READERS' EXCHANGE

 

It has become undeniably clear that the independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ are affected by the sectarian spirit. The basic difference between us and the other denominations is that we run our lines underground rather than out in the open. We know “us” from “them” nonetheless. We have been duped into believing that Scriptural warnings against denominationalism are only against the maintenance of state or national headquarters. Since our forefathers opposed written creeds, we do not write ours down, or else we do not call it a creed. —Dane Tyner, Bellaire Christian Church, Tulsa, OK.

We have left the churches of Christ and are attending a large interdenominational charismatic church. What life! We could not bear the sectarian spirit, the legalism, the humanism, the rationalism, the sacramentalism any longer. — John Ponder, Tucson, AZ.

(We should not only make it clear to those who leave us that we still love them and esteem them as equals in Christ, but we should visit with them and seek to learn from why they left. We may have corrections to make. I would be interested, for instance, in this brother’s analysis of our “sacramentalism.” I wonder if he means we have a sacramental view of baptism. The “rationalism” I understand. A sister left our Denton church recently with the charge that we are “too intellectual.” As the British say, I heard her. We need to listen more to our critics than to those who praise us. —Ed.)

Pleadings before the supreme courts of Arkansas and Oklahoma and before a chancery court in Tennessee make it clear that members of the Church of Christ are no longer held to be the church, but are merely attendants or adherents of the institution, and that “the eldership” acting en camera is beyond the reach of either the members of the law. — Norman Parks, Murfreesboro, TN.

Stormy Weather in Abilene

About four weeks ago a book written by Bert Thompson, Is Genesis Myth?, came from the press. The 10,000 copies of the first printing were distributed in three weeks, which reflects the enormous interest in it. It lays out irrefutable evidence that at least two science professors at Abilene Christian University have been teaching evolution as a fact and have not provided any refutation of this blasphemous teaching. One of the professors has taught that the Genesis account of creation is a myth. This shocking situation is compounded by the fact that the ACU administration is unwilling to admit that there is a problem. Their attitude has been “It is none of your business and we are not accountable to the brethren for what we teach.” — Dub McClish, Pearl St. Church of Christ, Denton, TX.

(This stormy affair at Abilene is more than “a tempest in a teapot,” and it is fair to say that since the above letter the ACU administration reports that it has investigated the matter and has cleared the professors as charged. One professor in fact issued an un-Nixon like apology for allowing himself to be misunderstood, very abject. If you want ACU’s statement, you can obtain one by writing to the president, ACU Station, Abilene, TX 79699. If you want Thompson’s book, write Apologetics Press, 230 Landmark Dr., Montgomery, AL 36117, which is free gratis because of anonymous donors. My reaction to all this? If ACU is no part of the church and strictly a “private” institution as always claimed, why all this pressure from the church? On what grounds is ACU accountable to Churches of Christ? Here we see the underbelly of the Church of Christ in its true “institutional” form, with the usual intrigue and subterfuge, such as professional scientists having to manipulate and equivocate (and suffocate!) in reference to what they really believe as scholars. Parochial institutions are rarely at liberty to teach freely and without fear of reprisal. If the teaching of evolution is shocking, as Dub McClish suggests, is it not also shocking for an honored Ph.D. to have to grovel and bow and scrape for what he teaches from heart and mind? If we are going to have a Christian university, it should first of all be a university! —Ed.)