THE PRINCIPLE OF GENERAL DEVOTION

The words on our front cover speak volumes in reference to the renewal of the church in our time. Mark them well;

It is the image of Christ the Christian looks for and loves, and this does not consist in being exact in a few items, but in general devotion to the whole truth as far as known.

Alexander Campbell realized that a sect by its very nature makes a big deal out of those doctrines peculiar to itself to the neglect of general devotion. Each party has “the issues” by which virtually everything and everybody is judged. A church or a preacher is sound or faithful, not so much in terms of his general commitment to Jesus, but in reference to his response to the issues agitated by the party judging him. Many a preacher has become a “heretic,” not because of disloyalty to Jesus as Lord, but for veering from the party line.

A brother in our Denton congregation, who once lived in Abilene, told me of his reaction to the big debate held there some years ago between two machos on the “institutional question,” the place of Herald of Truth in particular. He told of how the college students wept over the internecine conflict. His own impression was that if the Christian faith is so involved and meticulous in detail as the debate implied, then it can hardly be good news, for the common man has no way of putting together such a jigsaw puzzle.

But those who are of this persuasion are willing to draw the line on their sisters and brothers, rejecting them as “liberal,” no matter how devoted to the faith such ones are generally. And it is this general devotion that we should seek to cultivate. If a sister practices the presence of Christ in her life every day and every hour, seeking to emulate his sweet gentleness in her life, I should have no problem in bearing with her “Charismatic kick,” as some are calling it. Does her life generally conform to the Christian profession? If so, I should not be so concerned over a few details in which I suppose she is wrong. It is a hard lesson to learn, perhaps because we are so hung up on details.

Our pioneers, who put together this Reformation movement (and it is noteworthy that they did not call it a Restoration), were aware that a reformation can never be based on details but must always be grounded in general truths. Robert Richardson stated this well in a series on “Reformation” in the Millennial Harbinger (Vol. 18, p. 504):

“The history of Christianity, indeed, from its very origin until now, might surely suffice to show how utterly vain and hopeless is the attempt to induce the world to adopt any particular set of opinions or system of doctrines which can be devised by human skill.”

Our own recent history shows how “utterly vain” such an effort is. We ourselves are divided into a dozen or more parties, each with its set of doctrines, and we cannot even induce our own folk to adopt one particular set, much less the world.

Richardson pointed to one principle that formed the essence of the reformation effort of which he was part, and the only principle that presents a basis for unity: a generalization of Christianity. In the same essay he put the same idea in a different way: That alone which saves men can unite them. Referring to the obvious distinction between the Bible and the gospel, the doctor reminds his readers that the apostles preached the gospel, which saves and unites men, before they had the Bible. “Let the Bible be our spiritual library,” he said, “but let the Gospel be our standard of orthodoxy.” The Bible is the means to perfection, he noted, but it is “Christian profession” that is our formula for unity.

Richardson is saying that we should make nothing a test of fellowship that God has not made a condition for salvation, which reformers have been saying since the time of John Locke. The Bible is the word of God, and, as Richardson says, it is our spiritual library, but it is not, as such, the gospel. There are many details of doctrine in Scripture, some very difficult to understand, that the church never has and never will understand alike. But the gospel—the general truths of what God has done for us through Christ—is understandable to us all, and it is the gospel, not all the details in the Bible, that is given of God to save and unite the lost world.

In the same series (Vol. 19, p. 73) Richardson names two errors that have been an obstruction to unity and fellowship. One is that parties in their terms of communion have “gone too much in detail,” and the other is that they have made opinions formularies of faith. The first error violates Christian liberty in that it dictates in matters not essential to salvation. The second error violates the one great truth that there should be one gospel faith. Then he lays down an epigram that should be proclaimed throughout the land, not excluding our schools of preaching: It is as essential to unity that there should be a universal faith as it is to diversity that there should be an individual opinion.

That really puts the finger on what ails us. We have “gone too much in detail” in our standard for accepting each other, and as a consequence we have not preserved the unity that is based upon the one catholic faith, and we have lost the diversity that depends on individual opinions freely held.

Doctrinal details, when properly interpreted, are of course important. But they are for “the after edification of the church,” as Thomas Campbell put it in his memorable Declaration and Address, and are not to be made terms of acceptance.

The principle of general devotion gives us a sense of proportion. We have had too many leaders in the church who were “exact in a few items,” but who were less than exemplary in their business dealings, or in the way they treated their wives, or in generally manifesting the spirit of Christ. Yes, and we have too many Churches of Christ that are far more church than they are Christian. There are lots of churches, to be sure, but how many of them are truly the Body of Christ? Such a question speaks more to the character of the people than to how “sound” they are in a few items. Scripturally speaking, that is what sound doctrine is, the wholesome teaching that transforms one more and more to the likeness of Jesus.

May the Lord give us more generalists and fewer specialists. The specialists impose upon us their favorite bag, anti this or anti that, or pro this or pro that, while the generalists, in the tradition of Campbell and Richardson, think in terms of an overall devotion to Jesus Christ, even if there are a few weak spots here and there.

In writing this essay I think of the emphasis of Alfred North Whitehead in his Aims of Education, in which he claims that our schools try to teach too many subjects and thus miss what should be the aim of all education, Life in all its manifestations. Too much knowledge is inert, he charges. It must come alive and relate to life. So teachers should not get bogged down in so many details (‘tis better to learn one language well than a smattering of several!), and thus teach less and teach it better.

That is something like what we are saying to the church. Our overall aim should be Christlikeness. In pursuing that goal we might teach less (fewer details) and teach it better.—the Editor