MYTHS ABOUT THE RESTORATION MOVEMENT (3)
W. Carl Ketcherside

Those who claim to be heirs of “the restoration movement” launched by those stalwart and worthy Presbyterians, the Campbells and others, believe they have restored the church which Jesus built. For this reason that movement is now universally referred to as “The Church of Christ.” This implies that only those who are allied with it are in the kingdom of heaven and have any hope of being saved eventually. Some narrow it down still more. They recognize as “children of the light” only those who are members of the specific party or faction with which they are allied. Those who have defected from them for conscience’ sake and have flaked off are regarded as heretics. It is thought they are rejected of the Father because they are no longer received by the party.

It is a common resort to select five or six things prominent in the original body as established by Jesus, and attempt to prove the movement is identical with it by showing that these things are basic to both. Obviously, such matters as the community of goods, foot-washing, and the holy kiss are explained away or dealt with facetiously by those who make the argument. This is also a common method employed by the Catholic Church which “believes that Christ founded the Catholic Church to guarantee and preach his divine revelation; that he promised it his divine assistance even to the consummation of the world.” This is a statement by Joseph H. Cavanaugh, of Notre Dame University, in his book “Evidence For Our Faith.”

In his chapter entitled “Marks of the Church,” he affirms that “The marks of the church are external, objective signs by which the Catholic Church can certainly be known as the authentic Church of Christ.” His marks are unity, catholicity, holiness and apostolicity.” Now almost every preacher in “The Church of Christ” has a sermon entitled “The Marks of the Church.” For years I preached on that, or a kindred theme, every time I engaged in an evangelistic meeting. I labored diligently to show that the five things I had selected as marks were true of the “Church of Christ” and of no other group of people on earth. That was a little presumptuous and probably not quite true. But like the Catholics I thought this proved something that it did not.

Both the Catholics and ourselves are trying to prove that we are “the authentic Church of Christ.” Each of us has selected wholly different marks by which to establish it. It was not until after I had studied the course in Applied Psychology, that I could detect the fallacies in our propagandizing. I threw away my sermon outlines. Eventually I placed them all in the garbage can. It is evident that it is not by doing certain things right that we prove we are the body of Christ. Everyone of these can be and have been faked in the past. Only one thing can prove we are his. That is our relationship to Him through the Spirit. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Romans 8:9).

Then which church is the right one? The right one is the only one. It is the one into which we are inducted and are being sustained by the Spirit. “For by one Spirit were you all baptized into one body and were all made to drink of that one Spirit.” The Spirit never baptized anyone into a sect regardless of its name. There is only one church. There never was but one. There will never be another. It is a divine organism, not a human organization. It is a creation of God, not a concoction by man. One might as well try to institute another Holy Spirit as to form another body. “There is one Spirit and one body.” When God looks at His church He does not see the Methodist, Presbyterian or Baptist churches. He does not see the Nazarene, the Church of God, the Church of Christ, or the Christian Church. Not at all. He sees the one body consisting of every saved person on earth, every called out person who has responded to the call.

All of these names are humanly given. Some are found in the sacred scriptures, some are not. But all of them have been selected by men to apply to something smaller than God created. So long as they exist his is a futile search who seeks the right one. Some are more nearly correct in certain aspects than others. Often merely lip service is given to those points. “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” As long as God’s people are divided none of their parties is the right one. The saddest mistake we were betrayed into by Satan was the calling of these various parties, fragments and sections of the Christian citizenship, churches.

They are not churches and cannot be. We have multiplied confusion by designating sects as churches. Who knows what good would accrue if everyone became absolutely honest, acknowledging there was but one church, and that all we had done was to create sects. In reality, there can never come about the unity for which our Lord prayed until something like this happens. It can never be achieved by any group which expects to attain it by telling everyone, “Come and join us and we will all be one.” Such unity is the snake and frog approach, in which the snake makes the proposal that the frog contribute to unity by permitting himself to be swallowed by the snake.

Human tendency being what it is, men would join the largest and most popular and successful of the sects. Thus all in the United States would become Baptists. Universally all would become Orthodox or Roman Catholic. But it is not a matter of joining any sect, large or small. What God wants to see is the abolition of all the sects, starting with the Catholic Church as the mother of all and extending to the smallest and most exclusive. All are as repugnant to God as any other work of the flesh. The glory we give to the sect is glory subtracted from the one body.

If we could one time sense the feeling of God as He looks at the sects which shiver the body to bits we would immediately divest ourselves of them and become Christians, and Christians only. We would cease to be Church of God Christians, or Church of Christ Christians, or Friends Christians or Baptist Christians. It is pride in what we have created which makes us feel that we cannot do without it, that we would be spiritually naked if it were taken from us. It is pride which causes one to say, “I was born a Baptist and I intend to die a Baptist!” Or a Methodist! Or a Presbyterian! Or a Catholic!

What operates to cause men to cling so tightly to something other men have started? I think the answer is found in their insecurity. We are cast into a world geared to promote fear and unrest. After we have defended, fought for and leaned upon a System, we feel that we must cling to it, stand by it, or be lost. It is an indication of a lack of faith in the eternal values which a loving Father has provided for us. We want to walk by sight and not by faith. We trust the inventions of men over the provisions of God because like Moses at the mount, “we exceedingly quake and tremble.”

It is obvious that we regard as heroes of the faith those who leave their parties and sects to come to us, but we blast as heretics those who leave us because they can no longer tolerate our creedalism, rigidity, and legalism. Those who come to us are getting their eyes open, those who give up on us are “closing their eyes against the light.” I personally feel that each of us must be accountable to God for what He does. If he feels that some position we take is unscriptural or unscrupulous we should not attempt to hold him to it in violation of his conscience. We cannot judge one’s allegiance to Christ by his attachment to any sect. The attempt to hold one by threat or coercion is contrary to the spirit of righteousness. We have not been appointed as God’s secret agents to police other men’s hearts. We are not divine CIA agents to run everyone into the ground who holds a slightly different opinion than ourselves.—139 Signal Hill Dr., St. Louis 63121