GATEWOOD’S QUESTION

Our good brother in the Lord, Otis Gatewood, has an interesting article in a recent issue of Firm Foundation entitled “Our Voices Are Not Being Heard,” in which he says that we in the Church of Christ are not being heard by the Christian world at large. He raises the very appropriate question as to why this is so.

He, along with Norvel Young and Ed Rockey, attended the World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin, a gathering of leading evangelical Protestants, including Billy Graham, Oral Roberts and Harold Ockenga. Brother Gatewood seemed disturbed that these church leaders do not know us. He writes: “As I introduce myself and try to get acquainted with them, one truth comes home to me again and again-that is, our brethren are not generally known to these men and our voices are not being heard by them.”

He goes on to say that in their speeches these men said very much what the Church of Christ has been saying all these years, including a call for a return to the Bible and the New Testament church. Then he says: “The tragedy is that they do not seem to even be conscious of the fact that our brethren have said what they are now saying.”

Why is this a tragedy? Is it not just as well for them to be saying it as ourselves, or maybe even better since there are more of them than of us? And why is it so important that they be conscious of the fact that we have been saying these things? I cannot see any tragedy here. It bothers brother Gatewood that “They are saying these things as if they think they have discovered something new.” Surely brother Gatewood realizes that the voices of reform are pretty much the same wherever they are heard, and they have been heard off and on all through the centuries. So his complaint reveals that he himself is guilty of the very error he would impute to others: the supposition that these truths began with our Church of Christ movement. When our pioneers began to say these things they were not new then either. Do we suppose that we have discovered something new? The plea of reformers is pretty much the same story.

If there is any tragedy in all this it is in brother Gatewood’s implication that we are somehow guardians of the truth, and that if someone says what we have been saying it constitutes trespassing into our holy territory. They ought to give the Church of Christ credit when they do such an unusual thing as to speak the truth. After all, we are God’s special interpreters, and if anyone else comes up with “the Truth,” they must have gotten it from us somehow.

But most of all brother Gatewood is asking why it is that we are not being heard. He says we are heard only by our own brethren. When these men quote a scholar, they do not quote one of our men. When they read, they do not read from us. They hardly know we exist. Then our brother admits that he does not know why this is so, and so he leaves the question with us.

The answer to the question as to why the Christian world is not listening to the Churches of Christ, or why they barely know of our existence, may not be as difficult as brother Gatewood supposes. If we are willing to indulge in a little self-scrutiny, I think the answer will become dear.

We are not being listened to because we aren’t saying anything worthy of particular attention. If we want the world to listen, we are going to have to say something! We are providing no solutions to the weighty problems facing the religious world by our naive assumption that we are the only Christians. Responsible Christian leaders are not going to listen to a plea from a people that claim to be the only ones that are right. The deep concerns of world evangelism and Christian unity are problems too sacred ro be handled by a people who believe that their ministers are the only true evangelists and that unity can be realized only by all others becoming like themselves.

Besides this “we only are the Lord’s people” fallacy, there is another important reason why we are not being listened to. We are not there so that we might be heard! Brother Gatewood knows that it was a rare thing for a group of Church of Christ ministers to attend a conference conducted by “denominational preachers.” Horrors! They could be written up in some of our papers for fraternizing with sectarians.

Why, our brethren can hardly get together with their own Church of Christ and Christian Church brethren in a simple little “all brotherhood unity meeting.” Our editors will hardly publish an article from a brother afar off. He must belong to the right party. Attend sectarian conferences on evangelism? Rare indeed! Surely brethren Gatewood, Young, and Rockey are big enough for this kind of world; but our brotherhood as a whole isn’t, and brother Gatewood knows it. And until we grow up and join the human race, and admit ourselves to be part of the larger denominational world, nobody is going to listen to us. And there is no reason why anyone should. If we are so narrow that we can’t be neighborly to the religious world around us, it would be most unusual if we would have anything worth listening to anyhow.

So long as our ministers can have nothing to do with ministerial alliances, or can’t share in Easter services with other ministers, we will have to continue saying whatever we have to say only to ourselves. If a church is so limited in its vision that it dare not have a Presbyterian minister visit with it and explain what he believes (instead of having its own minister tell them what Presbyterians believe), there is no reason why that church should be taken seriously by anyone of intelligence.

If we want to be heard by the religious world, then we must become a part of that world through sympathy and cooperation. No responsible churchman supposes that such sympathy and cooperation implies endorsement of the doctrines subscribed to by those involved. If for no other reason, we should be working with other churches because of our concern for humanity. Despite all the noble efforts being made by such organizations as the American Bible Society and the National Council of Churches, we are as isolated from their interests as if we lived in a different world. Our world is different; it is a world we have all to ourselves. And so nobody listens to us. We are not where they are.

Brother Gatewood supplies part of the answer to his question by the parochial attitude reflected in his letter. It is obvious that our brother thinks only of ourselves as “the church,” while the others are “the denominations.” It would be interesting to hear brother Gatewood give a careful presentation on why the Baptist Church is a denomination while the Church of Christ is not.

If any group in the entire religious world is denominated by a distinctive name (which is what denomination means), it is the Church of Christ. We print it on our letterheads, paint it on our buildings, use it in our advertising. It is used as exclusively as the Church of God folk use their name, and our name is hardly as scriptural as theirs (they outscore us 12 to 1). It is a strange mentality that sees “Church of God” as a denominational name while “Church of Christ” is not. It all depends on what one wants to see. If our people had happened to have ended up with the name “Church of God,” think of what we could have done with it, quoting the Bible as we do. We would have twelve passages to quote instead of just one!

Brother Gatewood uses the term “pure gospel” in reference to what our people preach, while “error” is his description of what “denominational preachers” teach. Yet he speaks hopefully of those he heard in Berlin, for they said some important things. Then he adds: “They have a long way to go yet, it is true, for they still teach the doctrine of faith only, the direct operation of the Holy Spirit, and other errors.” He goes on to assure us that “They have started in the right direction and if we can place before them truths wherein they are still in error, some may go all the way in a return to the New Testament Church.”

What the people of the world are missing! Here we are in the Church of Christ, simon pure, with the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and with no errors. When people return to the New Testament church, they will be coming to us. Once they “start in the right direction” they are coming our way. Any errors they hold can be corrected once they hear the truth from us. What a pity the world doesn’t know about us! Those fellows who meet in Berlin, New Delhi, and Evanston, struggling as they do for answers, think its difficult when really its very simple. Just be like the Church of Christ.

There is no way for a man like Otis Gatewood to enter into dialogue with these fellows. Dialogue implies a mutual search for truth. One doesn’t search for truth if he already has it. Dialogue means communication between people who think of themselves as equals, exchanging ideas in hope of learning new concepts. But brother Gatewood would not be one among equals, for he would be superior both in terms of truth and position. He already knows the answers and he belongs to the only true New Testament church. He might go to preach and to set them right, but never for dialogue.

It would be a great blessing to an ecumenical congress if the delegates had someone like Otis Gatewood to call upon. Whenever a serious question came up (and they are all serious) , they could simply ask “that minister from the Church of Christ” who knows all truth. It would be embarrassing, I will admit, if there were also there such brethren as Yater Tant, Ervin Waters, E. L. Jorgenson, and G. B. Shelburne. Then when someone like W. A. Visser’t Hoot asks for the truth from the Church of Christ there would be discordant voices the like of which an ecumenical gathering has never heard. They would then discover that there is not just one Church of Christ that has the truth, but several, each of which is quite sure that only itself is the true church. They would probably urge us to have some unity meetings of our own.

And that is a good place to stop, for that is what I think too. We ought to get together ourselves, and demonstrate to the world that we believe in unity by practicing some of it. So long as we cannot even listen to each other, brother Gatewood should have no problem in understanding why the world will not listen to us.