MOTTO OF A MOVEMENT -A RECONSIDERATION
by Thomas Langford

I suppose it is characteristic of all religious movements to generalize their programs into slogans which will simply and favorably convey to others the movements’ peculiar principles. What we call the Restoration Movement seems to have been even more interested in such slogans than other groups. Our fathers have always sensed the uniqueness of their platform within Christendom, and felt that its singularity would naturally appeal to all men, if only the message could be presented clearly enough.

One motto growing out of our movement has always been especially attractive to me, because of its balanced appeal to both conviction and tolerance —to both loyalty and love. “In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty; in all things, charity.” Although this motto did not take its origin among our people, it has had a prominent place among our slogans almost from the beginning. Its popularity doubtless stems from its scripturalness on the one hand, and its appeal to common sense on the other. It is reminiscent of several passages of scripture (1 Cor. 16:13; Rom. 14:14-15; Eph. 4:1-7), and its thrust is incontrovertibly true to the spirit of all scripture. I never knew of anyone who challenged or disapproved the motto.

Yet the fact that all of us, in the numerous factions of the movement, have used the motto with equal fervency and frequency would indicate that there are inherent weaknesses, either in the motto or in our application of it. For the slogan which appeals for unity has become the mutual watchword of numerous sectarian establishments.

It is evident that in earlier days the Restoration Movement found less difficulty in the application of the motto. There were fewer glaring inconsistencies between the advocacy and the practice of unity principles. This is not to say that there were no differences. There were — differences perhaps more substantial than any which divide us today. Yet, in the earlier days, division was not so popular a means of dealing with these differences. Mutual faith in Christ was more cherished.

The spirit of the pioneers is well reflected in the seminal document of the movement, Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address. In fact, the motto we are considering seems almost to have been inspired by this document. The “sole purpose” of the Declaration

was to promote “simple Evangelical Christianity,” and for this end … to countenance and support such ministers, and such only, as exhibited a manifest conformity to doctrine, zeal, and diligence: such as practiced that simple, original form of Christianity expressly exhibited upon the sacred page; without inculcating anything of human authority, of private opinion, or of inventions of men, as having any place in the constitution, faith or worship of the Christian church; or anything as a matter of Christian faith or duty for which there cannot be expressly produced a “Thus saith the Lord, either in express terms, or by approved precedent.”

“In essentials, unity; in opinions, liberty” —surely the Declaration spells out these positions clearly. Nowhere is there greater insistence upon agreement in essentials. Yet, as regarded opinions, as the document goes on to say, “although inferences and deductions from Scripture premises, when fairly inferred, may be truly called the doctrine of God’s holy word, yet are they not formally binding upon the consciences of Christians farther than they perceive the connection, and evidently see that they are so.” Essentials and opinions were thus clearly distinguished and properly emphasized. It was upon this basis that the movement flourished for 75 years.

Inasmuch as the following 75 years have seen as much to destroy the movement as the first 75 to establish it, we may well ask what went wrong. Wherein was the weakness of a motto used so generally by both a united and a divided movement?

One of the obvious conditions of our lapsed concord is the fact that we can no longer distinguish (with mutual assent) between the principal poles of the motto. We are no longer agreed upon the essentials and the areas of opinion. In every case our divisions have come at that point where a practice or a position is deemed essential by some and opinion by others. Look at a few of the dividing issues: missionary societies, instrumental music, Sunday Schools, premillennial reign of Christ, Communion vessels, Herald of Truth and orphan homes. Without exception, each issue is clearly drawn on the one side as a matter of opinion or a scriptural deduction, and on the other side as a compromise of “The Faith,” an unwarranted departure from “manifest conformity to the original standard.”

The difficulty is in the fact that in every case some have taken as essential, issues about which a variety of deductions can be made from the scriptures. In none of these instances does the Bible speak so clearly that one may take a position on one side or the other without the application of involved human reasoning. Of such things, the venerable Declaration said:

as these must be in a great measure the effect of human reasoning, and of course must contain many inferential truths, they ought not to be made terms of Christian communion; unless we suppose, what is contrary to fact, that none have a right to the communion of the Church, but such as possess a very clear and decisive judgment, or are come to a very high degree of doctrinal information; whereas the Church from the beginning did, and ever will, consist of little children and young men, as well as fathers.

How clear, how sweetly reasonable, and yet how foreign in tenor to current pulpits and sectaries.

Let me take a case in point, a case with which I am most familiar, the Sunday School issue. Having been reared from childhood in a tradition which opposed the organized Sunday School, I think myself competent to represent the arguments against the institution. These arguments have generally resolved themselves into three basic points: 1) the Sunday School was not an apostolic institution and is thus without the sanction of a “thus saith the Lord, either in express terms, or by approved precedent”; 2) the Sunday School requires a fragmentation of the assembly into classes, thus destroying the pattern of a single assembly, as set forth in 1 Corinthians 14, and confirmed by every other reference to the gathered church in the New Testament scriptures; and 3) the Sunday School usually employs women teachers in public capacities, a violation of specific injunctions (1 Cor. 14:34; 1 Tim. 2:11-12) as well as the spirit of all the New Testament scripture’s teaching concerning ideal womanhood.

Now the fact that many, perhaps most of you, will disagree with our deductions on these points demonstrates, to some degree at least, that they are not the “manifest essentials” “expressly exhibited on the sacred page” which must constitute the grounds of our unity. This is not to say that our deductions are unimportant, or necessarily inaccurate. It is to say, they are our deductions, and therefore binding on others only insofar as they “perceive the connection” and assent to their validity. Hence, they “ought not to be made terms of Christian communion.” However important they are to those of us who “perceive the connection,” it is only our own consciences which may properly be limited by these deductions. They will determine our own practice, but should not be the basis of judgment of others, or the criterion of our fellowship with God’s other children in all the real “essentials” of the faith.

I may be wrong, but I cannot see but that all of this applies with equal validity to every issue which has divided our movement. Instrumental music may be debated, deliberated, and debunked by those who “perceive the connection,” but until it can be shown to be a matter “expressly exhibited,” enjoined or prohibited, its use or non-use must remain in the realm of deduction, of human reasoning, and not in the realm of essentials, where we may and must have unity. Those of us who deduce it wrong must worship without it, while those whose study does not condemn it must be governed by their own light. Parenthetically, it is my impression that many of the latter would gladly forego the aid and pleasure of the organ if they were not consequently forced to surrender also the whole principle of liberty in opinion. To give up the organ as a matter of personal liberty would profit little if one must thenceforth be totally governed by another’s conscience, which may object next to songbooks, four-part harmony, or even congregational singing itself.

Just how broad may our fellowship be? How much difference will that fellowship tolerate? Alexander Campbell repeatedly indicated that he would make nothing a test of fellowship which God had not made a condition of salvation. Although this may sound pretty broad on the surface, I think it provides us with a wise means of discrimination. If the church is the family of God, and that family consists of all who have been born into it, when I learn what it takes to experience such birth and am born again, I have entered into the fellowship of God and all of his other children. Regardless of the differences which may exist among the children because of spiritual opportunity and maturity, we are all in the fellowship, so long as we retain our common relationship to the Father. Because one man accepts the Sunday School and therefore works differently (in that respect) from the other whose study leads him to reject it, we are not therefore to break the fellowship. The brother may indeed be in error on the Sunday School; his misunderstanding does not therefore make him no longer a child of God but a son of Satan. Suppose the organ in worship is wrong after all; does that mean that the brother whose understanding does not say so is therefore consigned to Hell? Heaven help us if our salvation does indeed depend upon perfect understanding and perfect behavior. I have no doubt that God tolerates mistakes on the part of all of us, so long as we are seeking and really committed to truth. If he does not, we all may as well give up; none of us will be saved. Thank God, though, his grace is not proportioned to our perfection, of understanding or obedience!

Perhaps the best description of the essential unity is found after all in Ephesians 4:4-6. When in One Faith we accept the One Lord, through the testimony and conviction of One Spirit, and yield our wills in the One Baptism, the One God adds us to the One Body, where we share the One Hope. Debate is superfluous at this point —we are thus in the church of God, the fellowship of the saints (saved ones). These are the essentials upon which our unity must be based, upon which we may stand as we study, argue, analyze in the area of opinion —that area where we utilize the human intelligence to grasp the further teaching of Christ together. Such study and deduction belong to what Thomas Campbell called “the after and progressive edification of the church.”

Certainly we should continue to study issues which have divided us in the past —but always as brethren — in the fellowship together — mutually dependent upon the grace which saves us in spite of our imperfect apprehension of total truth.

Thus the motto yet stands, as valid as ever, and with potential for the healing of our divisions. The three elements of the motto are interdependent. Unity in essentials gives us the firm base upon which to allow liberty of opinion. Conversely, the exercise of freedom of study allows us to appreciate more fully the unity we have in the common salvation. But in all things, united in faith and differing in opinion, charity — that attribute in which we best reflect our kinship to God, that grace by which we share with others the special dispensation which God has granted us all through Christ — prevails, and calls us on to perfection. —Graduate School, Texas Tech University, Lubbock 79409

Men come to their meridian at various periods of their lives. - John Henry Newman