Blessed are the Peacemakers . . .

PEACE BY WAY OF A LARGER VIEW

We cannot even be at peace with ourselves, not to mention being peacemakers at large, if our world is so small that we cannot see beyond our party walls or have anything to do with anyone who does not crow from our perch. “This plan of making our own nest,” as Alexander Campbell put it in his debate with Rice, “and fluttering over our own brood; of building our own tent, and of confining all goodness and grace to our noble selves and the ‘elect few’ who are like us, is the quintessence of sublimated pharisaism.”

The reformer may appear to over do it when he goes on to say that the old Pharisees were but babes in comparison to the modern ones, and that he is convinced that there is but one way to explain the sectarian spirit, and that is that it is the offspring of hell! But he includes himself in his judgment, explaining that “I was once so straight, that, like the Indian’s tree, I leaned a little the other way. I was so strict a separatist that I would neither pray nor sing praises with anyone who was not as perfect as I supposed myself. In this most unpopular course I persisted until I discovered the mistake, and saw that on the principles embraced in my conduct, there never could be a congregation or church upon earth. “

Campbell could hardly think of himself as a peacemaker in those days when he acted as a Pharisee. He could not come down hard enough on that kind of religion: “To lock ourselves up in the bandbox of our own little circle; to associate with a few units, tens, or hundreds, as the pure church, as the elect, is real Protestant monkery, it is evangelical pharisaism.” He was a “modern Pharisee” that changed into a peacemaker. We would all do well to follow him as he followed Christ. But if we are concerned for peace we must break out of our little bandbox and discover the larger Christian world.

I am writing these lines while at Kentucky Christian College in the foothills of the Appalachians in eastern Kentucky, where I am teaching a short course on our history. And history has laid her hand on these parts. The Blue and the Gray fought in these hills and vales, and many of our pioneers responded to “Our Plea” from these hollows. It is probable that more gospel, certainly the “primitive gospel,” has been preached in this state than any other region of the world. Within a stone’s throw of my apartment is a historic marker, reminding the visitor that veterans of the Civil War, foes and comrades alike, met on these grounds for forty years, until they all passed on. They told stories, sang the old ballads, and repaired to the hill above them to visit the graves of their buddies who fell in battle.

But I was able to reach out and touch a bit of history when I accompanied Fred Waggoner, who is on the staff at the college, on Lord’s day into the very heart of Appalachia, down south to Beattyville, into the region where Daniel Boone once walked, and walked, and walked, to visit the Christian Church (or Church of Christ). Fred tells me he has started several churches and never considered calling them anything except Church of Christ, and he was 29 years old before he knew there was such a thing as “non-instrument” Churches of Christ. There are many Churches of Christ in these parts, but nearly all the older ones adopted the organ along with Sunday Schools and stained-glass windows, and never thought much about it until recent years when some came with the “non-instrument” gospel, insisting that they would have to divide, if necessary, to be a true Church of Christ.

We breakfasted in Mt. Sterling and, of course, we had to talk about old Raccoon John Smith, who lived there much of his life. When Campbell first came into his area in 1824, Raccoon tried to get his Baptist folk to invite the reformer to Mt. Sterling, but they could not bear to be so liberal as that. So old Raccoon took off on horseback to hear him for himself, and what a wonderful change that wrought in his life!

But it was at Beattyville that the real fun began, for I got to see the “sacred desk” that long stood in the old Main St. church in Lexington, the one used during the Campbell-Rice debate. Various agencies among us have been after that old heirloom, but the church is not going to part with it. When I was invited to speak, I stepped behind that old pulpit, which is slung surprisingly low, especially for tall Texans, and explained that my remarks would be based upon something that Alexander Campbell said in that debate back in 1843 behind that very desk.

Rice was needling Campbell for his so-called “reformation,” charging that he was only starting another sect, “Sir,” the old sage responded, “Ours is a catholic religion. It is not Roman Catholic or Greek Catholic, but it is very catholic.” Campbell always loved that term, and he was not about to surrender it to some sect that would corrupt it with some such limitation as Roman.

“We have a catholic Bible,” he went on to say to Rice, “in that we accept no human creed as our rule of faith and practice, but the Scriptures only, which all believers can accept. We have a catholic name in that we call ourselves Disciples or Christians, on which all believers can unite. We have a catholic baptism, immersion, which is admitted by all to be Scriptural. We have a catholic creed in that we base our faith upon that grand proposition that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” And he nailed it all down with, “So, sir, you will never make a sect of us!”

Campbell was being a peacemaker in that speech. Even Rice the Presbyterian, as recalcitrant as he was, could be a Christian only, though not perhaps a Baptist or a Methodist. And he could surrender his Confession of Faith (they then made what it said a test of fellowship) and accept the Scriptures only for the sake of unity. And laying aside all the artificial confessions devised by man, why not unite upon that confession made by Peter, the Golden Oracle that Jesus is the Christ, and make that the only test of fellowship. How can you be more unsectarian than that, how more catholic? All believers will concede that immersion is Scriptural, while it is other modes that are suspect. That is catholicity.

Well, they seemed pleased with what I had to say. Some of them had never even seen a “non-instrument Church of Christ” man before; but one sister who has seen such critters confided that “You seem to be different.” I assured her that she had worlds of sisters and brothers in Texas and Tennessee who, just like me, would love and accept her as a full blood sister in the Lord.

The only thing that left them puzzled that I did not take the time to explain was that in my own “non-instrument” church in Denton, Texas we nonetheless had two pianos. Just how a church could be non-instrument and still have two instruments was something that surpassed Appalachian logic, and I think they were satisfied to pass it off as Texas logic. I should have explained that we have a day school that uses the pianos, and that we have both sisters and brothers who would scale the pianos and lock them with hands and feet before they would allow one of them to play during what we call “worship,” which just may be a logic all its own. But that there are Churches of Christ in Texas who do not make the instrument a test of fellowship was good news in Beattyville, Kentucky.

Whether Beattyville or Denton, or Texas or Kentucky, or Christian Churches or Churches of Christ, are we truly catholic in the tradition of Alexander Campbell? If we see the Christian Church only in terms of the Standard, or the NACC, or CBS, or KCC or Johnson, then we are not truly catholic. If we see the Church of Christ as those who are true to “the five acts of public worship” and have only acapella music, then we are not truly catholic. If we see the Christian Church or Church of Christ, and the terms mean exactly the same thing, as the Body of Christ and made up of all those the world over who are baptized believers, then our view is truly catholic, and we can say Amen! to what Campbell said to Rice. And, yes, with that view of things, we will never be a sect.

Since he was a peacemaker with a larger view of things, Campbell could talk about uniting the Christians in all the sects. That implies, of course, that there are Christians out there among the sects, otherwise there would be none to unite. So long as we are exclusivists, fluttering over our own brood, and claiming to be the only Christians, we can be neither peacemakers nor a unity movement. Nothing is more contrary to a unity plea than to be so separated as to have no fellowship whatever with other Christians. If we are the only Christians, then there are no Christians to unite except ourselves, and what kind of unity movement is that?

Sir, ours is a catholic religion! Very catholic! I buy that. And let us sound it forth, wherever we are standing, from every “sacred desk.” And let us allow no one to make a sect of us—including ourselves!—the Editor