THE ODYSSEY OF DIVISION
ERVIN
WATERS
Wherefore, receive ye one another, as Christ also received us. Ro. 15:7
Paul
dearly sets forth here the basis upon which we are to accept each
other as brothers. Why did it require me nearly 35 years of preaching
to see it? Oh, what self-righteousness! Oh, what “holier than
thou” attitude! Oh, what littleness, what ingratitude! All
these years I have drawn upon his love, mercy, and grace, while I
have in turn been so unloving, unmerciful, and ungracious to my
brothers. Not brothers who, like the gnostics, denied that the Christ
had come in the flesh. Not brothers who, like the fornicator at
Corinth, live with their own step-mother. It was rather brothers
equally sincere as I that I have rejected all these years, men more
dedicated, more gracious and loving than I, and even more conversant
in the Word.
We
have together inherited a legacy of factionalism and our history has
been an odyssey of division. Many of us now see the folly, futility
and fallacy of refusing to receive each other because of differences
of interpretation. I have myself been a merchant of this futility. At
one time I could apply thirty or more laws of hermeneutics and
exegesis, some of which could be found in no standard texts. These I
refined and distilled in true pharisaical fashion, using them to
perpetuate our sinful divisions. I was proud when brethren urged,
“Ervin, get it in print lest it die with you.” So I
planned to publish a book on my hermeneutics. But I soon staggered
under the weight of my own legalism and sickened with the divisions
which I helped to produce as a partisan debater whose sword tasted
the blood of many dear brethren in the polemical arena. But that book
will never be written, for it would only add fuel to the flames of
partyism.
That
you might know me better, I represent the far right of the
restoration brotherhood. I belong to the non-instrument,
anti-missionary society, anti-Sunday School, one cup, one loaf passed
undivided, unfermented grape juice, unleavened bread, anti-Herald of
Truth TV and radio programs, anti-institutional orphan homes, and
anti-Christian College. If that isn’t enough, I could come up
with some more!
How
shall I make a test of fellowship of these things or anything that
God has not made a condition of salvation? I charge that our
divisions are due to a lack of the love and mercy toward each other
that God has bestowed upon us all. When we love as he loves, we will
receive each other as brothers. I thought for many years that we were
divided over the issues, but I was blind. Now I see that all
along it has been due to a lack of love for one another. I have been
a hatchet man for factionalism long enough, and I am weary of serving
as a sectarian battleaxe. I seek now to tear down the walls that
lance helped build.
If
we will let the principle of love rule our lives, we can have
fellowship and unity now, right NOW. Our problems then can be
problems within the fellowship. We do not have to sweep our
differences under the rug, for we can talk about them lovingly and
prayerfully. Then we will no longer blacklist each other, write up
each other in the papers, or try to knock each other off in old style
debating. We will have dialogue in panels and forums, both public and
private, but always in a spirit of love and in sharing the common
life of the Spirit.
I
once saw our odyssey of division as a necessary journey, for each new
innovation called for another party. Division was the only answer we
knew for our fierce disagreements. But it has not always been so.
Back in 1849 the brethren organized the missionary society without
drawing lines of fellowship. It was not until 1889 that our odyssey
of division got under way, the year of the Sand Creek Declaration,
advocated by Daniel Sommer and acceded to by David Lipscomb. Up until
then our people differed over instrumental music without any lines
being drawn. By 1906, the non-instrument churches, under the
leadership of David Lipscomb, assumed a separate identity in the
religious census of the nation.
It
was not until 1918 that our people began to draw lines over the
Sunday School question. N. L. Clark was the father of the
non-class movement in Texas. Even though he debated the subject with
men like G. H. P. Showalter and R. L. Whiteside, he never made it a
test of fellowship. He even served with brother Showalter as
co-editor of the Firm Foundation back in those days. But
others began to draw lines and create parties, so that the division
was well crystallized by the time I began to preach in 1935.
It
was not until 1930 that plurality of cups became a test of
fellowship. Some congregations used one cup and others a plurality of
cups, each recognizing the other’s autonomy. This division was
still in the making when I began to preach, and I helped to make it
in the state of California in the early 1940’s. The Rodeo
congregation would never have come into being in the Bay area if the
Crocket congregation had not made a test of fellowship out of the cup
question. I can name several cities in this state where brethren
would have remained in congregations using one cup if they had
continued to receive folk regardless of their position on the
container. When the line was drawn, they moved out and started
congregations using cups. Our folk will out of love defer to the
conscience of others, with no strings attached, provided there is
some semblance of love reciprocated. Alva Johnson, for example, died
in my fellowship.
We
must all come to see the restoration as a movement in process, not as
something already completed or realized. Campbell saw this when he
said, “It may yet deserve the construction of a larger vessel
in a more propitious season.” In seeing it as a process in
which things are yet to be restored, I must recognize that I may not
have all the truth on some things and that I may be in error on some
things even now. This does not mean that I am lost, holding some
erroneous views, though this conclusion would follow from the way I
once reasoned. Must we draw new lines of fellowship each time we
learn fresh truths. This has been the case in our odyssey of
division. In my early days I sat at the Lord’s Table with Homer
L. King, Homer A. Gay, and James Stewart and drank both fermented and
unfermented grape juice. But we decided it was wrong to drink the
unfermented juice. We did not merely quit using it in deference to
our conscience. No, we had to draw the line of fellowship against all
who used the fermented juice.
This
possibility of my finding still other truths made me afraid to study,
lest I discover something that would force yet another division.
Another round of disfellowshipping, another division, another issue
to debate about!
I
saw something was seriously wrong when I couldn’t even
fellowship my old self of a few years ago. I saw something was wrong
when I could not extend the right hand of fellowship to a single
pioneer of the restoration movement. I could not fellowship one of
them --- Alexander Campbell, Thomas Campbell, Barton Stone, Raccoon
John Smith, John T. Johnson, Walter Scott, Jacob Creath, Robert
Richardson, Philip Pendleton, Robert Milligan, J. W. McGarvey,
Benjamin Franklin, Tolbert Fanning, Isaac Errett, J. B. Briney, H.
Christopher, Clark Braden, David Lipscomb, Daniel Sommer. These and
other illustrious names that adorn the pages of our history, I could
not extend fellowship to a one of them. And not even to those men at
whose feet I sat as a boy --- J. N. Cowan, R. F. Duckworth, J. W.
Kelly, Charles Watkins, Alva Johnson, D. J. Whitten, G. H. P.
Showalter, J. D. Tant. I could not recognize them as my brothers, for
I and my little group constituted the kingdom of God upon the earth
and embraced the redeemed of earth, although we held in our number
less than one percent of the restoration movement and less than
one-tenth of one percent of immersed believers in America.
As
we look back in our history we can see that our odyssey of division
has been unnecessary, for our people managed to differ on all these
issues without splintering into sects. Why cannot we now permit
each brother or each congregation to decide for himself or itself
what is proper in the light of conscience and not draw lines against
each other over the differences? We have differed over matters of
cooperation almost from the beginning, but it never caused any breach
in our ranks. It was not until after World War II that this issue was
pressed to the dividing of brethren. I was present in the early
1950’s in Cedar Rapids when G. K. Wallace and Burton Barber
debated instrumental music. Along with the debate we had forums, and
it was in a forum that James W. Nichols, then only in his 20’s,
avowed that he was going to have a national radio program. At that
time he and James Willeford had a program supported by several
congregations. It wasn’t long until the Highland congregation
in Abilene was on its way to a cooperative arrangement the like of
which our people have never known. Opposition soon arose, bitter and
strong. The division over this issue has since become solidified. But
it did not have to come. It does not have to continue.
I
have seen factions emerge, grow to maturity, and then splinter
again-all in 10 to 20 years. Even now most all our factions are on
the verge of splitting two, three, or even four different ways. Our
present 25 or so splits could easily proliferate into 75 or a 100
warring factions and fragments.
Brethren,
let me lay it on the line. If the Church of Christ is not capable of
self-examination, there is no hope for it. If it cannot achieve the
unity of the Spirit amidst all this diversity, there is no place for
it. If it cannot preach good news instead of legalistic bad news,
there is no need for it. If it cannot replace justification by law
with motivation by love, there is no redemption in it. If it cannot
reconcile rather than alienate, there is no health in it. We must
bring to an end the fallacy of “preservation by separation”
that now dictates our ways. The Bible in Gal. 5 puts the party spirit
in the same category with adultery, idolatry and drunkenness.
Bitterness and animosity are common in most issues of some of our
journals.
I
am tired of sleuces of slime and slices of slander. I am sick of the
libels of labels and the castigations of categorizations. I am weary
of the vitriol of verbalizations and the poison of propaganda and
politics, as well as the venom of vendettas and the vice of vain
venality and vandalism. May God deliver us from the farce, folly and
fallacy of factionalizing. Too long have we been a fragmenting and
fracturing fraternity, spawned by the egotism of editors and
editorocracy.
It
is at the foot of the cross that we become one. The unifying power of
Jesus will integrate us and cause us to accept each other as we are.
The world will never accept the testimony of a divine Sonship from a
divided church. “May they be one, that the world may believe,”
Jesus prayed.
We
are learning some things that should turn us in a different
direction. Many of us no longer recognize any one faction among us as
the one church, and we are realizing that no one sect among us will
be able to assimilate all the others. We are becoming better educated
and we are doing more thinking. We no longer highly value those
things that we once debated and divided over. There is a sense of
urgency about the world situation and the need for a united church.
We
stand at the threshold of a brighter day for our people. The walls we
have erected are beginning to crumble. Our youth are ignoring our
divisions as artificial and meaningless. There is a surge toward
oneness as never before, and it cannot be stopped. The Spirit is
moving us toward Christ and each other. We stand at the threshold of
a new restoration movement, one spurred by those outside our ranks
even more than by those who are within. The question that remains is
whether we will heal our wounds and prove our discipleship to the
world in the way Jesus taught us: “By this shall all men know
that you are my disciples.”
We
have lived to see the ebb tide of factionalism. The churning waters
of hate are receding. Look up and take heart, for the best is yet to
be.
Forgive, O Lord, our severing ways,
The separate altars that we raise,
The varying tongues that speak Thy praise!
Suffice it now. In time to be
Shall one great temple rise to Thee,
Thy church our broad humanity.
White flowers of love its walls shall climb,
Sweet bells of peace shall ring its chime,
Its days shall all be holy time.
Thy hymn, long sought, shall then be heard,
The music of the world’s accord,
Confessing Christ, the inward word!
That song shall swell from shore to shore,
One faith, one love, one hope restore
The seamless garb that Jesus wore!
—John Greenleaf Whittier
— Given at Restoration Workshop, Los Gatos, Ca., March 27, 1971.