THE PROFESSOR NAMED THE POINT

Recently it was my good pleasure to visit with Prof. W. E. Garrison of the University of Houston, who might well be referred to as “the historian of the Disciples.” Our readers will know him as one of the authors of Disciples of Christ: A History, longtime a standard reference in American church history. Other of his many books include Religion Follows the Frontier, Christian Unity and Disciples of Christ, The Quest and Character of the United Church, and Heritage and Destiny, all of which relate to our own disciple background. All of us are indebted to Prof. Garrison for his labor of love.

He is certainly a remarkable man in so many ways. He once told me of how he rode a bicycle through Europe when a young man. He has been president or dean of at least two Christian colleges, and for a longtime professor at University of Chicago. He is now nearly 90, and during most of his retirement years he has been at the University of Houston, and I learned by visiting the Faculty Club that the distinguished professor is very highly respected by his colleagues. He is still teaching, defying both time and academic tradition. I once heard Prof. Henry Cadbury of Harvard (then in reluctant retirement) speak of Prof. Garrison as one who could still teach long after the usual retirement age. And that was several years ago!

I might add that the professor is also a sculptor of no mean ability, having done busts of several of the Disciple pioneers.

There was one question I wanted brother Garrison to answer: How do you account for the many divisions among our people? Why have we divided so much, being such believers in the unity of God’s people?

Would he point to our lack of love or to our immaturity as a religious communion? Would it be psychological or sociological factors? Would it be conditions growing out of the early American frontier life that cradled our movement? Would it be the kind of leadership we have had, such as the role played by papers and colleges? Would it be the same things that have divided other religious groups?

Without any hesitation the professor put his finger on the point: our divisions are the result of the supposition that the New Testament gives a minute and detailed pattern for the work, worship and government of the church. He went on to quote Thomas Campbell, who said that the New Testament is as much a constitution for the New Testament church as the Old Testament was for the Old Testament church. Prof. Garrison unequivocally denied this as being valid. The New Testament Scriptures are not a constitution, he insisted, and they can never be made a detailed blueprint for the Church of Christ.

All such matters as to whether an elder must have a plurality of children since the Bible says children, or whether the Bible can be taught in classes since there is no mention of this in the Scriptures, goes back to the idea that the New Testament provides a blueprint for every dotting of the i and crossing of the t in things pertaining to the church.

I asked him if the Bible could be the basis of unity among all Christians. “Certainly not,” he said. Then what is the basis?, I asked. “The Lordship of Christ” was his reply.

He quoted the familiar text: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my pathway” (Psa. 119:105) and pointed out that many of us suppose that David was referring to the Bible, including what he was then saying! He observed how profound indeed is the expression “Thy word,” an expression that we might not be able to appreciate as did the psalmist.

His point was that the Bible came to us in parts and very slowly, and that even the New Testament did not exist as we know it today for several generations after Christianity became a vital force among the cultures of the world. There were many who died in the fellowship of the saints long before there was the New Testament. It was the Christ that made them one, and it is Christ that makes men one today. While the Bible reveals that wonderful Person to us, it is grossly erroneous to suppose that the Bible or the New Testament is a pattern or blueprint for the Church of God on earth. Christ is the pattern! The New Testament is thus to be viewed as a record of a noble effort to conform men and churches to the likeness of Christ. As we read of the struggles, successes and failures, tragedies and triumphs of men like Paul and churches like Corinth, we learn more about how to be like Christ.

Prof. Garrison has certainly given all of us something to think about. This journal is sent forth with the hope of motivating more of this kind of thinking. We see no other basis for unity and fellowship than the Lordship of Christ, and surely the view that makes the New Testament the pattern rather than the Christ himself is vulnerable. How often we have quoted Heb. 8:5 to prove that the New Testament is a pattern for the church just as Moses had a pattern for the tabernacle! But does the passage really suggest any such idea?

The congregation at Thessalonica had the pattern even though it had none of the New Testament. When Paul wrote two letters to them, they then had two pages of the New Testament! In 1 Thess. 1:14 Paul tells how the Thessalonian church became “imitators of the church of God in Christ Jesus,” and in chap. 4:9 he says: “Concerning love of the brethren you have no need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do love all the brethren . . .”

What then was the pattern for the Thessalonians since they were an old church, and perhaps even extinct, by the time the New Testament came along? The example of Christ! They knew how to love the brethren, for God had shown them what love is in giving his Son to die on the cross. They were emulating that love in reference to their brethren. Like the churches in Judea, they suffered for the sake of Christ, just as He had suffered for them. Christ was their pattern!

All that Paul taught them while he was with them was to make them more like the Christ. If he had not heard of problems that had arisen among them, which served as some threat to their peace in the Christ, he might not have written to them, and thus Thessalonians would not even be part of the New Testament. Likewise, there might never have been the Corinthian letters (and there is at least one we don’t have anyhow) if Paul had not received unfavorable reports about the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 1:11).

We must see that Paul did nor write letters like Thessalonians and Corinthians in order to provide a basis for fellowship. Those people were in the fellowship by virtue of being in Christ. Many of them lived and died without having read any of the New Testament unless perhaps the letters the apostle sent to their particular congregation. We know that some of the Thessalonians and Corinthians had died even before Paul wrote to them (1 Thess. 4:13, 1 Cor. 15:18), which means their Christian lives were lived without having access to any of the New Testament. Were they therefore without a pattern?

It will be argued that these churches had the teaching of the apostles, and this is what we have, and so this is the pattern — the New Testament. But were there not things that an apostle would teach to one church that would not necessarily apply to another, and did not both Jesus and the apostles teach many things of which we have no record? See John 20:30-31 and 21:25. It is quite by chance that we learn of the special instruction, “If anyone will nor work, let him not eat,” which Paul gave the Thessalonians in view of a particular problem. He says in 2 Thess. 3:10 that he had given them this instruction “when we were with you.” Had he not seen fit to repeat what he had already taught, we would have not known of such a command. It is likely that some of the other churches would not have known of such instruction since they did not have the problem that called it forth. How many such commandments and exhortations might have been given to the churches that we know nothing at all about?

All this means what? These churches were in the fellowship because they were in Christ, who is the pattern for their lives. Exhortations and commandments given by the apostles, whether written in letters or given orally, were for the purpose of preserving the fellowship that already existed, and to instruct them how to live in Christ. Part of this teaching we have, and only a small part at that, and we should use it the same way they did — as information as to how to live in Christ and for Christ, but not as a detailed blueprint. The New Testament just doesn’t have that character.

Even if no New Testament book had ever been written, the church would have had its pattern just the same. The pattern was the image of Christ. The letters they received may have sharpened this image and deepened their sense of fellowship and brotherhood, bur the pattern was already a Person and never a book. And so with us. Our pattern should be personal rather than literary. — The Editor