I JOINED A
CHURCH
Cecil Hook
One
cannot join the Lord's church. When the people on Pentecost were baptized
for the remission of sins, the Lord added them to his church. Those people
did not have to decide which church to join, for the Lord added them to his
one and only church. There was no worry about being made a part of the wrong
church. The Lord's church is not a denomination, sect or division, for
following the Bible will not make anyone a member of such. The gospel makes
Christians only, and one must go beyond the Scriptures to make one a
sectarian, denominational Christian. By the same procedure through which
people are saved, they are added to the one undenominational church of
Christ. Those in the Church of Christ have never joined a church, but the
Lord added them to it when he saved them. Therefore, we can be sure that we
are not sectarian or denominational Christians.
Countless
times throughout my years of preaching, I offered my listeners some such
explanation as I have given in the preceding paragraph. It seems not only
true, but the only answer to the problem of division. This is the only way
that we can all be one in the same church. That plea is so simple that even
I had moderate success in convincing others that it is God's way.
A
person who is logical enough to form the above statement should be logical
enough to see its weakness; however, it took me many years to come to
recognize the overly simplistic nature of the explanation. If the Lord adds
us to the one Church of Christ (or, church of Christ, if you prefer), which
is not a sect, division, or denomination, how do we explain the many
divisions among the churches of Christ? How does one get into one of the
various groups who are dissociated from one another? Did the Lord add me to
one of them, all of them, or none of them? When I obeyed the gospel, the
Lord added me to his one church which happened to be non-instrumental,
post-millennial, and non-charismatic, and made use of multiple communion
cups, Sunday School, women teachers, and orphanages. I never sought out such
a church and did not apply for membership in it. I was just added to it,
sort of automatically!
Others
obeyed the same gospel and were added by the same Lord to his one church
which happened to use one cup and deplore Sunday School and women teachers,
a group which dissociated itself from the one I was in. These disciples had
taken no steps to join a division any more than I had.
Still
others obeyed the same gospel and were added by the same Lord to the same
church which happened to use instrumental accompaniment to singing. Those
people took no steps to join a sect, but remained in the church the Lord had
added them to. Both of the former groups refused fellowship with this
instrumental Church of Christ.
Then
there were those who obeyed the same gospel and were added by the same Lord
to his one church and found themselves to be in the Christian Church instead
of the Church of Christ! They joined nothing and I joined nothing, but we
wound up in different disassociating groups. Surely, God moves in mysterious
ways, doesn't he?
The
truth may reveal that many other persons obeyed the same gospel and found
their membership to be in groups with still other names.
We
are not questioning that the Lord added all these people to his one church,
but somebody joined a sectarian division also. Who was it? "Not
I!" we hear from each one involved. While I was a teenager, my
grandfather spent one summer with us. When he had married, he was
illiterate, but his bride taught him to read, using the Bible as her
textbook. His conviction was that we should not divide the assembly into
classes. But he would go to class each Sunday, sitting in the adult class.
When I questioned him about it, Grandpa explained that he did not go to
classes. He just went to the assembly and the other people divided it by
going to classes. That's the kind of explanations that we have made to
justify our alignment in different exclusive sects of the Lord's church. We
are in the one the Lord added us to and it is others who have divided from
us! As the cat gave out a loud "meow," the mother yelled,
"Tommy, stop pulling that cat's tail!" "I'm not pulling it,
Mother," he protested, "I'm just holding it; he's doing the
pulling!" None of us wants to take the blame.
One
can join a group without applying for membership, being voted on, or
conforming to any formality of recognition. When I was added by the Lord to
his one church as a boy, I then joined an exclusive group in the church
universal by my presence, participation, and support. No application of
membership was made and no formal acceptance by the group was made, but the
fact that I had become a part of that church which disassociated itself from
other people whom the Lord had added was understood.
If I had, as a professing Catholic, come into the group by presence,
participation, and support, I would have experienced silent rejection, if
not formal rejection. A Catholic could not have joined. But as a baptized
believer, my joining was verified by congregational acceptance,
"unofficial" as it might have been.
The
same procedure prevails in the various divisions of the Lord's church. We
join them. Even though it is still true that the Lord adds us to his church
when he saves us, he does not add us to one of our sectarian divisions in
the Church of Christ. Isn't it time for us to recognize that, to eat our
humble pie, and to confess, "I joined the Church of Christ of which I
am a member!"?
After
you were baptized and added by the Lord to the group that you are in without
your joining it, could that group later withdraw fellowship from you? Well,
yes! If they disfellowship you, they operate on the understanding
that you are a part of that church. Somehow, you got into it, and it is
less than the entire body of those added to the church by the Lord.
If
you ever moved to another place, very likely you "placed
membership" with a church in your new community. That is a ridiculous
term, as though membership is something you can put somewhere, a term
invented to avoid using the term "join the church." The Scriptures
do not even speak of "members of the church." We don't "join
the church"; we just "place membership!" By such action after
you were baptized, you definitely identified yourself with a church that did
not recognize all others in the body of Christ; hence, you joined a sect.
While
we are confessing, should we not go ahead and admit that we are aligned with
a sect? Any group that refuses to recognize and accept others whom the Lord
added to his church, as we have practiced in creating our divisions, is a
sect. Who can deny that we meet that definition? And when we give ourselves
a distinguishing name, we denominate ourselves. That's a hard admission for
an exclusivist to make.
Is
there a solution and remedy for this deadly disease? Ideally, we would all
be able to agree on all points of doctrine and practice and be one in the
most literal sense. That is both improbable and impractical. It has never
been and there is little prospect that it will ever be. I question that
Jesus had that in mind when he prayed for our unity, for he knew that we are
humans rather than angels.
The
Scriptural and practical solution is for us to quit judging others in Christ
who hold differing views from ours and to accept them as brothers equal
before the Lord. No one must compromise his convictions; all do not need to
meet in the same congregation; and all do not have to believe and practice
in total conformity. But all can love one another, accept each other, and
work together in serving our heavenly Father.
Sectarianism
is not so much the meeting in separate groups as it is a judgmental spirit.
Each can have his own convictions of faith between himself and the Lord
(Rom. 14:22), but he fails to discern the one body when he judges his
brother while continuing to commune (1 Cor. 11:29), and thus he eats and
drinks damnation to his soul. In view of our practice, that becomes very
frightening.
Some
earnest disciples start new groups in an effort to be nonsectarian and
non-denominational. I can appreciate that fully. But why start a new group
when there are already other non-sectarian, undenominational churches in
your community? Why not join one of them? "I do not agree with their
doctrine and/or practices," you reply. Then just how non-sectarian is
your group if it refuses fellowship with others who make the same claim that
you make? You start another denomination when you start a group which must
distinguish itself (denominate itself) from other non-sectarian churches. If
non-sectarian, non-denominational churches are truly that, why do they not
all unite - including the various Church of Christ groups who make that
claim? "Non-denominational" churches become
"non-denominational" denominations!