WHEN A CHURCH OF CHRIST MINISTER WALKS OUT

In one of his recent church bulletins, brother Ralph Graham, minister of the Collingswood (New Jersey) Church of Christ, wrote as follows:

On April 11 I announced my resignation as minister of the Collingswood congregation. The last Sunday in May will be our last Sunday in Collingswood. Such a decision has not been without much prayer, meditation, anguish, and tears. It is one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made. To leave those we have loved, to leave the church in which we have labored 12 years from its beginning, to leave our home is like dying a little. But it is dying which must precede the beginning of a new life of service to our Lord that will allow my vision of faith to reach new dimensions on a wider horizon.

In the context of my present situation and connections, I do not enjoy any adequate moral support, opportunity to express and practice what I believe to be the total will of Christ, or the freedom to realize what I consider to be essential Christian goals. No one is to be blamed. How can anyone be blamed for being honest with God, true to himself, and faithful to his sense of duty? We cannot have integrity with constancy without pain, sacrifice, and separations. The sense of duty and loyalty which we feel toward Christ must be stronger than all ties, even family ties.

I have accepted the position of pastor with the First Christian Church (Disciples), 4th and Elm Streets, Colorado City, Texas, beginning the first week in June, 1964. Colorado City is about 65 miles west of Abilene, from which we came to New Jersey 20 years ago this September. I contemplate my new ministry with joy and trepidation. I pray for your understanding, your prayers, and your love. We can never forget our friends here who took us into your very hearts. And we believe that we shall see you again. God love you and keep you.

Two days after brother Graham announced his resignation, one of the members of the Collingswood congregation wrote the following letter:

Dear brother Garrett:

Having been “born in the Church of Christ” and having been a charter member of the Collingswood congregation and under the teaching and influence of Ralph Graham for the past twelve years, I am now in search for the answer to this question: What are the justifications for our existence, i.e., the Church of Christ?

What do we have that can’t be found elsewhere? What is unique about our plea? Why should we continue the struggle unless there are good reasons?

I asked brother Graham to help me with these answers and he stated he could define goals, etc., in a sermon, but since, as you know, he does not see fit to continue with any congregation of the Church of Christ, I cannot feel he could be very convincing to me. I am grateful to him for many changes in my own attitudes and beliefs, and I could not go backward to the “old line,” but unless I can find purpose in the struggle that makes it worthwhile, then I too might feel the “church around the corner” is just as good.

Many of us have this feeling of emptiness. Much of what has meant a great deal to me all my life is gone, and I do not feel that what is left is sufficient to carry me on in the Church of Christ, except “dogged determination.” My convictions are weak now and I need assurance. I know others here need this too.

If you can give me some answers to my questions in a letter, I would appre. ciate it. However, if you could write an article for the Restoration Review which could cover these questions, I would be happy, since many could then profit by your efforts.

My dear sister in the Lord:

While I am sure your feelings of frustration and emptiness are painful to you, you must bear in mind that such experiences are often used of the Lord to chasten and nurture the soul, leaving you a better person and a more thoughtful Christian. “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Heb.12:11).

It will encourage you to know that many throughout our great disciple brotherhood are experiencing what you are now going through. These include a number of young ministers and a few older ones; and it certainly includes numerous rank and file members of the church just like yourself who can never again be satisfied with “the old line,” as you put it. I am certain that all this will make us a better people with a greater influence for good in the religious world. It will, of course, cause some to be branded as heretics or modernists or unfaithful, or something; but it will enhance our respect for ourselves, make us more intellectually honest, and easier to live with. Future generations of the Church of Christ will be grateful for the heretics of this generation.

While the Church of Christ is badly in need of reformation, I cannot see that this situation is helped by walking off and leaving it. Reformation must be wrought from within rather than from without. Those of us who would like to see a mote enlightened and a more responsible brotherhood had better stay where we are, so as to be used of God for the edification of our people. I am unable to see that leaving the Church of Christ helps the situation any. For this reason I could not follow the course pursued by your minister who has now gone to the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Let me make it clear at this point, however, that I understand why brother Graham did what he did, and I can sympathize with him in the long struggle that led him to his final decision. He and I have been close friends for almost 25 years, having attended both Abilene Christian and Princeton together. I was with him in some of his initial contacts with leaders of the Disciples of Christ, and I counseled with him as to what seemed best for him under the circumstances. And perhaps it is best for him and for all concerned for him to identify himself with the Christian Churches, but I still regret that it has to be this way even in his case. It is a reflection upon the Churches of Christ that a man like Ralph Graham cannot be provided a context in which to work and worship freely. He left for freedom’s sake, and may God bless him in his new endeavors. Yet his leaving is a reflection upon our own narrowness and inflexibility; yea, it is a rebuff to our naivete and to our enslavement of the human spirit.

Ralph walked away from it all simply because he was not being treated as a brother should be treated. Orthodoxy was always breathing down his neck and looking over his shoulder. The loyal preachers were eyeing him askance. He had to weigh every word lest he depart from the parry line, and he is not one to kow-tow to anyone’s party line. He could not enjoy a free exchange of ideals with his fellow ministers. Some indeed would share with him new frontiers of truth, and even agree with him against “the old line”, but it all had to be kept quiet lest they be exposed in the brotherhood journals. You may well know that some of the ministers in that area share brother Graham’s convictions, but they have not spoken out as he has. So it might be concluded that he is where he is now because of courage, while they remain where they are for a lack of it.

Anyway, Ralph gradually came under suspicion of those who run the Churches of Christ. He was “out of line.” He was different. He did not conduct his congregation the way it is done back home in Nashville or Abilene. He neither preached nor behaved as one should who follows to the letter the Church of Christ creed. Consequently he was isolated and rejected. Our clergy used their resources to put the squeeze on. When a man is shut out from the publications media, the lectureships, and the calls for meetings, and when he is no longer consulted about plans and programs, he loses his sense of belonging — and, not least to be sure, his financial security is threatened.

All this the clergy knows, and since the days of Constantine they have used their powers to subjugate and silence the heretics — most of them that is. As for those who have refused to be silenced, well, that history speaks for itself.

We can be thankful that Christendom is free enough that the Ralph Grahams among us (and there are more of them than you might think!) can find refuge in other Christian communities. It is to the credit of the Disciples of Christ that they can find a place for Ralph, and to do so with no embarrassment on anyone’s part. They are simply bigger than we are, for when one leaves the Christian Church and comes to the Church of Christ, we write it up in our papers as some kind of victory for our side. Such a one “learns the truth” and “makes a confession” and is heralded as “a convert from the Christian Church.”

It is predictable that our Christian Church brethren will quietly find a place for Ralph, and leave him to serve Christ freely, all without any fanfare. It is also predictable that if our people make any public comment at all, it will be derogatory of Ralph. He will be treated as an apostate from the truth rather than as one who has acted from Christian conviction. We have published books on Why I Left in order to explain why some of our preachers came out of all sorts of denominations into the Church of Christ. It is safe to say that we never issue statements on why some of our ministers leave the Church of Christ for other churches. But I must say it would make an interesting book!

Church of Christ leadership is reluctant to face the fact that some of our best men leave us. Ralph Graham is one of the best educated men among us. He has been closely related to the Church of Christ colleges through the years, and in his missionary campaigns in the Northeast he has had the support of hundreds of congregations. For a man like that to walk out should cause us to take a second look at ourselves. But we are more likely to crucify the man than to examine ourselves.

What alternative did Ralph have? He could have stayed on, working for the kind of brotherhood that he believed to be truly Christian, suffering whatever reprisals are necessary. There is a small army of men (intelligent and responsible men) who have long endured the barbs of partyism who are not planning on going anywhere. Though they work within the framework of the Church of Christ party they are not of the party. They refuse to be party men. These men and the churches they serve are, of course, marked with proper invectives. Since party men cannot stand non-party men, they would be pleased if all the mavericks would go some place like the Christian Church. But these men refuse to leave. They are standing by their posts and working for reform from within, which is the only place from which reforms can be wrought.

I wish Ralph could have done this. I am tempted to say he should have done this, for the very ones that nurtured him are the ones that need him the most. But he saw it otherwise, and we must say “to each his own,” for it is before his own Master that each of us will stand or fall.

Before I consider your questions, let me add a word about my own feelings about Ralph’s departure from the Church of Christ. He is no less my brother now than he was before, and I certainly consider him no less Christian for doing what he believed he should do to better serve our Lord. I rather admire his courage, for I know what will be said about him and with what disdain he will be treated. He is no less a part of the great church of God on earth than before. He has simply transferred parties, and I can love him and work with him as an adherent of one party as well as another.

I do not intend to be unkind in referring to ourselves and other groups of disciples as parties, but it does no good for us to close our eyes to facts. One is not necessarily a party man just because he is in a party. The Baptist Church is a party or sect within Christendom, but not all Baptists are party people. There are those in all sects who are seeking to rise above partyism and restore the true concept of Christian brotherhood. Ralph might do that as well in one denomination as in another.

It is my conviction that as a general rule people should stay where they are and work for reform from within their own context. This is why I do not urge Baptists to leave their church and come to the Church of Christ. Let them go to work where they are! For the same reason I think Church of Christ folk should stay put. But this is a general rule in my thinking. Some people can do a better work if they move into a situation more conducive to reformatory principles. And we must be honest enough to admit that some people might find a more conducive climate by leaving the Church of Christ.

Now for your very provocative question: What are the justifications for our existence, that is, the Church of Christ? What do we have that can’t be found elsewhere? What is unique about our “plea”?

The orthodox answers to your questions as they would come from the pages of the Gospel Advocate or the Firm Foundation would be different from what I am going to say. Our naive, orthodox response would simply be that the Church of Christ’s existence is justified on the ground that it is the New Testament church. If there is no Church of Christ in a town, one is justified in recruiting members from any of the existing denominations on the basis that there would then be a true church in that town.

As for what the Church of Christ has that can’t be found elsewhere, the orthodox reply is once more unequivocal: the truth. We have the right name, the right creed, the right organization, the right worship. We are right (period). As for what is unique about our plea, the answer is no less certain: we preach the gospel, the complete gospel, and we are the only ones that do; only our preachers are truly “gospel preachers.” The answer to the divided state of the churches is for all of them to become Churches of Christ like we are.

Now this is “the old line” that I assume you can no longer accept. But it is Church of Christ orthodoxy, and let me suggest here that part of your problem is that you are no longer a typical “Church of Christer,” and so you need not expect to enjoy the same kind of certainty that you once did when you walked the way of orthodoxy. Compare yourself with a Roman Catholic that can no longer accept the infallibility of the pope. In yielding such a position the Roman Catholic surrenders that certainty that comes with absolutism. So he, like yourself, might write of his “feeling of emptiness” and wonder why there should be a Roman Catholic Church.

Emerson may be in order here: “God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please — you can never have both.” If you choose a free mind over the orthodox “Church of Christ mind,” then you must accept the “struggle” (to use your term) that freedom involves. “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). Comfort and repose come with absolutism and infallibility. There is no greater ease than that enjoyed by those who are right and who know they are, even at the expense of everyone else being wrong. It is indeed truth that makes men free, but nothing is said about freedom making men comfortable. “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria” (Amos 6:1).

But to speak more directly to your question as to whether what we call the Church of Christ has any justification for existence, I would answer both yes and no. In view of the many divisions within Christendom, we have to say that no sect or party has the right to exist. There should never have been the first faction within the body of Christ. Every split within the church of Jesus Christ since apostolic times has been contrary to the will of God. And so the Church of Christ and the Christian Church, and all the rest of the denominations have no right to exist. All the manmade standards that keep the children of God divided should be obliterated, and all the sects should yield themselves to the one great congregation of God, which is constitutionally and essentially one.

The answer is also yes, the Church of Christ does have the right to exist, at least for the time being — until such time as it can be absorbed into the church of all the redeemed ones. After all, those of us who make up what we call the Church of Christ did not create the divided religious world. We were born into it; it was more or less dumped upon us by generations past and gone. Perhaps we have done our part in perpetuating the divisions that we inherited, and this is bad, but at least we did not order it this way. So here we are. What do we do?

We should see ourselves very much the same way we see our religious neighbors, and the way many of them see themselves. The better informed Baptists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians realize the futility of preserving these separate communities. Hence ecumenicity is one of the great ideas of our time. And the idea is that all the existing denominations are to work and pray themselves out of existence — all become the one body of Christ for which our Lord prayed.

So I would say that our own Church of Christ has as much justification for existence as any other religious body. Perhaps it has no more right than any other, but certainly as much. But all of them should be working themselves out of existence, so to speak. This does not mean, of course, that the many congregations would simply disappear, or that there would be one vast congregation in every city. Rather it means that all sectarian barriers that divide God’s people would be removed, that all the congregations in a given city would be one in fellowship and brotherhood.

You ask about our possible uniqueness, and there is certainly more to be said on this point, for surely we have something distinctive to offer the religious world in the idea of Restoration. I believe in the Restoration Movement as it was initiated by the Campbells, and that the teachings of our disciple pioneers provide at least a start toward the oneness of the church. We have sources to draw upon — and inspiring historical heritage — that gives uniqueness to our existence.

This is marred in part by the divisions between Churches of Christ and Christian Churches, and then by subdivisions within these. All of us who make up the Restoration Movement have a glorious heritage, providing us a “feel” of apostolic Christianity and a sense of continuity with the primitive church, especially as interpreted by Alexander Campbell. In this respect I am quite willing to be a Campbellite, just as in other areas of thought I am a Platonist or a Jeffersonian. I plan to stay where I am if for no other reason than I am within the tradition of Alexander Campbell. I believe in what he was trying to do for the church universal. Even if we have bungled what he set out to do, I am glad to be around and to be part of the Movement that he and others started, making what little contribution I can to our taking up where he left off.

I consider it a naive and arrogant claim that only we are the true Church of Christ, that all God’s children are cornered off in our particular segment. The term “Christian world” is meaningful to me, and it certainly embraces in my thinking more than what in recent generations has come to be known as “the Churches of Christ.”

This claim is, of course, an innovation from the plea of the Restoration Movement, whether enunciated by the Campbell group or the Stoneites. Our pioneers never claimed that they were the guardians of the only true church or that the congregations that they started were the only true churches in Christendom. This claim that we are right and all others wrong, that we are the true New Testament church, is indeed a very recent claim in Restoration history, beginning with the Church of Christ (especially with the Bible Colleges), a claim that dates back hardly more than half a century.

This touches upon one of the major fallacies in our thinking, and it may serve as part of the answer to your questions. We have confused the Restoration Movement with the church of our lord. The church was a reality long before there was a Restoration Movement, and it will continue to be a reality, irrespective to what happens to the Restoration Movement. We err in supposing that the New Testament church has been restored and that we are it, thus equating the idea of Restoration with the church itself.

The Campbells, the Stones, and the Raccoon Smiths conceived of their work as a unity movement within the universal church of God, which they understood to be in existence already, but in a divided state. Their intention was not to restore the church, for one cannot restore that which already is; but they sought to restore certain qualities and principles (institutions and propositions Campbell called them) to the church.

There is an important difference between restoring the church and restoring certain features to the church. Take the old Rembrandt painting that is uncovered from the basement of a German monastery. Experts could speak of restoring the original color and luster of the painting, but not the painting itself. This might involve the removal of grime and dirt, or even a bit of touching up, but it is no more nor less a Rembrandt than it was before. It is simply a better Rembrandt in that it now reveals the full glory of the artist’s skill.

So it is with the church. Since the days of our lord there has always been the church of Christ: “On this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). Alexander Campbell knew this, as did Barton Stone and Raccoon Smith. They had no illusion about restoring the church. They knew the church was in existence, and that they were part of it, whether as Baptists or Presbyterians. And yet they concluded that there should be no such thing as Baptists or Presbyterians, for this means division within the body of Christ.

They sought, therefore, to restore to the church the unity for which the lord prayed. To achieve this unity meant that sectarian names and creeds that divide the saints of God must be discarded. It means the restoration of such institutions as immersion and the lord’s Supper, and it involved more responsible interpretation of the scriptures. More than all this, however, it meant the reformation. of one’s personal life, that it might be conformed to the image of the Christ.

They had no intention of starting a new church, the right church, but of reforming the one that already existed amidst sectarianism. Theirs was a movement within the church, dedicated to the task of doing what the expert did for Rembrandt’s painting.

This, my dear sister, is our task as I see it. As a part of the Church of Christ we are first of all the lord’s, to be used by Him for His glory. And if we are His and He is ours, we have no reason for any “feeling of emptiness.” We can serve Him where we are, irrespective of how imperfect the context may be. We can think of ourselves as part of a noble movement working for the cause of unity of all God’s people. If it appears to us that the Church of Christ has lost sight of all this, and has become nothing more than another sect, that does not mean that you and I cannot work and pray for what we think should be.

You say, “Much of what has meant a great deal to me all my life is gone and I do not feel that what is left is sufficient to carry me on in the Church of Christ, except ‘dogged determination.’ My convictions are weak and I need assurance. I know others need this too.”

What is it, my sister, that has meant “a great deal” to you all your life that you no longer have? The lord Jesus Christ? What is it that is “left” that you find insufficient to carry you through? Is it the lord who died for you?

Has your “assurance” been in the absolutes of the Church of Christ or in the grace of God through Christ? Paul could say, “Our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5). He speaks of Christ as being everything to him: “Christ is all and in all” (Col. 3:11). If Christ is yours, if you live in his loving grace and mercy, you have no cause to feel forlorn. let the lord speak to you as he did to the apostle: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

Suppose “the church around the corner is just as good” as the Church of Christ? So what? If you lived in my home town, you might find the church around the corner to be another Church of Christ, and that it will have nothing to do with the other, nor the other with it, for each contends that the other is not as good as itself. I sometimes have that very feeling: that the Adventists or the Episcopalians down the street or around the corner are better than we are. If you measure Christianity by love, mercy, goodness, and brotherly kindness, I suspect there are a lot of them that are better than we are. This only leaves me thankful for what goodness there is, wherever it is, and encourages me to make all people better, especially ourselves.

You mention that it is only by “dogged determination” that you can carry on now that some of the assurances about the Church of Christ have slipped from you. Bless you, you are more orthodox in your Church of Christ faith than you suppose you are. Oh, how we know so little about the grace of God! This “dogged determination” you speak of never brings spiritual satisfaction. This is part of our problem: the idea that it is by our own effort and our own works that we are saved. Some among us are saying that it is our “dogged determination” that causes our neurotic guilt feelings. How damaging it is to the soul for one to suppose that it is by his own strength that he attains unto God. We try too hard. Our legalistic notion of salvation coming only by an exact response to the letter of the law can only kill the spirit. We doggedly climb seven rungs of the ladder only to come crashing to the ground the next day. Will we never learn that we are not under law but under GRACE! (Rom. 6:14).

Beloved sister, I urge upon you the force of Paul’s statement in Rom. 5:6: “While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly,” and in Philip. 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Always we are “helpless” when we are on our own. Our strength must come from God. Our “dogged determination” is worthless before God. We must yield ourselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and let Him bear in us the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Let me close this letter that is now much too long by a reference to the mariners lost at sea, who radioed for information as to where they might find a stream of fresh water. Once they gave their location, the reply came back, “Let down your buckets where you are; you are in fresh water.”

As I see it, you and I can find fresh water right where we are. I see no reason to run off somewhere. Let’s let down our buckets where we are, believing always that the water that He gives to us will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life. (John 4:15).