A NEW CRITERIA FOR SOUNDNESS

The word is about to get the best of me, so I just must say something about it, as a kind of catharsis if nothing else. One advantage in being an editor is that one can write away his frustrations, but only at the risk of imposing them upon his readers. Maybe you also have been plagued by that strange term that is unique in Church of Christ lingo. I refer of course to soundness. Only we have sound and unsound things, and, strangely enough, such language is always applied to conditions within our own ranks. ACC may be sound or unsound, but we would not evaluate Baylor or Vanderbilt that way. The Gospel Advocate may be sound to some of us and unsound to others of us, but none of us would refer to the Baptist Standard or the Presbyterian Life that way.

Whoever heard of an unsound Episcopal priest? But our preachers often have this opprobrium heaped upon them. Even song books, Sunday School material, books for libraries, sermons, Bible Chairs, programs of various sorts are at various times evaluated in terms of soundness. But it is always our song books and our sermons that are so dubbed. A Baptist song book or sermon may be sectarian, but for some reason it is never unsound. Just why this is I do not know, unless it is that other folk don’t count with us the same way that our own do. We have our own fightin’ words for home folk!

It is amusing if you stop to think about it. To ask “Is Paul Tillich sound?” has a strange ring indeed, and no doubt the religious world would wonder what such a question might mean. But to ask “Is Bill Banowsky sound?” is meaningful enough, or at least it is communicative language in our ranks.

I might have spared you the ordeal of this editorial had I not been bombarded of late with this troublesome term. One journal tells me that “the only sound church” has now been planted in a certain area. An editor insists that an entire Bible department at one of our colleges is now unsound.

And Reuel Lemmons in the Firm Foundation compliments our good brother Glenn Wallace by saying: “You may not like Glenn Wallace’s style, but no one, to our knowledge, has ever accused a Wallace of unsoundness.” But Reuel did not say whether any of the Wallaces had ever accused any of the Wallaces of being unsound! The sad truth is that one Wallace has not only accused his own father of unsoundness, but has attacked him publicly and in the press. But still Reuel is complimenting Glenn, and that’s nice. And this helps us to understand what soundness is. Glenn Wallace is sound.

But the shot that really got me was a notice in the Gospel Guardian to the effect that “sound preachers” could get automobiles for a bargain in Indianapolis, and that came from another Wallace by the way. The notice gave me pause to wonder by what standard the automobile dealer would judge the preachers who might ask for the special deal. Would Glenn Wallace qualify? Reuel says Glenn is the one brother that is most certainly sound. But the Wallace in Indianapolis would say he most certainly is not. I take it, therefore, that soundness has something to do with what side you are on in our brotherhood nitpicking.

Some of us would just have to walk if we had to buy a car through brother Wallace’s contact in Indianapolis. I would have been walking a long time by now, but I wonder about others whose glorious shadows still fall across our noble Movement. Would Alexander Campbell have to walk too if he lived in our day? Now it just doesn’t seem to make sense that brother Wallace would turn brother Campbell away as unsound, but I’m afraid he would have to do just that, if not for “fellowshiping with the Baptists” then surely for being president of a missionary society. Actually nearly all the pioneers would be unsound for one reason or another: Barton Stone for being “soft” on immersion and for not being immersed himself; Raccoon Smith for not leaving the Baptists; J. W. McGarvey for tolerating the organ; Thomas Campbell for being a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist; Walter Scott for fellowshiping Alexander Campbell!

Our poor pioneers, bless their hearts, there isn’t a one of them that could buy a car in Indianapolis! Not only would they have to walk to church, but when they got there they could neither address the assembly or lead a prayer. Unsoundness is indeed a wretched disease. But you may be assured that when Austin or Lufkin or Nashville or Abilene is allowed to write the rules according to their own party standards the whole kit and caboodle of us are likely to show up unsound—if not today then tomorrow.

It would make interesting reading if those who sit in judgment on the soundness of brethren would state precisely what they mean by the term. What is a sound church? Just what makes a brother unsound? Or a college or a songbook?

From what we do read it may be surmised that the answer would be something like: One is sound when he is true to the Book. The trouble here is that everyone has his own notion of what constitutes being true to the Book. Our non-class brethren find unsoundness in those who have classes. To the “conservatives” soundness is measured primarily in terms of liberalism, which presently refers to congregational support of institutions more than anything else.

It hardly occurs to us that the primitive Christians must have had some other way to measure soundness than by the scriptures—the New Covenant scriptures at least—for “the Book” to them would be the Old Testament. They had a fresh memory of the Lord, of course, and the teachings of the apostles and their assistants, but they surely did not judge soundness by any book or any collection of scriptures. This should encourage us to cultivate a more wholesome use of this term, if indeed we must make such judgments.

I say if we must make such judgments, for it seems that we judge soundness in a way much different from that allowed in the scriptures. The term sound appears a number of times in the English Bible, but it is never used in reference to honest differences of opinion. It has more to do with one’s spiritual health than with his doctrinal correctness. It is noteworthy that in all Paul’s letters to the various churches with their many problems he never calls one of them unsound. Perhaps a congregation can be unsound or sound, but the scriptures never refer to one in such a way. Persons are sound or unsound in reference to whether they enjoy a wholesome relationship to Him who is the source of health—Jesus Christ.

The Greeks gave us our word hygiene. Hygeia was to them the goddess of health, being the daughter of Asclepius, who was the god of medicine and healing. When the New Covenant scriptures speak of “soundness” or “sound” it is this word that is used, which means health or wholeness. So in 2 Tim. 1:13 we read: “Follow the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.” Sound words are words that heal the soul and make it whole.

In 1 Tim. 1:10 there is a reference to things “contrary to sound doctrine,” and in 1 Tim. 6:3 it says that some “do not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The context shows that unsoundness is not a matter of honest differences of opinion or diversity between brethren, but that it has reference to that which is destructive to the soul. In the first passage there is mention of immorality, sodomy, murder, lying, perjury, kidnaping. In the second reference the unsound folk are “puffed with conceit, know nothing, have a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among men who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth.”

Now is it not a bit extreme to label someone “unsound” who happens to differ on how missionaries or orphans are to be supported, or whether an organ may be used in singing a hymn? When we start calling liars and egotists unsound we will be closer to the Bible. And how about slander, dissension, envy, and a morbid craving for controversy? These are the scriptural descriptions of an unsound brother. It is tragic that a man can have such festering diseases as these and yet be “sound in the faith” since he squares with what is excepted of him in terms of doctrinal exactitude.

Henceforth when an ad appears in our papers for “a sound preacher,” whether for a car at a bargain or a job with a church, let us presume to conclude that they want a Christian gentleman, one who is humble, free of envy and dissension, and one who does not care to wrangle with his brothers.

This should be our new criteria for soundness. He is one who has been kissed by the goddess Hygeia, as the Greeks would say it. His soul has been made whole by Christ, and he is thus like Him, the Prince of Peace. Envy and hate are diseases. So are pride and egoism. A man has a morbid craving for controversy because he is unwell. His soul is sick. It matters not how “sound” he may be in parroting some party line, but whether he enjoys wholeness by virtue of the indwelling spirit of Christ.

Let this be our standard for soundness: a holiness of life grounded in a wholeness of devotion to Christ. There is holiness if there is wholeness. The ideas are closely kin.

So if you or I, or Bill Banowsky or Glenn Wallace, are sound, it is because we enjoy good health in Christ. It means all is well with our soul. We are not sound because we are right on the organ question or know “the truth” about Herald of Truth or how to support orphans, but because we are nourished of our Lord and enjoy wholeness of selfhood in Him. This is the abundant life that He came to bring. This is what it means to be a new creation.

It is time that we pause and take stock. It may be our lack of wholeness (or holiness) that causes us to be preoccupied with judging each other on the basis of our own shibboleths. As we grow in Christ and enjoy better health spiritually we will be more inclined to judge soundness on the grounds of one’s own personal relationship to his Lord. The point of our religion is to become like Christ. The more one has the mind of Christ the sounder he is; the more unlike Christ he is the unhealthier he is.

The likeness of Christ is thus our measure of soundness. Let us treat each other in such a way, both by teaching and association, that we will all day by day grow to be more like Christ, and thus become a sounder and healthier people.