The Church of Christ: Yesterday and Today . . .

VISITING AMONG FREE CHURCHES OF CHRIST

Recent excursions have taken me to a number of “free” Churches of Christ, and I think it will interest our readers to know about them. Such congregations are on the increase to such a degree that I have been asked to supply a listing, so that these liberated folk could contact each other. But such an undertaking would be risky, not only because a “free” church is difficult to define, but also because it might encourage sectarian attitudes, which is the very thing we want to avoid.

A church that is free will not be sectarian, for it will not draw the line of fellowship over matters of private interpretation and it will receive as brothers all those who are in Jesus, Nor will it proselytize, presuming itself to be the only loyal church; but it will evangelize by bringing the lost to Jesus. To proselytize is to conform men to our own sectarian mould; to evangelize is to conform men to the likeness of Jesus.

That is as far as I need go in defining a free church, except that I might add that it is a congregation that is “at liberty to grow according to its own uniqueness, to think, to innovate, to be creative, and to practice the priesthood of all believers. Groups that are moving in this direction would do well, no doubt, to communicate with one another. but a way can be found with out any of us drawing up still one more list of churches. I have no interest in telling people where to worship while traveling! Besides, free congregations of Christ surely reach far beyond our own ranks. There are liberated people in Jesus who never heard of Alexander Campbell and who know nothing of the Restoration Movement, and probably as much so in Russia or Korea as in Texas or Tennessee.

But our free (freer might be a better term since freedom is a continuing experience) churches are something else. I never cease to be amazed at what I find, and it is just as well that I don’t have to take blame (or credit!) for it. These churches, born amidst the drama of revolution, are testimonials that this is an age of change. But they are also warnings as to what to expect in the near future if our leadership does not show more responsibility in dealing with our discouraged and restive brethren, whose number is increasing as rapidly as their patience is decreasing. Elderships often panic when threatened by change, the inevitableness of which they are slow to see, and as a result they do some of the most immature and asinine things imaginable. In some cases they actually drive people away out of fear of them, not knowing how to cope with the problem otherwise. In other instances they resort to such political chicanery and highhandedness that they force people to leave out of disgust, folk who are the staying kind and who would have otherwise hung in for awhile longer, and these are often the most stable, the most affluent, the most intelligent, and the most spiritual.

Some congregations become free after being “orthodox” for years. These are the churches that are dubbed liberal or whatever once they become different. Then there are new churches that are started in a freer context than most of the members are accustomed to, and these too are soon labeled for what the status quo assumes them to be. But the free church that has the toughest road of all is the one that leaves the mother church, usually in protest, and starts another work in a different part of the city. This is strictly a no-no, and every weapon in the arsenal of ecclesiasticism is brought to bear against such groups. Over the past few years I have shared with my readers some of my experiences with a number of such churches in several different states, some large and some small, some new and some several years old, and representing various groups within the Restoration Movement. But the following descriptions are of new groups, formed within recent months, and are yet unknown to most of our folk.

I took my 14-year old Ben with me on one such visit, all the way to Mobeetie, Texas, out west where the wind seems to blow all the time. Ouida accompanied us as far as Abilene, where we visited with an ACC professor and spent the weekend with a congregation that might well be called free, in terms of this report at least, a designation that I could hardly apply to any other group in Abilene. It has become a “hangout” for some of ACC’s less conforming students, including a few with lots of hair, and for years it has been a haven for ACC preachers who like to say what they really think.

The ACC professor who made the appointment for me and who hosted us has since been fired, but I am assured that there is no connection between the two events. But that the prof has become charismatic, albeit a quiet and unassuming one, did have something to do with it. And that he would dare to do things like address the Full Gospel Men’s Fellowship is also related. The college administration was not present to hear what he said to his fellow charismatics, but they rapped his knuckles nonetheless, assuring him that such things were embarrassing to Abilene Christian College. As irony would have it, the good brother was actually critical of some of the claims made about the Spirit in his remarks and expressed alarm over sectarian tendencies of charismatics. But no matter, if you belong to ACC you are less than free in what you can say and do and where you can go. Some years back one dean, now retired, made it clear to one professor who was attending the Christian Church that he was to cease such questionable activity forthwith.

Well, at least I am defining what I mean by free. The prof who was fired by the college could have remained as minister to this congregation, who appreciated him greatly, charismatic or not, but of course he had to move from the city in order to find employment. It might be just as well if H. E. W. officials in Washington do not read this report, for an investigation of this man’s release might show that it was because of religious discrimination, and this has a way of annoying such officials to the point that they start quoting the law and withholding federal grants. A college has the legal right to be that sectarian, but it is not suppose to be that way while it laces its budget with federal money. One of our colleges has had to cough up lots of money for violating the terms of a loan for a building, which they were not to use for religious purposes, but did.

But this Abilene church is not one of those I set out to write about, though it is an illustrious example along the way. What I liked most was its complete openness, a willingness to listen and consider, and the kids from the college got a bang out of what I said about unity and fellowship. Such a group has a way of maturing in the Lord much beyond what is normal. They just take it easy and let Jesus put it altogether. And it did not alarm them one bit to have the likes of Leroy Garrett around. They have to be free!

Mobeetie is something else. It is so small that we barely found it, and we had to stop and ask in order to make sure. So expansive is that part of Texas that I finally relented to Ben’s pleas to drive our frisky Firebird, an exciting venture for a lad learning to drive, but a risky one since he would be behind the wheel on a public highway without a license. His assurances that “Daddy, there’s not a car in sight” convinced me, and sure enough he breezed through a large hunk of the Texas plains without a hitch. But a car did finally appear —you guessed it —a highway patrolman checking for driver’s licenses up ahead. I told Ben to pull over. Something told me that I should be driving. With straight face and guilty conscience (I was ready to be hauled off to jail!) I handed the handsome officer my license. He looked us over with a smile and waved us on. I think he knew and understood. Too bad brethren aren’t always that gracious!

Lester Hathaway, now well into his 60’s and longtime debater for the non-class Churches of Christ was our host. Standing in his front yard we looked over his land - as far as we could see in three directions, and that’s along way out there. He lived there a poor man 40 years ago. All these years he’s preached all over the country and has debated everybody and his dog, while farming his way to wealth. Ben got a kick out of his descriptions of his debates, especially when he’d narrate both sides, supplying a few gymnastics along the way. I spent my time being thankful that I never had to come under his polemic wrath. When I would question him about some of the arguments he made in those wooly days, he would laugh at himself in good humor. And in one serious moment amidst all the fun he opined that it may be just as well that those days have passed while at the same time relishing the memories and the triumphs’ One thing for sure, Lester was cut from a rough mould, west Texas tough, but he is as lovable and childlike as Ben. And what a change in his life has been wrought!

His congregation has been known all these years as the straitest of the sects, the scene of lots of warfare. But recently it has undergone such a transformation that it now hosts visiting choirs and ministers of other churches —denominational preachers I mean. Not only has their building been revamped to compliment the affluence of west Texas (It no longer looks like an “anti” church), but the congregation has an attitude of acceptance that I was hardly prepared for. And they now have instrumental music! It is the only church among us that I know about that is still a Church of Christ that has a piano. I reported earlier on the Emerson St. Christian Church (a Church of Christ), which is the way the sign reads, in Bloomington, Illinois that now has the instrument, but this was a merger of the two groups. But in Mobeetie we have an old-line, non-class Church of Christ with a piano, with no Christian Church influence involved whatever. It is an instrumental non-instrument Church of Christ! And Lester Hathaway is ready to debate anybody that questions their freedom to move in this direction.

More important, however, than an organ or no organ is the spiritual concern of the people. They love one another, and they have turned on to the community around them, sensitive to their responsibility of witnessing to a lost world. They have no awareness of compromising any truth, and if anything they regret all the time they lost in the throes of sectarian strife. If I were Lester, I would have sought all these changes for the better without introducing instrumental music, for it would have violated my conscience. But I am not Lester, and I did not take it up with him. I like the way he speaks of Jesus with such real concern,. and I was willing to settle for that. He has a way of saying, “I once had a head full of scripture, but a heart empty of Jesus.” If you drop in to see Lester, he will not only talk about the Lord, but will probably show you his farm and tell you of the changes that two generations have brought. It once took 10 or 12 hands to do what one can now do with all his sophisticated equipment. Ben was amazed to see a machine that would cut the hay, bail and wire it, and then stack it orderly in the wagon. It would then load it in a barn without ever being touched by hand. He also has a sprinkling system that will water several acres at a time, rotating in a wide circle like some ghastly beast, spraying whatever amount of water desired, all by the press of the button. This makes it possible to raise four crops a year on the land.

Our visit to Mobeetie was cut short by my getting an infection. I soon had such a fever that Lester took me to nearby Wheeler, where a physician said I would have to be hospitalized at once. I asked him if he didn’t think I could get back to Denton to my own doctor and hospital. He said I could do this if I would leave at once, which was a mistake. I drove faster than I should have, but it was a lost cause, the fever being faster than my car. I was soon unable to drive and barely conscious, but there was no hospital along the way. I was too ill to have found one anyhow. Only in those hours did I discover just how big and bloodless Texas really is. In desperation I had to turn the car over to Ben, no longer able even to help him watch the road. I would have been pleased to have come upon a patrolman in my predicament.

The hospital was on the right side of Denton, and Ben drove in like a real trooper, not having to drive in the city. I had to be carried in, and they kept me there for five days. We were thankful that Ben got the driving experience that he did earlier on the trip, but it was still quite a chore for him. He told his Mother that he was crying and praying all the way. I do not recall being so ill, so I was ready for one of Ouida’s gentle lectures about taking better care of myself. I stayed home for awhile. Since Ben is the hero of this part of my narrative, I am pleased to announce that he recently obeyed his Lord by being immersed. He talks about being a medical missionary, which sounds just great to Ouida and me.

There are free churches in both Caruthersville, Mo. and Dyersburg, Tn., which are separated by only a few miles and the Mississippi river. But they did not even know about each other until I was able to visit with them both. I have briefly referred to the Dyersburg church in these columns before, identifying it as the place where Pat Boone’s sister and her husband had been withdrawn from. Others were also excluded for sympathizing with them. This became the nucleus of the new congregation, led in part by Dr. Douglas Haymes, a highly respected physician in the city.

We had an evening’s session in a community building with a fair turnout of preachers in the area, not all of whom were in a cooperative mood. I gave an interpretation of Romans 14 and fielded questions. What might have otherwise been a stormy session proved to be reasonably calm and constructive, partly because they could see, I think, that I had a loving concern for all and that I had not come as some kind of “answer man” having all the solutions. I did some listening along the way and the tensions seemed to subside. Dr. Haymes and his wife Shirley are salt of the earth, eager to be a blessing both to the church and to the world. It is only a sick church that would reject such people, and it grieves me to see such lovely people bruised and battered by ecclesiastical madness.

The new group is now separated because there was little else to do. They are happy in the Lord, loving and encouraging one another in their assembly where people are free to say what they will and at liberty to be themselves in Jesus. Especially impressive is their forbearing attitude toward those that rejected them. As one listens to the story of what happened he is impressed with the futility of a System that causes people to panic in the face of the slightest threat. If a business man should show such unimaginative and immoderate leadership, he would be doomed to bankruptcy. Our leaders, panic stricken in the face of change, actually become criminal in both their attitude and conduct toward their own brothers and sisters in Christ. The same men would surely have a higher standard of morality among their business associates and neighbors. If not, they would do well to stay out of the penitentiary. And it is amazing how such men manage to run off some of the most exemplary people in the community. It is ghastly.

I drove my rented car onto a ferry for the trip across the Mississippi, a business operated, by the way, by one of the brothers that I was soon to meet in the new congregation in Caruthersville. He had his men watching for me so that I would not be charged the usual fee, which is high enough to keep people on their respective sides of the river. Watching the old tug boat make its turns reminded me of the old days, Mark Twain and Alex Campbell and folk like that. Old Man River does something to one’s spirit. Soon a bridge will span the river in that area and Eric Taylor’s ferries will be a thing of the past, just about the last ferries to go from the old river. Too bad.

In Caruthersville I met a group of seventy or so people that must be the most liberated that I have ever been with. By liberation I mean love, joy, peace, enthusiasm, intelligence, affluence, youth, old age, beauty, humor, and all the rest. You name it and they’ve got it, bless them. And the story of their separation is barely believable. Among their number is part of the presbytery and diaconate of the old church and some of the most active leadership, including folk that have themselves taught and immersed people, building up the very congregation that finally rejected them. I have urged them to put their story in writing and make it a part of the archives of the congregation, for it will surely blow the mind of some future historian who tries to unravel what happened to us in the 70’s.

Believe it or not, these folk were such stayers and sticklers that the old congregation actually dissolved itself and then reinstituted itself on the basis of a creed, called by them “A Reaffirmation of Faith,” in order to get rid of them. With the stage well set beforehand, the professional leadership of the congregation announced one Sunday morning that the congregation was dissolved and that in reconstituting it no one would be considered a member who did not sign the Affirmation, which they knew the freer ones would not sign. The creed not only called for “baptism for the remission of sins,” which they supposed the emerging group did not believe, but also the sinfulness of instrumental music and “we cannot worship with denominational and sectarian groups and be acceptable to God.” It also named “social drinking, dancing, cursing, defrauding, striving and lying.”

Those who would reaffirm their faith on such basis, which included the affirmation that Jesus is the Son of God, were to come forward and sign their names. The number who did so was 138, leaving 70 or so sitting in the auditorium that would not, one being an elder who had guided the congregation for many years. This brother stood before God’s flock and tried to dissuade them from such sectarian madness, all to no avail. He pointed out that they were making a party creed the basis of membership in the Lord’s church. The 70 souls who would not sign the creed found themselves looking at one another in amazement at what had happened, and then they walked out of a spanking new building that they themselves were largely responsible for building.

They soon came into possession of an inner-city building of the Pentecostals, who, like everybody else, had moved to the fringe. It is an old frame job, but adequate enough. Denver Fike, the Elder referred to and longtime respected mortician, told me that the old building they now have means more to him than the elegant one that they had left out on the highway ever did.

I explained to him that the reason was that he felt like a free man in the old but a slave in the new. It is interesting how we come to value things, isn’t it? A man can walk out of a luxurious building in the suburbs into an old one in the poor section of town that even the Pentecostals deserted and be thankful for the change! I am reminded of the Proverb: “Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox with hatred therewith.”

This new church is laden with talent. They have moderate interest in bringing a man in to work with them, but they want him to be a servant to the community rather than a resident pastor in the congregation. It is interesting that nearly all of our free congregations are cool toward the minister system, as much for their desire to share together as for the negative conditioning they have received from the system. This crowd is so talented and so eager to be with each other and to share in the Lord that a regular minister would get in their way. I pointed out to them that God makes people free so that they can serve and that freedom is not an end in itself. I rejoice that they have a perspective of service to their community, and it is heartening that they have gone through the ordeal with positive feelings toward their old associates.

Ouida flew with me to New Orleans for a visit with still another liberated group, a fresh one right out of the box. We put our kids on their own, all teenagers now, and left a day early for a sort of working vacation. We were guests of Dr. and Mrs. Clifton Istre. Cliff is in audiology with the Tulane University School of Medicine, while Jeanette is a happy homemaker, riding herd on four lovely children. They took us sailing on Lake Pontchartrain and we spent two mornings walking in the French Quarter, which is New Orleans. I learned what Creole means (I think!) and Ouida really went for the Creole seafood gumbo. She also got a bang out of the artists around Jackson Square, the weather being ideal for such a sight. There were any number who could draw or paint your portrait right on the spot in a manner of minutes and do it well. We visited Chalmette where Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans and one evening several couples of the new congregation took us to Commander’s Palace, one of the old famous restaurants, where we had a private party in the wine cellar.

We had an evening’s gathering at the Istre’s where we met 30 or 40 new friends in Jesus. Same new story: spiritual, intelligent, largely professional, affluent, young to not so young, inquisitive and alert, and tired of the system. Now that they were a new church they had lots of questions about what their mission should be and how they should think of themselves. Should we be a Church of Christ?, Should we keep our old contacts?, What changes should be made, if any, in our work and worship? I advised affirmatively on the first two, while the third had a lot of “It depends” in it.

They are calling and advertising themselves as the Central Church of Christ and they are meeting in an ideal situation in a private school for retarded children, the rather substantial rent going to a cause they could well support anyhow. I commended them for associating themselves with God’s retarded children, explaining that I was acquainted with the task, having worked with God’s retarded people at a little different level all these years.

These separation stories are all on the wild side. Here again you have elders and deacons and surely the most responsible element of the old church involved in the walkout, which is tantamount to being thrown out by bruising and battering. It is a case of a large number in a congregation (the old Mother Church in New Orleans) growing more and more disenchanted with the status quo, wanting to question, to think, to entertain new ideas and be exposed to more creative speakers, and to grow freely in Jesus. Despite their appeals for change, it was not only the same old pablum and same old system, but they had to suffer abuse and innuendo for being different. When it came time for a new preacher, there was firm hope that the situation could be saved. The old leadership pulled a man out of Dallas with an offer of a fabulous salary (the highest I’ve ever heard of in the Church of Christ,) and one who is not known for his openness.

The emerging group urged that a peacemaker be sought rather than a bruiser. One elder produced a letter from Dallas, sent in confidence, that said preacher had Napoleonic qualities. The concerned ones insisted that they needed peace, not Napoleon, and to find someone else. But the man was hired surrepticiously and imposed upon the group, the ones who would bear much of the financial burden. But still they hung in, hoping to make the best of it. An elder who left with the new church is convinced that the Dallas man was brought in for the express purpose of running off the liberals. I was assured that the situation in the pulpit became intolerable. One sister told me that she came to dread Sunday like a plague. When such ones began to hold back their contribution, or part of it, the situation really became a pressure cooker.

So, upwards of a third of them simply walked out in the name of sanity, and what is interesting about it is that they did so as one man with no particular leader. No preacher led them, no elder, no one person, and they did not even know Ketcherside or Garrett. They are the “stalwart peasantry” of Luther’s day, except not quite so poor, and this of course upsets the clergy to no end. That the ordinary guy and gal out there in the pew can rise up and do something about our sordid sectarian mess and clerical domination is an awful threat to ecclesiasticism. Mark it, our people will take only so much. I told the new church that they have done what Church of Christ innocents are not suppose to do. They are suppose to listen to their preacher and be good boys and girls. To walk out and start a new church —only laymen —is unthinkable, and so they will bring all the powers at their command upon you to destroy you. Such a thing as this cannot be allowed to succeed. Others might start getting ideas. The old church had no one person to blame, no preacher to expose, so they have now withdrawn fellowship from the whole lot. They have put pressure on all other congregations in the area to follow suit, all of which have not gone along.

The stories I have told here will doubtless often be the case in many places in years to come. I would prefer it otherwise, and I will continue to urge people to stay with it and minister from within. But no one method will apply to all situations. Each must find his own way, seeking God’s Guidance. When one hears these stories and experiences the freedom that these people have found in their daring, he is not likely to criticize them.

So in those instances where we have to surrender the trench of hanging in and working for change within and retreat to the next trench, it should be the trench of separation without faction. People can separate and still love each other. They can separate without “disfellowshipping” one another. In our growing nation we will have more and more congregations anyhow. Some of them can be the kind I’ve told about, people who leave in love and hopefully with the blessings of those left behind. And once separated they can still maintain some contact with each other and be a united people. Abraham and Lot were still kinfolk even in separation. This is the one thing I stress in my visit with these free churches, that they still love and not allow their freedom to be an occasion for the flesh to do its destructive work.

Well, I’ve been using military language in talking about trenches. It is indeed a war, man’s eternal struggle to be free. The preservers of the status quo would do well to listen to what I am saying. Not only are they in a war, but it is one they are going to lose if they do not get with it and learn to make some changes, for the Body’s sake rather than the party’s sake. —the Editor