RESTORATION AND BAPTISM

There is a story coming out of Abilene concerning Elton Trueblood’s visit to ACC that I have now heard from several different sources, leading me to conclude that the information I have is substantially accurate. Since it is derogatory of no one, I am taking the liberty of passing it along, for it illustrates so well a point that is important to this essay.

Mr. Trueblood was in Abilene as a guest of McMurry College, and while he was there some of our folk at ACC arranged for him to have a session on the Hill, mostly with the preachers, students as well as faculty. It was mostly a give-and-take meeting, with Mr. Trueblood fielding questions, which is surely old hat to him. But it developed into something of a confrontation, with the guest given something of a hard time, not to a serious degree, but enough to cause him to leave a little miffed by it all.

A few of the fellows, both students and faculty, drove Mr. Trueblood back to his hotel, with due propriety for the occasion. Perhaps still chaffing from the encounter, Mr. Trueblood asked his guests to explain precisely what baptism meant to them. The brothers went full circle, with all four or five of of them presenting their understanding of baptism. One said that he saw baptism in reference to the body of Christ, the church, for it is the door into the church. The next brother saw baptism in terms of the remission of sins, quoting Acts 2:38, and explaining that to the penitent believer baptism is the means of forgiveness.

Another brother pointed to baptism as an act of obedience, something that the Lord commands, which the believer is to obey whether or not he understands all its significance. Still another explanation was that baptism is the response of faith, a means of relating oneself to the grace of God.

This account of what the brothers said about baptism is not meant to be precisely accurate, and there was surely more said than what we have narrated: but this fairly represents the variety of the replies that were made, which set the stage for Trueblood’s rather intemperate response, Quaker or not. “You fellows can’t even agree among yourselves as to the meaning of baptism, for here you are giving all sorts of opposing views!,” said the professor, or words to that effect, making his exit from the car with a show of impatience for the whole thing.

We all have our answer to that reaction of course, for a scriptural view of baptism might well incorporate all the views presented by the ACC men, and this Mr. Trueblood should have discerned. It is the story of the elephant again, for he is indeed like a wall, a rope, a tree, or a fan, all these, depending on one’s perspective at the time. Our brothers were not contradicting each other on baptism, we would insist, but merely corroborating each other.

But allow me to venture some defense of Mr. Trueblood’s protest, however persuasive the foregoing reasoning might be to us. He may not be wholly to blame for his display of impatience. It is altogether understandable that even a Quaker would be vulnerable to intemperance in a confrontation with us Church of Christ folk, for we are often less than kind and generous to our religious neighbors, and much too noisy for Quakers. It is too bad that we have to turn such meetings into some kind of a “shootout.” The fellows on the Hill would have done well to have invited Mr. Trueblood to say something about what Quakers are doing around the world for suffering humanity. That would be an eyeopener to a lot of us! Ouida and I share in the work of American Friends Service Committee and we are wonderfully impressed with their deep concern and effective ministry to the deprived masses. I had rather hear Trueblood talk about such as that than about baptism!

But the point of defense is not so much Prof. Trueblood’s annoyance with some of our brethren, which we admit to be understandable enough, but rather of his point that our view of baptism is a confused one. Had the professor been well enough acquainted with our history he could have shown that since the time of Campbell-Stone our folk have had different views on baptism, including Campbell and Stone themselves. It is still too little a known fact that the Firm Foundation was started back in 1884 by a rebaptism faction, led by Austin McGary who insisted that even immersed Baptists and Methodists had to be rebaptized to be members of the Church of Christ. Commenting on this in his History of Churches of Christ in Texas, Steve Eckstein says: “Before McGary raised the issue, churches of Christ generally had accepted all immersed believers into their membership without requiring rebaptism, although there may have been a fundamental difference of opinion regarding the purpose of baptism.”

Eckstein”s information about the controversy helps to explain the long standing battle between. Texas and Tennessee preachers back in those days, David Lipscomb of the Gospel Advocate on one side and Austin McGary of the Firm Foundation on” the other, the after effects of which are still felt today. Now this was not over instrumental music or missionary societies, but over baptism. And Steve Eckstein is right in alluding to a difference of opinion regarding the purpose of baptism as the basis of the Firm Foundation faction. It supports my thesis that our people have never been of one mind on the subject of baptism, including the purpose of baptism. And yet this is the subject that has concerned us most.

A reading of Belcastro’s The Relationship of Baptism to Church Membership will inform one of the diverse views on baptism throughout the history of the Restoration Movement. The various confluences of the movement, including the Campbell wing in Virginia and the Stone segment in Kentucky, were able to unite their efforts without ever agreeing completely on either the purpose or design of baptism.

In his Biography Barton Stone tells how he had preached Christ and the scriptures as the only basis of unity, rejecting creeds and party names, long before Campbell and his associates made their appearance. He states that baptism for the remission of sins and weekly communion were at the time of the merger of the two groups the only distinguishing doctrines.

This shows that it was not newly found truths about baptism that ignited the fires of Restoration. I t was rather a desire to be free of party intrigue and to be bound only by Christ and his word. Campbell himself was well into his Restoration labors before he reached his position of immersion for the remission of sins, and the Brush Run congregation, the first of the Campbell movement, was organized and going full steam in an effort to “unite the Christians in all the sects” before any of its members thought of being immersed.

Barton Stone and his fellow ministers, all Presbyterians who resolved to break with sectarians and return to the simplicity of New Testament Christianity, decided that they should be immersed. But there were no immersed ministers who could baptize them except the Baptists, who would not do so unless they joined the Baptists. They decided that even if none of their number was immersed they could immerse one another, which they did. This was in 1804, at which time Alexander Campbell was but a lad of 16 back in Ireland. Even so Stone hardly had the “Church of Christ position” on immersion, for at that time it was mostly the mode of the act that concerned him, having rejected the sprinkling of the Presbyterians. And yet he tells of one experience, when sinners were praying at the mourner’s bench, that he arose and quoted Acts 2:38 to them, urging them to do as Peter instructed the people on that day of Pentecost. Then he adds “Into the spirit of the doctrine I was never fully led, until it was revived by Brother Alexander Campbell some years later.” He explains that until Campbell came along the pulpits in his wing of the Movement were silent on the subject of immersion, even though most of those in the congregations submitted to the act. Stone’s people taught that it was a matter of personal conviction, that those who were immersed were not to despise those that had only been sprinkled.

These facts show that in both currents of the nineteenth century Restoration Movement, the Stone and the Campbell alike, immersion was not the hallmark of the Movement as it later became. Indeed both wings were underway for years and had gained momentum before the subject ever came up for serious consideration, and even then a divergence of viewpoint was tolerated if not encouraged.

It was not for two or three generations in our history that we became so enamored with immersion that we made it a test of fellowship and came actually to preach baptism. Our early leaders, though they were immersionists, did not see the act as an absolute, with some such conclusions that only those immersed are Christians. They saw immersion as the culmination of man’s response to the gospel or as “the cultivation of grace,” to use Campbell’s description, and even as the completion of obedience. But they were hesitant to assign to any external act such significance that it became the one invariable test of one’s religion. This attitude did not seem to change until the Movement began to divide and form sects of its own, thus drawing lines of fellowship not only against “the denominations,” but against each other as well. And we have seen in the case of the Firm Foundation faction that lines were drawn even against fellow immersionists, because the right ones did not immerse them for the right purposes.

All this indicates that if we were influenced at all by our early history, if not by the scriptures, we would hang looser than we do on the subject of baptism. We are slow to learn that one may still be a Christian even if his obedience is not yet as perfect as our own. As Campbell came to see, so we should, that one’s being a Christian is determined more by his character, what he loves and does not love than by any external mark, however rooted it may be in scriptural precedent. It is possible to distort what is good and proper by making more of it than was intended.

Back to Trueblood and the fellows at ACC. If they had all related baptism to the remission of sins, quoting Acts 2:38, and let it go at that, the professor would have had less reason to complain. And they would have been more in line with the traditional Church of Christ position, for it is really this point that we have come to make a test of fellowship. Acts 2:38 is our passage, and if one is baptized aright, it is for the remission of sins. And we even insist that one must realize, then and there, that the act is indeed for the remission of sins. Unlike the fellows talking to Trueblood, we hardly take a panoramic view of baptism, making as much of one aspect of it as another.

I fear that this makes our position on baptism a sectarian one, for it elevates one facet of baptism, which scripture treats rather casually, to the level of sine qua non of the Christian faith. I say “baptism for the remission of sins” is treated rather casually because it is found only in Peter’s response that may never have been given had the people not asked Peter the right question. He certainly was not before them to preach “baptism for the remission of sins.” And it is a reference to baptism that was not as appealing to other New Testament writers as were other references.

I have never heard of any of our people insist that one must understand, when he is immersed, that that act puts him “into Christ,” and that if he does not understand this he is not scripturally baptized. This view would have more support than the “remission of sins” thing, for Paul says more about the former than Peter does about the latter. And how about the “seasons of refreshment from the presence of the Lord” which Acts 3:19 promises us upon obedience? If we started insisting that folk have to realize this blessing in reference to immersion at the time of their obedience, we would have to rebaptize the entire brotherhood.

We say little about being immersed because Jesus was, “to fulfill all righteousness,” but it seems to be a very good reason indeed. Even if it may be a bit on the existential side, the idea of being “baptized into his death” is one to appreciate, but it would be going too far to insist that one comprehend such a blessing if his baptism is valid. Then there is the “baptism of repentance” which is hardly emphasized despite several references to it in scripture, and since it probably refers to “immersion into a changed life” I would that we knew more about it.

There is “baptism in the Holy Spirit” which Jesus promises, which we have somehow dismissed as having any significance. So with the “baptism for the dead” which was practiced in the Corinthian congregation. In all my born days I’ve never known of a single person among us to be immersed for a loved one who has passed on, and yet this was almost certainly a practice in primitive Christianity. The Mormons, who also by the way stress Acts 2:38 in their teaching, are one up on us in that they do immerse for the dead, as did some of the Corinthians. I realize that this does not necessarily mean that either the Mormons or the Corinthians are acting according to God’s will. Unfortunately Paul did not give us that information, but he does reveal to us that some believers got themselves baptized in behalf of dead ones. Paul only wanted to know why they would do this if there is no resurrection.

There are some seven or eight distinct blessings or promises that are associated with immersion. It makes a good question as to why we have come to stress “remission of sins” so absolutely. We neglect even that reference, for no one among us has yet insisted that one must realize he receives the Holy Spirit as a gift when he’s immersed!

I have no problem in all this, as our pioneers had no problem, in that I am quite willing to leave it to God to promise what he will and to bless as he will those who believe in Jesus and are immersed. I see baptism as an act of faith, not a discipline in knowledge. One being immersed into Jesus does not have to know anything. It is an experience growing out of his faith in a person. He does not have to know that in coming into Jesus he is blessed with the indwelling Guest of heaven anymore than he has to know that his act of faith is for the remission of sins. God takes care of all that.

This is the heart of the meaning of restoration. We must not let the Moslems emphasize submission (the meaning of Islam) anymore than we do. Baptism means that we have submitted ourselves to God’s will through the Christ he gave us. It is this that restores man to God. — the Editor