish so that their common Christian faith and their obedience to New Testament imperatives may increase. We ask the Presbyterians to diminish the place of Calvin in their system in order that the supreme Lordship of Christ may become yet more apparent and real. We ask the Methodists to submerge their Methodism beneath a surging flood of Christ centered witness and loyalty. We ask every denomination and sect to examine its faith and life in the light of the Christian ecclesia of the New Testament. We petition for the removal of those particulars in denominational practices which cannot be justified by Scripture in accordance with the catholic understanding of divine truth. We ask that every sectarian distinctive which is disruptive of the fellowship of Christians be permitted to expire from malnutrition. We call upon every Christian communion to give the positive and unexceptioned adherence to the implied demands of Ephesians 4 to confess one Lord, to cherish One Faith, to practice one Baptism, to recognize and together to become, the One Body of Christ.

Implementing Our Plea

What practical steps can we take to manifest our sincere desire to be used of God’s Spirit in the re-gathering of His scattered sheep? First, we can pray. We should have frequent meetings dedicated to the single purpose of praying for the unity of the children of God. Second, we can practice unity up to the limit of available opportunity. We should seek fellowship with every genuinely Christian movement to which we can witness and from which we can learn. One of these is the National Association of Evangelicals which has a statement of faith that is congenial to our own convictions. The one great requirement for membership in N.A.E. is unqualified acknowledgment of the Bible as the inspired Word of God. There is a great opportunity for the witness of our people to New Testament Christianity within the framework of this Association. By the nature of its orientation to biblical faith N.A.E. is open to the plea which we have been so vociferously shouting back and forth to one another and which we ought to articulate outside our own circle.

We can join federation of church in cities and towns where such participation allows us to remain true to our own commitments and loyalties. We can start area fellowships of churches across denominational lines in which people of several different communions are invited on occasion to meet together for worship, prayer and Bible study. We can cultivate the friendship of ministers, and mem-bers of other churches and engage with them in a serious study of revealed truth. We can refuse to be sectarian, isolationist, perfectionist, arrogant, com-placent, omniscient in attitude and disposition. We can weep over our own and other’s sins against the Love which wills our oneness in Christ. For the sake of an unbelieving world which can only be brought to faith in Jesus Christ by the witness of a united church, we must and do pledge every effort to this task - “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

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