Travel Letter . . .

TWO CHURCHES IN HOUSTON

In Houston recently I was with brethren of two quite different Churches of Christ. The Main St. Church of Christ in South Houston is one of the more influential “non Sunday School” churches, and it should receive honorable mention on anybody’s list. For more than two decades it has promoted missions in Malawi, Africa where there are now some 500 assemblies resulting from their efforts, which includes a Bible training program for native workers. The church also conducts a Bible Training Work in Houston, which is a principal training station for the leaders of this group of Churches of Christ. The staff, which includes G. B. Shelburne, Jr., and his son B. Shelburne, who spent nearly 20 years in the African mission, are well-qualified and deeply committed to their work.

The other church, with which I assembled on a Lord’s day morning, is the Burke Rd. Church of Christ in Pasadena, for which I conducted a retreat two years ago. This church has long been an avant garde Church of Christ, one of the very first “liberal” churches, and has long been associated with its well-known minister, Wes Reagan, who recently defected to the Methodists. The church understands that its former minister no longer believes the basics of the Christian faith and now embraces humanism, which causes some of them to wonder if he ever really believed what he preached to them for so long. An experience like that can do a church a lot of harm, but we are persuaded the believers at Burke Rd. will overcome.

There is something special about these two churches: they accept each other and have meaningful contacts despite their differences. The South Houston church not only has no Sunday School but it does not allow the women to speak even in the Bible Training Work. It would be awkward to many of us to conduct a “class” in which some of the members are not allowed to take part in the discussions. But one needs to understand the theology, for from their point of view there are sound biblical reasons for this. As they see it, their Bible Training Work is not a “class,” but a called assembly of the church, as are all their gatherings, and therefore controlled by the injunctions of 1 Cor. 14, which says that a woman is not to speak “in church.” The marvel of all this is that these brethren manage to circumvent any disadvantage this might be, and go on to do a good job of whatever they do. Oddly enough, as a group of churches I would name them to be the most “progressive” of any of the Churches of Christ, the main reason being that they have been able to change their thinking about fellowship. Even though they remain true to their convictions and practice, there is hardly a leader among them that will now make their unique practices a test of fellowship. This has opened up new worlds to them, both at home and on the mission field.

The Burke Rd. church, on the other hand (which is so “liberal” that it strains my own level of tolerance!), is the only Church of Christ that I know of with a female youth minister, who happens to be one of my favorite people. She and I taught a Sunday School class together the morning I met with them, and in the assembly she sang (very beautifully) a solo that gave honor to Christ. I also heard John Wright give a provocative sermon on Blessed are the peacemakers, in which he said to be makers of peace we might have to get ourselves hurt.

As I sat in the Burke Rd. assembly, I thought of the differences between it and the South Houston brethren I had been with the day before. And I rejoiced that they have a working relationship! Why can’t it be so with all our churches? The South Houston folk do not have to endorse the class system or women ministers in order to accept the Burke Rd. people as their sisters and brothers in Christ and work with them in areas where they agree. And Burke Rd. can respect the consciences and good sense of their more conservative brethren and not look down their noses at them as fanatics.

And so we can have churches that are premillennial in their interpretation of prophecy and those who are not (which usually means they know nothing about prophecy!); those who support cooperative efforts like Herald of Truth and those that do not; those who elect to use instrumental music and those who do not; those who use only one container for the Supper and those who do not. And we can all be part of the Body of Christ upon earth, loving and accepting one another, not because we are precisely alike in every detail, but because we are in Christ together.

And in so doing we will be doing what the Bible teaches us to do: Receive one another even as Christ has received you, to the glory of God (Rom. 15:7).

I have not met the person yet who would say he was right about every thing when Christ accepted him. If Jesus accepted us, warts and all, why can’t we accept each other even when we are wrong? When the Lord accepts us with all our errors, it does not mean he approves of our wrongs. It only means his love for us transcends the wrong he sees. So it is to be with us. And when we accept each other on the same basis Christ receives us it will be to the glory of God. When we receive each other only on party terms it is to the glory of the party.—the Editor