Highlights in Restoration History . . .

ARE WE TO COOPERATE WITH OTHERS?

The Central Church of Christ in Irving, Texas has come under lots of fire lately because of its decision to join the Dallas Area Community of Churches, which enables them to cooperate with other believers in ministering to suffering humanity. They have been berated as disloyal, apostate, and forsaking the old paths for taking such a step, both from our pulpits and in several journals. In the meantime their numbers increase and they have heard from many people all over the country, commending them for their stand.

One journal accused Central of forsaking our historic heritage, which moved me to write the following to the editor, which will be our short history lesson for this month.—the Editor

To the Gospel Advocate:

I just now read your comments on the news item about the Central Church of Christ in Irving in which you invite us readers to weep as well as read. You deem it tragic that they have joined a community of churches for the sake of rendering various ministries of mercy, and I note in particular that you indicate that this is contrary to the practices and principles held to by our forebears—“so long withstood with valor by our fathers” as you put it.

If this is something new for the Churches of Christ in general and the Dallas County churches in particular, it is hardly new when our history is viewed as a whole.

You will remember that when Thomas Campbell was forced to break with the Presbyterians and finally started the Brush Run Church, which he called “a church of Christ,” the first thing he did was to seek membership in an association of Presbyterian churches. When they turned him down, he joined the Redstone Baptist Association of Churches. When this association gave Alexander Campbell some difficulty over such things as his Sermon on the Law, he solved the problem by joining in the effort of their second church in Wellsburg, Virginia. And one of the first things that the new church did was to join the Mahoning Baptist Association, which eventually became the nucleus for the Campbell movement.

As we read such history are we to weep? Was this wrong for them? It never occurred to them that they were compromising any truth through such association or that it meant an endorsement of any error. In fact the Brush Run church had it clearly understood that they were to be free to do their own thing and be their kind of church. As I understand it, this is the situation with the cooperative effort in Dallas: each church preserves its own authenticity, they share a common faith in Jesus as Lord, and cooperate in reaching out to the needy. What could possibly be wrong with this? I say we should rejoice rather than weep.

What our pioneers did in those earliest churches was continued in various ways. Campbell often spoke in the denominational churches, and the ministers of various persuasions were visitors in his home and at the Bethany church. He cooperated with the denominations in translating and publishing the Bible and was a supporter of Bible societies. There is one reference in his travel notes of assembling with the Episcopalians when there was not a congregation of his own. He thought nothing of this and even spoke of “other denominations” with respect and appreciation.

Old John T. Johnson, who was probably our greatest evangelist, was as much this way as Campbell, especially in cooperating with other churches in the Bible Union movement. It had not occurred to me that I should weep over such things. Must we go it alone and be an isolated, exclusivistic folk that presumes to be right while everyone else is wrong? If we must, it is here that we should weep.