SHALL WE “HANG IN” OR LEAVE?

All across the land we have people in Churches of Christ that have about had it when it comes to our dictatorial exclusiveness and petty sectarianism. They are something of a “silent majority” amongst the rank and file. Not always a majority perhaps, but at least a substantial minority. And not always silent, but usually so since there is little chance to be otherwise. Many are being heard from, to be sure, and they are causing things to happen. In another column of this issue there is an account of 170 who recently walked out of one of Dallas’ mainline Churches of Christ in protest of creedalism.

I know enough about our congregations to realize that there are scores of folk in most all congregations that are treading water, endeavoring to stay up and stay sane in a sea of bewildering parochialism. I have long been convinced that if the claims of this journal could be set forth fairly and responsibly that a majority of the rank and file of our people would applaud the effort. Much of the leadership would also be favorably inclined, but they would be more fearful of the changes we call for. But all such reformatory efforts have to struggle for the narrowest beachhead. The poetic insight “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne” applies to us all who seek higher climes.

The entrenched isms, including professionalism and traditionalism, have the money, the press, the real estate, and the captive audiences. Those of us who love our people to the degree that we want to see them make those changes that will liberate and encourage must realize the odds that are against us. But truth, ah truth, can do wondrous things in the face of impossible difficulties. And if those of us who seek to reform (starting always with ourselves of course) do not believe we have the angels on our side, then we should back off from the whole thing right now.

Many of our brightest minds and most spiritual souls have already left, and we must realize that there will be more of this. Hundreds, if not thousands, could write a letter similar to this one that comes from Atlanta, from one who formerly served on the faculty of a Christian college, a most talented and dedicated person.

I feel as if I’m adding a chapter to “Why I Left” or “Voices of Concern,” and while I’m doing so I recall (with admiration for you) your stated determination not to be driven off by your brethren. I have “left!” and am actively engaged in musical activities and Bible teaching in a Presbyterian church.

But why? I believe we were a threat to the fine people where we formerly worked. And they represented to us a fixed wall past which we could not grow. In a real sense we had to leave home. We are still “Campbellites” and nothing can change that. We enjoy working with the group the Campbells left. We are still Christians only, wearing no man’s label. Contrary to the expressed concern of some, we have not left the Body of Christ. I can’t imagine how that would be possible for a Christian. I feel no need to still all the worried hearts. It would in fact be impossible.

There is only one answer as to what our attitude should be toward such disillusioned brothers and sisters: keep right on loving and accepting them just the same, and, to the degree it is possible, keep in touch with them in the tenderness of Christ. It would be appropriate if some of us could go with them to their new church home for a visit, and seek to understand why the new environment has met needs that we did not. Never to argue, but to love and share. And continue to include them in social affairs, and look for those opportunities for them to visit their old home church, to show them that they are still loved and accepted. At the very least we must realize (and cause them to see that we realize) that they haven’t left Jesus just because they’ve left us. Maybe we couldn’t do what they’ve done, but then we are not they. They are marching to a different drumbeat. Ro. 14:4 speaks to this: “Who are you to pass judgment on someone else’s servant? Whether he stands or falls is his own Master’s business.”

Then there are those with a different kind of problem, as reflected in this letter from Virginia (the state of Virginia, that is!)

Leroy, I am perplexed at this time. Three or four families who have been very close to us for several years, and who have been such an encouragement to us as we went through some trials, are now at the point of leaving the Church of Christ and starting a house church, which will conflict time-wise and geography-wise with the congregation. I am not opposed to their leaving if they feel led to do so, but I am distressed at the pressures this action will bring on the lives of many people. One of the men was an elder, whom I claimed as “my spiritual father,” I am really pushed by their action. My firm feeling right now is to “hang in there” in spite of many discouragements, because there are more good things happening in individual lives than there are bad things. People are breaking out of bondage, one by one. Praise God! But, because of my desire to stay and our friends’ desire to leave, some tension has set in. Please pray about this. Perhaps you can offer some helpful observations.

I wish we could persuade all such restive brethren not to leave and start a house church, at least not in a way as to leave the congregation completely. House churches are just great for our needs so long as they are kept supplemental to congregational life, and so long as they are kept open to all and not made exclusive. House churches have a way of wearing down once the initial brush fire enthusiasm has burned away, and people are left disappointed and separated. Or it has to go through the ordeal of “becoming a congregation,” which may soon have problems as great as those left behind. And once people really leave—a bridge-burning kind of departure—it is almost impossible for there not to be bitter feelings, and there is not likely to be a return home. Leaving is like a divorce, a failure on someone’s part. It should be resorted to only as a last, last alternative.

But some folk have to leave. That is a fact in the history of all reformations. When this proves necessary, we can only plead that it be done in love and without a spirit of faction. Separations do not have to be divisions in that the Body is actually torn, for brethren in a spirit of love can decide to work in different fields. This must admittedly be a rare accomplishment.

To those who are either discouraged or disgusted I would urge that you “hang in;” realizing that changes are brought about only from within. If we really love our people, we must stay with them even when it is difficult. Each must believe that the Lord will find a way with each one right where he is. “Grow where you have been planted” is not an empty cliche for these uneven times. And one must believe that better times are coming. Things are changing in the Spirit’s direction. Not only among us, but throughout the catholic church. That God’s community upon earth is going to become more and more after His image must not be questioned. How much we in the Churches of Christ are going to help bring this about is the question. I personally believe that this can be great, for the Restoration heritage has much to offer. As we sit among dead, tradition-bound, secularly-oriented congregations, we must not forget that heritage. Our forebears were reformers in the church that has always needed reformation. They taught us that the church will probably never be ideal, but that it is our task to be at work within her, helping to move her in each generation closer to that ideal.

Only recently I heard a reforming Methodist, laboring within his own context for that one, great, spiritual community of God on earth. Praise God that he is using this man where he is! He is talking to Methodists, in their language and out of their history, of a better and more spiritual way. It would be folly for me to try to take him from his own people, converting him to the Church of Christ. He should paddle for the old ship Zion where God has dropped him down. And I think it would be equal folly for me to become a Methodist, even if I didn’t really become one, and thus cut myself off from my own roots.

I met with a group of Roman Catholics a few times recently, some of them being business associates of ours, who are really turned on to Jesus. In their own “sanctuary,” with their priest sitting with us, I laid before them a long view of the scheme of redemption in scripture, God’s eternal purpose in Christ. These folk want their people to get with it and turn to Jesus, and they are working to that end in various mini-meetings. How foolish it would be for me to try to bring them into “the Church of Christ,” where they would become mere spectators of our own particular set of traditions. We are not really reformers until we have the larger view of God working on many fronts through all sorts of “unheard of” people. Knowing these people’s views of things, I could well say, “You are not really Roman Catholics!” But that is what it is all about these days, whether it be among Baptists, Lutherans, or Church of Christers - and let’s face it, there is a Church of Christism. But to a lot of such ones we can say, “You are not really a Lutheran” or “You are not really a Church of Christer,” which only means that God is at work through His Spirit in such a way that sectarian lines are being ignored and transgressed.

This is why it is untrue that some of us are only creating still another sect, a “unity sect.” This charge hasn’t had much success, but it is still being made in the thunder from the right. How can anyone be promoting a sect who says what I have just said and who discourages people from leaving where they are to come where he is. A sectarian leader always does that. Since only his group is right, others have to leave where they are and come to him. To the contrary, we urge people not to leave where they are, but to peacefully (not factiously) work for reform in their own situation. To call that a “unity sect” is to grossly abuse the meaning of sect.

One further word to those who might grow weary of hanging in. We must not forget the doctrine of the remnant in scripture, in both Testaments. “If God had not left unto us a small remnant. . .” is a principle for all history. There are going to be but a few even in the churches who really seek God. We should resolve to be in that number, and to allow God to use us in ministering to others in His remnant. Turning it all over to the Lord, including our own lives, is what it is all about. If we are of this disposition, the Lord will use us in his way and to God’s glory—and to our own ultimate good both in this world and the world to come.—the Editor