Jesus Today . . .

JESUS: THE RESTORATION IDEAL

Now and again in these columns I have expressed misgivings about the idea of restoration, even to suggesting that I might change the name of this journal - as a symbol of my protest if for no other reason. My protest is against restorationism, which I am persuaded has been a weighty liability to our people all these years, not so much to the term restoration, which is subject to varying interpretations.

It is the common interpretation among Churches of Christ-Christian Churches that I question. This comment by the late P. H. Welshimer, minister of the largest Christian Church in the nation, well represents what I am referring to:

While unity is desirable, restoration of the church is more desirable, and in place of spending so much time in talking about unity we had better be about the business of having in every community, the restored church of the New Testament, and when we have that we will have unity, and we will never have it without it.

Anyone who reads my history of the Movement will see that “P. H.,” as they always called him, is one of my heroes, for he was an irenic spirit in a time of great controversy, insisting that there can be peace if each one will “disagree without being disagreeable.” But I believe the man was wrong in the position stated above. His thesis is that unity can come only through a restoration of the New Testament church. And he places restoration above unity in importance!

On the very face of it there is something terribly wrong with this viewpoint, and that is that restoration has not yet brought the church any unity. Moreover, with hundreds of restorationist sects, each claiming to be “the restored church,” it has further divided the church. Restorationism by its very nature tends to be divisive. History proves this to be true. To insist on a unity that comes only through restoration is to forfeit any meaningful plea for the unity of all believers, and this is what has happened in both Christian Churches and Churches of Christ.

Welshimer’s own “restored church” (?) in Canton, Ohio is a case in point. Though it was a great church in many ways, there is no evidence that it did anything substantial for the cause of unity. There were many who left other churches and joined Welshimer’s, but this had no unifying effect upon the church at large in Canton. Building a big church does not necessarily “preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

We have a “restored church of the New Testament,” to use Welshimer’s language, in every town in Texas with a population of 2,000 or more (and usually three or four different kinds of such churches!), but how much unity have they produced? They rather add to the divisiveness, not only in having nothing to do with other churches, but also in being estranged from each other. I dare say that the 300 or more churches of the Restoration Movement in Dallas have done nothing toward unity in all their years in that city. They have simply built churches after their own kind, churches that have nothing to do with other Christians. Such churches cannot really be a unity movement.

Restoration, as usually defined and practiced, is not the answer to a divided church. She who supposes that it is may cite an instance where it has had a unifying effect. We must look for some other answer.

There is an authentic source of restoration, if we choose to use that term, and that is Jesus Christ. There is no other way for people to be restored to God and to each other except through him. There is no doctrinal or theological system that will unify us, nor is there any polity or order of worship upon which we will all agree. It is only in the person of Christ, a love and commitment to him, that we can be one. This is what Paul is saying in Eph. 2: 14: “He is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.” The wall of hostility is whatever separates people, which usually is some form of legalism. Our isms are no more liberating than those of the Jews. Jesus came and preached peace, the apostle tells us, and this peace removed the enmity --- for those who accepted Jesus as the answer. Only one thing can remove that enmity of separation today, and that is the Christ in our hearts.

I recently read with great interest the discussions that took place between leaders of the Roman Catholic Church and the Disciples of Christ in both the United States and Rome. These lines from Sister Agnes Cunningham, in reference to the value of the conference, caught my eye: “It deepened our convictions that the Lord calls us insistently to ‘visible ecclesial unity’; That he is himself the Way by which we journey toward the completion of the oneness that is already ours; that our journey is a continuing pilgrimage.”

Our Roman sister makes no plea for unity in the pope or in the Roman system, for she well knows that no such unity is possible. He is himself the Way!, she avows, and she recognizes that unity is already ours as a gift. It is only to be completed and appropriated. We are one if we be in Christ.

The conference in Rome was on baptism. After the discussions Paul Crow, Jr. of the Disciples gave the pope a copy of the Declaration and Address and a medallion of Campbell and Stone, and told the pope how Barton W. Stone had said, “Let Christian unity be our polar star,” and he quoted Thomas Campbell’s famous line, “The Church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” The discussion on baptism yielded a surprising list of agreements, one being, “In baptism our sins are forgiven, we become a new creation, and we enter into a new relationship with God as his children and as brothers and sisters with each other in Christ.” The Roman Catholics acknowledged the appropriateness of immersion, but on the basis of early Christian tradition also accept other modes.

We have to agree with Barton W. Stone, as set forth in our last issue, that unity in Christ can never be a “water unity.” We are not one because we see baptism alike or because we have been baptized in the same way.

I am persuaded that we have no right to make anything a basis of acceptance of one as a Christian except her or his loyalty to Jesus Christ. Such issues as forms of worship, polity, baptism are to be studied within the fellowship of acceptance, and they cannot be made conditions of acceptance. In a spirit of love we must always bear witness to what we believe the Scriptures to teach on any subject, and we are to practice what we believe to be right. This would include weekly communion and baptism by immersion for the remission of sins. But we are to accept such people as Sister Agnes Cunningham on the same basis that she accepts us, which is the Lordship of Jesus. Jesus is Lord! This was the confession the early saints made and died for, and it should be the basis of our fellowship.

I am resolved not to be a sectarian, and I refuse to make anything a test of fellowship that God has not made a condition for salvation. All believers acknowledge the essentiality of faith and obedience to Jesus Christ, but we have to recognize that we are all at different stages in our maturity in Christ and that we must in loving forbearance help each other grow in truth and grace. It is less than magnanimous for me to have exacting conditions for whom I will fellowship. Magnanimity! that is the secret. To be magnanimous like Jesus is the way to a working fellowship.

I have decided that I can enjoy fellowship with anyone who will have fellowship with me, which implies a restriction that must be recognized. I can love others without their loving me, but fellowship is a two-way relationship. I am not going to impose myself on folk who don’t want fellowship with me. Perhaps that is where Christian unity begins: when we want to be with each other and to work together. We are divided largely because we want to be.

So, I plead for the authentic restoration, a renewal of relationship with God and with each other based upon loyalty to Jesus. When I find a person that loves Jesus, there is an immediate bond between us, for his love draws us together. In that acceptance we can share and grow together, he helping me with my errors and I, to the extent that I can, helping him with his foibles. This is the fellowship of the Spirit that the Scriptures speak of. It is the true restoration. - the Editor