Highlights in Restoration History . . .

“IN MATTERS CIRCUMSTANTIAL, LIBERTY”

Sometime back the Disciples of Christ Historical Society asked me to do an essay for them on the redoubtable W. T. Moore, who was born 150 years ago this year. Due to illnesses that have slowed my pace this year I am tardy in getting this done. But I found some time last week to spend with this dear old brother, in the new TCU library in Fort Worth. He was the kind of guy who could write a poem on his 92nd birthday. Like the pyramids, he appeared to defy time. In 1868, when he was 36, he published The Living Pulpit of the Christian Church, which is a rich source of study of our earliest pioneers. Fifty years later he issued The New Living Pulpit of the Christian Church, an equally resourceful volume of subsequent gene-rations of our pioneers.

“Dr. Moore,” as he was usually called, was really something else. Still on the firing line in his 80’s and 90’s, serving in combat during years of change for our Movement, he was sometimes dismissed as aged and senile. He would fire back at his younger challengers with, “Why not discuss the issues? Suppose I criticized you for being young and inexperienced?”

Well, this is not really an essay on W. T. Moore, except for one or two goodies that I will share with you. I may write of him at length at another time. In fact I am tempted to write his biography, which apparently was never done, even though data was called for brotherhood-wide. His son intended to do his father’s life story, but perhaps by the time the father died the son was too old!

Dr. Moore, who was among our first “liberals” (for such things as calling for a delegate convention and the support of societies) had a way with epigrams and slogans. He revised old ones and created new ones. He created one that he believed expressed the essence of the Movement’s plea:

We are free to differ but not to divide, which is one of my favorite slogans emanating from our heritage. It is really on target in terms of what the Scriptures teach about unity in diversity. This is Paul’s message to Corinth: you can differ but you can’t have parties. And it is the essence of Rom. 14: you can believe different ways about some things but you can’t divide. And it summarizes what our pioneers believed and practiced, at least in the first two generations. Even Stone and Campbell disagreed, sometimes rather substantially, but they could not and would not divide.

We are free to differ but not to divide! It is an appropriate one-liner for a movement that was launched for the purpose of uniting the Christians in all the sects. And for a long time in our history this view obtained. Even slavery was treated as an opinion, so folk differed, not only in North and South but within congregations, but they did not divide. One of my favorite scenes in our history is that of a northern general in a southern pulpit with Confederate soldiers in the audience. They preached Christ and kept “politics” out of the pulpit.

In more recent history we have revised that slogan to read: We are free to divide but not to differ. Like other carnal believers who have multiplied parties, we solve our difficulties by dividing and starting “a loyal church” consisting of “faithful brethren.” The crusty old J.D. Tant used to say, “We have 16 different kinds of loyal Churches of Christ in Texas.” We have allowed Satan to sell us a bill of goods: he assures us that we are free to divide—for the sake of “a faithful church” of course.

The old bromide in all this is that we can’t fellowship error. That may well be true, but we are to fellowship those who are in error. Otherwise there would be no one to fellowship! Witness the churches in the New Testament. Witness Peter and Paul. Witness your own church. There is no perfect church and there is no Christian that is wholly without error. In fact we are plainly urged to receive those who are in error: “Welcome one another, therefore, as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7). What was your condition when Christ received you? What a beautiful metaphor: as Christ received us, that is how we are to accept each other, warts and all.

Dr. Moore revised an old slogan, one that went back to the Lutheran reformation and first appeared as “In fundamentals, unity; in non-fundamentals, liberty; in all things, charity.” It also appeared as “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” In our history it has usually appeared as “In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; in all things, love.”

But the doctor had it read in a way that best expressed the spirit of our plea, as he understood it: In matters of faith, unity; in matters circumstantial, liberty; in all things, love.

There is wisdom in recognizing that most of the things we have allowed to disturb us have come about circumstantially, due mainly to the circumstance of time, place, the unforeseen, and personality. Circumstances have greatly affected the shape of all our churches, far more than we realize, and we have been rather selective in the changes we have resisted. Take the circumstance of wealth in this country, an unforeseen development in the light of the history of nations. Wealth, not the mandates of Scripture, has given us elaborate edifices, expensive appointments, and well-paid staffs. Only a few, such as the Amish and Quakers, have resisted the effects of this circumstance. They have remained simple and rude despite wealth.

There is the circumstance of denominational growth and maturity. So long as we were a rude, pioneer, frontier people, along with being youthful as a church, there was little need for structures and agencies, whether seminaries, benevolent and missionary societies, pension funds, or publication houses. We could take pride in our simplicity while casting aspersions on those much older than ourselves for their “man-made inventions.” The real reason we did not have the inventions is that the circumstances were different for us. It was an easy matter to poke fun at stained-glass windows when all we had were clapboard houses with no glass windows at all.

Circumstances have affected today’s Churches of Christ in an interesting way, and we are barely a century old. We now have two rather excellent seminaries, made “necessary” by our denominational maturation, though we cannot yet call them that. A half-century ago such would have been impossible, whatever we called them. Societies and agencies are still off limits, but there are those “things” that perform these functions, more or less, whether they be ad hoc organizations, lectureships, insurance programs, or one-man or few-men educational, benevolent, and missionary enterprises.

We have some rather effective “agencies” or “societies” in the work of single congregations, who solicit cooperation from many other churches, such as Herald of Truth radio-TV enterprise, which involves thousands of churches. Other congregations translate and distribute the Scriptures, do benevolent work in such places as Poland, and have special educational projects. If we were better organized as a church we could do these things with less duplication and more effectively, but this will come in time, as circumstances dictate.

The circumstance of social progress gave the frontier churches choirs and instrumental music, and most of them went along, even most of our own people. Those of us who did not must realize that the change that came was cultural and circumstantial and was not really a biblical issue. Some of us who are now Churches of Christ joined the Amish in resisting this circumstantial change, but we did not go nearly as far as they did in resisting most or all the changes brought on by a maturing society. After all, the Churches of Christ today are as modern as any denomination, with or without instrumental music. If one doubts this, let him visit some of our more recent edifices, such as the Broadway Church of Christ in Lubbock, Tx., which has all the marks of a Hyatt-Regency, including the glass elevator!

But, you see, it does not take instrumental music to be modern, even materialistic. If it did, being acappella would be more of a problem than it is. When it comes to spending money on ourselves rather than the needy, we may well be the chiefest of sinners among all the denominations.

But Dr. Moore gives us a more understandable answer to these things in his revision of an old slogan, In matters circumstantial, liberty. Circumstances have made us different. It is because of certain old leaders, dead and gone, that some churches use one cup for communion or are “bread breakers.” The very thought of change brings horror. “What would dear old brother So and So think . . .” is a common defense. Circumstances of personnel has had its effect.

Very well, says Dr. Moore. We will all accept one another in love just the same, recognizing that circumstances have brought us to different places. But we are all in Christ nonetheless, In matters of faith, unity being the watchword, and be hanged with circumstances, and opinions too for that matter.—the Editor