Pilgrimage of Joy. . . No. 58

THE WONDERS OF KOINONIA
W. Carl Ketcherside

As the time drew nearer for the announced demise of Mission Messenger, we were besieged by offers to take it over and continue it. A good many of these offered to continue it in the manner to which it had been accustomed. I steadfastly refused all of these. It was my contention that no one else could edit the paper as I had done. Thirty-seven years of trial and error had stamped it with the impress of my personality and thought. It was a baby which Nell and I had conceived and to which we had given birth. It was a part of us. The transfer of it to another was as unthinkable as it would have been to give one of our grandchildren to someone else to raise.

When that did not work we kept getting offers to buy our mailing list. It was just under ten thousand and consisted of many who had already been introduced to buying books by mail. I stubbornly refused to sell it. It seemed to me it would be a complete betrayal of trust. Those who sent a subscription want the paper. They did not want to receive a fistful of mail every day advertising everything from neckties to cheese. When I announced that the mailing list was not for sale, I was told that everyone else was doing it. Some even became a little huffy and sarcastic. But none of these things moved me and we quit with our list --- and our honor --- intact.

Of course, a great many who lamented our planned discontinuance wrote begging us to continue. This was especially true of those who had recently started to read the little journal and who wanted to absorb more of my thinking. It was also the case with those who had been subscribers from the beginning. It had been like one of the family to them. I wrote them all, thanking them for their confidence, but telling them that I wanted the paper to die in my arms and lay it gently to rest. I did not want to see it go out with its back against the wall and the baying hounds moving in for the kill. A great many editors have continued too long and have done as much damage in their final few years as they did good in all of the previous decades of their writing.

Besides that, I had a lot of reading I wanted to do, and a lot of personal work that I wanted to perform. There were miles to go before I could sleep. There had always been certain inhibitions created by having to get out the paper. I felt that when I mailed out the last issue and laid down the pen it would give me a sense of freedom I had not known for years. But meanwhile I was in the final year and I made some serious and far-reaching suggestions to the brethren which would get us off the sectarian hook on which we had impaled ourselves. These were all bound together in the book “One in Christ.” It has long ago sold out.

In August of 1975, I went to the congregation at New Liberty, near Windsor, Illinois for their centennial. It was a beautiful old meetinghouse out in the country. I had held meetings there when I was just coming into manhood. I had baptized scores of people in the nearby Kaskaskia River. It was only about three miles from Sand Creek, where Daniel Sommer had read his fateful Address and Declaration which started us down the long road of fighting and division. Only eternity will reveal the cost of the strife which began with that lethal dose. When I first went to the area I was not only a victim, but an actual practitioner of the sectarian spirit. Now I rejoiced to see the descendants of those who had sued each other in the courts sitting together in heavenly places.

Less than a week later I was back at a family camp in Mechanicsville, near Richmond, Virginia. I delivered four addresses which were entitled: Can the Home Survive the Shock?; How to Keep From Coming Unglued; Who Is Raising Whom These Days?; and Darling, You Are Growing Old. I ran the entire gamut of life experiences from the purpose of the home through marriage, parenthood and old age. It was easy to talk to those who were eager to listen and we rejoiced to be with each other in the Lord.

I went next to the Area Men’s Meeting in Chicago. It was great to be back with the men who worked in the city which Carl Sandburg called “Hog Butcher of the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat.” I went over to visit the inner city work. It was doing good but I came away with a feeling that culturally we are ill-adapted as a people to penetrate the hard shell of the city. There are no doubt enough people in Chicago from a restoration movement background to make a congregation many times the size of any we have there. But they are hiding. They are running from themselves. Our rural, Southern-oriented, social culture and life-style has not equipped us to face the problems of a black, Oriental and Southern European conglomeration. It was great to talk and visit and eat with men who had accepted Satan’s dare. But it was obvious that we needed a radical reformation, one that cut to the bone.

My very next work was a totally different kind. I was with the Northland Christian Church in Danville, Illinois. The congregation had a lovely structure in which to meet, and was composed of good middle-class Americans. It was a distinct change from the drug-pushing, prostitute-ridden, gang-harassed Chicago streets. It made me feel the force of “East is east and West is west, and never the twain shall meet.” I will confess that this has been a source of a lot of anxiety to me. I have always held that the blood of Jesus will cleanse anyone regardless of how filthy, dirty and scabby his sins may have made him. I have an almost unconquerable urge to button-hole people on the streets and tell them about the grace of God. I’m drawn by a deep inner compulsion, a sense of destiny, a real deep-down feeling that makes me want to go down highways and alleys and compel them to come in.

Next I went to Orrville, Ohio. If you do not know, this is the home of Smucker’s --- the jam people. Years ago the German family of Smucker began making apple butter on a small scale for sale to the neighbors. As time went on their fame spread and their business grew in Ohio like that of Walter Knott had in California. Now they process thousands of tons of fruit, as well as making sorghum, honey and peanut butter. They have become “jam merchants to the world.” Several of the members worked for them. The Smuckers had Anabaptist roots and this is evidenced in the town. It is a lovely and clean place, like German-oriented towns often are. Kenneth Baldwin ministered to a congregation of gracious and diversified folk.

The following week I was in Flora, Illinois to address the Southern Illinois Christian Convention. The town was named after the Roman goddess of flowers, whose festival, the Floralia, was inaugurated in Rome 250 years before Jesus was born. The meetings were held at First Christian Church which has in excess of 1250 members. I taught an afternoon workshop and spoke at night. The auditorium was filled to capacity.

I went next to Piqua, Ohio, which has a history reaching back before we gained our freedom from English domination. In 1749 a fort and trading post were established here. The town was incorporated as Washington in 1807, the same year Thomas Campbell left Ireland for America on the good ship Brutus. The name of the town was changed to Piqua in 1823. Dave Huddlestun was working with the congregation while I was there with the brethren.

It was while I was there I met Dr. Marcus Miller. He had just written a book “Roots By The River.” He sent me a copy. I devoured it. I read it with such avidity I could hardly put it down until I had read every word of it. The preface begins with these words: “This is a commentary and a history of the Tunkers or the Old German Baptist Brethren who settled in the upper Great Miami and Stillwater Valleys of Ohio. It attempts to reveal a little of the personalities and human nature of those who lived in these valleys, a little of the physical and a little of the spiritual sufferings which they encountered, and a little of the thinking that went into some of the courses which they chose to take.”

The book details the divisions which beset the “old Brethren.” Like ourselves they were caught up in the frightful tensions which tore at a movement that was far removed from the social climate of ancient Judea, and like ourselves they had their “progressives” and “Faithful Brethren.” They had problems with protracted or revival meetings, with Sunday Schools and with Social Meetings. They resisted bitterly a “salaried or paid ministry which was believed to be against the apostolic order.” They had problems with the bicycle of which was designated “a modern invention, popular in the world and creeping into the church.” In 1925 they wrestled with the radio, and later with television as “an influence for evil.” One of the biggest hassles was over the starting of Christian schools. Another was over the introduction of the automobile. Hours were spent in denouncing Ford and Chevrolet for leading us down a road with no ending. As I read this interesting volume, I could see our own movement on almost every page of this much older and more venerable attempt to “restore the primitive order.” I was deeply indebted to Dr. Miller who still wears the “plain clothes” including the coat with the standing collar.

Incidentally, the Dunkard Brethren, in 1911, reached a dress decision which has been binding ever since. It includes the following statement: “That the brethren wear their hair and beard in a plain and sanitary manner. That the mustache alone is forbidden. Parting the hair in the middle or coming it straight back is recommended for both brethren and sisters.” The Dunkard Brethren should not be confused with the Old Order German Baptist Brethren. They have a common origin, but there have arisen differences which have driven them apart. Does that sound familiar to you?

My next trip was to Meadville, Pennsylvania. I found the congregation meeting a couple of blocks from the campus of Allegheny College. The college was started in 1815 and chartered in 1817. It was loosely affiliated with the Methodist Church and was noted for its library of 140,000 volumes. Ida M. Tarbell, who was a native of Erie County, had written “A Life of Abraham Lincoln” in 1900. In preparing for it she amassed a tremendous collection of Lincolniana which she left to the school. I went to the campus and was walking across it when I heard my name called. I was surprised to see a man whom I knew. He had grown up in the Churches of Christ but had long since gone to the Disciples of Christ. He was head of a department at the school. We felt that it was providential that I just happened to be walking across the campus so we could meet.

There were several brethren from the non-instrument congregations who attended the meetings. Some came from as far away as Youngstown, Ohio. The auditorium was filled each night and we had a glorious time. Nothing marred our kinship with one another and the fellowship was unabated. I stayed with Brother and Sister Hessler and it was truly “a home away from home.” After the meetings at night a group of brethren would go with us to the hospitable home, and we would talk until almost midnight.

I have thought a lot about the wonders of koinonia. As William Barclay says, it is such a rich word that no single English term can describe it. It literally means “to share a common life.” The New English Version so renders it every time it occurs. But the common life we share is that of the Spirit. It is not just putting up with one another, or enduring each other. It is at once so beautiful and thrilling that nothing else can ever take its place in the association of Christians. I think it was one of the grandest things that God ever did for us, the providing of a relationship that is so intimate and full it transcends our differences.