WHY CHURCH OF CHRIST EXCLUSIVISM MUST GO

This request from Ivory James, Jr., one of the ablest leaders among Churches of Christ, white or black, explains the reason for this article: “I know the demand on your time is great but I need a big favor. To supplement my own thinking and preparation for a major discussion with one of our Black leaders on the exclusive argument that we (Churches of Christ) are the only true Bible Christians. I would ask that you list your arguments against that notion.”

Since my response to this may be of interest to our readers, I am making an essay of it as well as a letter to my good friend who ministers in West Palm Beach, Florida.

My reasons for insisting that Churches of Christ must surrender their “only true church” and “we are the only Christians” mentality are as follows:

1. Such a claim is rude, arrogant, self-righteous, self-defeating, and, in the light of reality, sheer nonsense.

It is rude because we say to other believers, who are as wise and righteous as we are, that they are not even Christians. It is arrogant because we exalt ourselves as right and everyone else wrong. It is self-righteous because we assume that we will be the only ones to go to heaven. It makes us too much like the Pharisee who “trusted in himself that he was righteous and despised others” (Lk. 18:9). It is self-defeating because we only hurt ourselves in making such a claim. It turns folk off, and they will not listen to us, just as we do not care to listen to a “know-it-all.”

And when we consider that Churches of Christ, even when counting our many divisions, compose less than one-tenth of one percent of the millions that make up the Christian world it is sheer nonsense to claim that we are the only Christians. Furthermore, we dechristianize many of the noblest, most dedicated, most sacrificial believers that have ever lived, all through the centuries. We even sing their great hymns, as in the case of Martin Luther (“A Mighty Fortress Is our God”) and John Henry Newman, who was a Catholic bishop (“Lead, Kindly Light”), and Charles Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism (“I Know that My Redeemer Lives”), and yet we do not allow that they were even Christians. Some died as martyrs in their efforts to translate the Bible we now read, such as William Tyndale, who was burned at the stake in Vilvorde, Belgium in 1536 for translating the Bible into English. He died for Christ and the Scriptures, and do we dare say he was not even a Christian since he did not belong to the Church of Christ?

2. Such a claim implies that Christ had no church upon the earth and that there were no Christians during most of the past two thousand years.

The Church of Christ that is associated with such papers as the Gospel Echo and the Gospel Advocate and such colleges as Southwestern Christian College and Abilene Christian University did not even exist until 1889. It was not until then (or about that time) that a group existed that used “Church of Christ” exclusively and thought of themselves as the only true church. The Campbell-Stone movement started almost a century earlier, and they came to wear three (and never just one) names: Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Church of Christ. But they never believed that they were the only Christians, but rather “Christians only.” That their aim was to “unite the Christians in all the sects” was an admission that they recognized that there were other Christians.

The idea that the true church of the New Testament went into apostasy and ceased to exist, and then hundreds of years later Alexander Campbell came along and restored the true Church of Christ is a false idea. First of all, even Campbell did not believe that, and his unity movement was based upon the premise drawn up by his father, Thomas Campbell: “The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one.” This he wrote before their movement ever started, which shows that they believed the church already existed upon earth: “The Church of Christ upon earth . . .” Moreover, the Scriptures make it clear that Christ’s church would always exist: “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mt. 16:18).

Don’t we believe that great hymn Onward Christian Soldiers?

Crowns and thrones may perish, Kingdoms rise and wane,

But the Church of Jesus constant will remain;

Gates of hell can never ‘gainst that church prevail;

We have Christ’s own promise, and that cannot fail.

So, the notion that the “Church of Christ” is the true, restored church of the New Testament, to the exclusion of all others, and that the church did not even exist for more than a thousand years of “dark ages” is an idea that contradicts not only our own good sense, but the Scriptures themselves and even our own pioneers.

We must rather believe that the church of Jesus Christ has always existed and that it consists of all those who “believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah and who obey him in all things according to their understanding,” to quote Alexander Campbell again.

3. Churches of Christ can never be a part of a unity movement so long as they see themselves as the only Christians and thus assume an exclusivistic posture.

How can we plead for unity when we keep ourselves apart and not have anything to do with other churches and other believers?

In its very essence, whether in nature or in social institutions, unity is oneness in diversity, as in a marriage. If unity implies diversity and we insist on uniformity where everyone has to believe exactly the same way, we forfeit our role as a unity people. All we are left with is to declare to other believers that they must leave where they are and join us. The way to unity is for everyone to be like the Church of Christ! This can be embarrassing, for someone may point to the fact that even we are divided several different ways.

If we take unity seriously, we must be able to accept others as equals in Christ, and thus sit down with them as fellow Christians. We must “Accept one another even as Christ has accepted you, to the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7). Were we not all still wrong about some things when Christ accepted us? Then we can accept others even when they ,are mistaken about some things. When we do that it is to the glory of God. When we accept people only when they conform to “our” church, it is to the glory of a party.

4. Such a claim stands on the false premise that there can be perfect knowledge and perfect obedience.

We have wrongly taught our people in Churches of Christ that they have to be right about everything to be acceptable to God. The truth is that we can never be acceptable to God on the basis of our own goodness, our own works, or even by perfect knowledge and obedience. We are right with God not because of what we have done but because of what God has done for us through Christ. We are saved “not by any work of righteousness which we have done ourselves but by his mercy” (Tit. 3:5). We find too little grace in the gospel. Everything has to be right and exact, with no variation. We cannot allow, for example, that one might be outwardly mistaken on baptism, such as being baptized other than by immersion, but inwardly right in that he has a pure and obedient heart (a distinction that our own Alexander Campbell made!) — and so one is not a Christian if not baptized (outwardly) in exactly the right way!

This is not the way our Lord saw things. When one of his apostles rejected a fellow worker because “he followeth not with us,” Jesus responded, “Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us” (Lk. 9:50). Here is a lesson in toleration for any of us who are more demanding of others than we are of ourselves.

5. The claim is based upon a damaging fallacy: that if we accept people we therefore approve of all they believe and practice.

When we enjoy fellowship with John Henry Newman by singing his great hymn “Lead, Kindly Light” does that mean that we approve of everything that Roman Catholics believe and practice, including the encyclicals of the pope? I f we can sing the hymns of other believers, is it all that different for them to be with us in our churches and teach us by word of mouth as well as through a hymnal?

Could not the black Church of Christ have accepted Martin Luther King, Jr. as a fellow Christian without approving of everything Baptists believe and practice? The apostle Paul would never have written “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations” (Rom. 14:1) if we had to approve everything about the man we accept.

We can accept the divorced without approving of divorce; we can accept the homosexual without approving of homosexual practices. And so we can accept the person who may hold doctrinal error (and which of us is perfect in doctrine?) without approving of his error.

This is the nature of Christian unity: we accept each other because of our mutual love of Christ, not because of conformity of doctrine. And this is the function of love, which “binds all things together in perfect unity” (Col. 3:14, TEV). We accept each other because we love each other, warts and all. If we as God’s people cannot accept all others who are His people, then what does it mean to be His church?

6. Such a claim is sectarian and puts us in the same category with other sects and cults.

We can believe we are right without believing that everyone else is wrong. It is the sectarian spirit that presumes that it and it alone is the true Body of Christ. This is the difference between a denomination and a sect. While a denomination sees itself as a part of the church at large, a sect believes itself to be the totality of the church, the only Christians. We cannot be sectarians because sectarianism is a sin against God, as Gal. 5:20 makes clear: “parties, factions, divisions” are listed among works of the flesh, along with adultery, hatred, and witchcraft. If we resent it when the Mormons claim to be “the restored church of Jesus Christ” to the exclusion of all others, we can be sure that others resent it (and justly so) when we make the same claim.

7. Such a claim is now rejected by many in the Churches of Christ, if not the vast majority, and it should be renounced by all as a relic of our past.

Even though Jamie Buckingham as recently as July, 1984 (in the magazine named Charisma) described the Church of Christ as believing themselves to be the only ones truly saved, there is abundant evidence that our people are discarding that sectarian posture. When Richard N. Ady polled his own Church of Christ in Santa Rosa, Ca., he found that 85% of his people believed there were Christians in other denominations. It is highly probable that such a percentage would hold up in most of our churches. The reason is clear enough: we cannot be an effective witnessing Christian community if we set ourselves apart from other Christians and have no working fellowship with them. The problems of the world are so serious that it is imperative that all believers in Christ work together for the redemption of troubled mankind.

Churches of Christ are becoming a more responsible, a more reasonable, and a more loving and accepting people. We believe this will be true of our black churches as well, seeing that they, too, like Thomas Campbell, are getting sick and tired of the janglings and jarrings of sectarian strife.