Pilgrimage of Joy. . . No. 34

YEARS OF CHANGE
W. Carl Ketcherside

The time has come to try and describe the four most formative years of my life. They were years of change, of study, deep meditation and fervent prayer. They were years of fear mingled with faith. In them I came closer to God than I had ever drawn before. Actually, this period had begun on that Easter Monday in 1951 when I spoke at the little village of Ahorey, in North Ireland, at invitation of the Presbyterian leaders. I stood on the platform where Thomas Campbell had ministered before coming to America.

However, I returned to the United States to engage in debates with brethren. The heady excitement of combat in the forensic arena made it impossible for me to study deeply or to think clearly about the will of God for my future life. But between the years of 1953 and 1957 a great transformation took place.

Out of it came my article “That They All May Be One” in the January issue of Mission Messenger for 1957, and the even more trenchant “Thoughts on Fellowship” in January 1958. These were the initial public presentations of the thoughts which had begun to lodge in my heart. They represented my crossing of the Rubicon, the burning of my bridges behind me. They were the first guns fired in my commitment to an unrelenting war against sectarianism, and especially against my own.

During those years I learned the stern discipline of research and study. I read every word of the five volume Lard’s Quarterly, the seven volume Christian Baptist, and as many bound volumes of the Millennial Harbinger as were available to me. It became apparent to me that we had departed so far from the original spirit and intent of the restoration ideal that it was a travesty upon justice to claim that we were the same movement. It soon became obvious to me that no splinter of the movement was the one holy, catholic and apostolic church of God upon earth, and that all of our fragmented groups taken together did not constitute the body of Christ in its fullness.

I was able to distinguish between the body as a divine organism conceived in the mind of God, and movements within it launched by the thinking of men like Luther, Calvin, Wesley, Campbell or Stone. It became apparent that the first great error of the heirs of the reformers was the equating of the movement with the Lord’s church, thereby adding another religious party or sect to the already overburdened landscape. I became convinced that we had not achieved the original purpose of uniting the Christians in all of the sects. The magnificent myth which had driven us on relentlessly to war against all sectarianism but our own was the fantasy that we were exclusively the body of Christ upon earth. It was a solemn thought to me that I had brothers and sisters meeting behind other signboards, and that we were saved by a Savior and not by a signboard. My growing conviction led to the article “The Sheep on the Hills.” I could see that God’s flock was scattered and not yet gathered.

I was led to investigate within their context every scripture I had ever employed to justify division among the saints of God. It was a frightening experience. As I read Amos 3:3; 6:5; Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 1:10; 2 Thessalonians 3:6, and other such passages and saw how we had wrested them, I began to wonder if I had ever been right upon anything. One after another my usage of such passages was taken from me. I began to mistrust my judgment. I was driven to my knees and sought the understanding of God’s will with tears. I wept much to realize that at the very time when I thought I was serving him I was actually dividing his children by my interpretations. It was several years before I wrote the first edition of my book “The Twisted Scriptures” but all of the time the Spirit of God was illuminating me as I surrendered more and more to His claims. I was driven to him by loneliness for in those days there was no one else to whom I could talk.

It was a difficult thing to overcome pride and ambition. I had been for so long a recognized leader of a faction in the religious complex that I sought for some way to hold on to my past and maintain integrity with the present. One day, after months of introspection I sat down at my desk and wrote, “I have been in the wrong about fellowship all of my life. Today I renounce that wrong. I will no longer try to make my increasing knowledge consistent with my past teaching. That teaching was in error.” I recall as if it were yesterday how I felt when I read what I had written. It was as if fetters had been struck from my mind. New insights began to flood my soul so fast I could hardly write them down. It was as if a dam had broken inside me. I have never felt quite so clean and pure as I did that day.

People began to write and tell me I had changed. To them that was the unpardonable sin. They equated our past position with the will of God and to leave our feeble human thought and go on to greater heights was forsaking the truth. They would quote for me things I had written in the past and ask me if I still believed them. To all of them I wrote, “You are right, I have changed, and as I learn new truths I will change again. I have signed my declaration of independence from all of the errors of the past, and I shall pray that God will open up your heart to renounce yours as I have mine.”

I resolved that I would never again debate publicly with any brother. I would never again represent any party, sect or schism. I would never again allow myself to be selected and thrust forward by the partisans of any school of thought to defend their opinions and deductions. I would stand or fall to my own Master and I would allow all others to do the same. It came as a great relief to realize that never again would I have to spend weeks trying to figure out what an opponent might say and how I would parry his thrust. Since the moment I made my promise to the Father that I would never again debate, I have become increasingly convinced of the folly of attempting to arrive at truth or alleviate division by such a ridiculous procedure. If a community is not divided before a debate it will always be after one is held. The very psychology of our modern debating is divisive.

As I studied the past it became evident that men like myself who had learned new truths always made two errors. The result was an intensification of the sectarian spirit. In the first place, they left where they were and went with those who had taught them the new truth. This took the new truth out of the place where it was most sadly needed and put it in a place where it was already present. I resolved not to go anywhere but to stay where I was, regardless of what happened. If I could not serve God among those whom I knew best I would not be liable to do so among others.

Secondly, those who learned new truths usually tried to bind them upon others. In their joy at learning something meaningful to them they wanted to press it on everyone whom they met. Their new brainchild meant so much to them they wanted everyone else to become pregnant immediately. This always caused cleavages in the body. I resolved to share my ideas but never to allow them to become dogmas. I was resolute in my determination never to form a clique or club. As I wrote in my paper, I refused to be bought off or scared off and expected to remain where I was for the duration.

I urged all others to stay where they were until driven out. It appeared to me that the way to unite was to unite. The way to halt division was to stop dividing. It seemed sensible that if everyone remained where he was this would preclude the formation of new parties, and while this would not lessen the number it would freeze them at the present level. It was my conviction that time would heal many of the breaches and bridge many of the chasms. In any event, the formation of new parties or sects, or the changing from one party to another would not achieve the purpose of God. To shift from one party to another does not eliminate problems. It only subjects one to new and unfamiliar problems with which he is not by experience qualified to deal.

I did not feel it was proper for me to continue without informing the brethren with whom I was laboring of my radical change of thought. The elders agreed to set up six two-hour periods on successive Saturday evenings and invite all who wished to come. I was to speak an hour and then answer questions from the audience for an hour. The meetings were well-attended and orderly, although somewhat tense. I loved and respected all of the brethren. I knew how they felt. I had taught them what they believed and had led them in its implementation. Now I was occupying the same speaker’s platform to tell them I had been wrong.

I discussed with them the name of the church and told them it had no official title. The primitive ekklesia represented the called-out ones and they were known, not by a title, but by their love for one another. They were identified by where they met, and we should name the place so we could find them geographically, but not name the church to distinguish it from other believers, for that meant to denominate it.

I dealt with the “five steps to salvation” and showed that we were not saved by climbing a little ladder into the kingdom. Rather we were drawn up by an “escalator.” We simply took the step of faith and the grace of God, as an unseen power drew us up into repentance and immersion into the precious Lord. It was His power and not ours which accomplished His purpose and we never left the faith we had in the beginning to go on to the next step.

I discussed the nature of worship and showed the folly of “five acts of worship” when everything that one did on earth under the sovereignty of Jesus was an expression of worship. Under Jesus there are no holy places, holy days or holy things, but only a holy people. I discussed the nature and composition of the one body and showed that it was composed of every person on earth who had answered the call of God. We should not ask people, “Which church are you a member of?” because there is only one. There never has been another and never will be. Our purpose should be to receive all whom God receives and as He received them.

I showed the difference between the gospel and the doctrine. The gospel consists of seven historical facts. The testimony to these must be believed. The doctrine consists of a course of instruction. It refers to that which is taught. It requires understanding and rationalization. We are saved by faith, not by how much we learn and know, but by whom we know. It was also pointed out that God probably did not respect any of our lines of demarcation and division because He did not create them. We liked them because they gave us a sense of security, but it was a false security based upon human opinion.

We did not lose a person. I am working today with the same congregations with which I have always worked. And I am welcome in hundreds more. Through the grace of God, with few exceptions, the places where I had worked outgrew their narrow and inclusive views in the Saint Louis area, and are as comforting to me as I try to be to them as we grow older in years and in the faith.