What the Church of Christ Must Say to This Generation:

WE HAVE BEEN WRONG!  

(This article was first of all a letter to a member of the Church of Christ in Oregon, one of our subscribers. We pass it along to our readers because it states in a practical way what we believe to be the basic problem the Church of Christ has in relating itself to the church at large. We need a great deal of honest and soul- searching dialogue on the issues raised here. -the Editor)

Your letter is at hand and I thank you for being willing to write candidly about some of your reactions to Restoration Review. You may be right and I may be wrong. It is good for us to exchange ideas and stir up each other's thinking. I hope my brief response to some things you said will prove helpful to you, though I suppose my purpose is not to get you to think as I do. I write simply because it is appropriate as brothers in Christ that we try to understand where the other is coming from. What is important is that we love each other as Christ loves us, and you may be assured of my love for you, whether you agree with me or not.

I agree with you that all the saved are in Christ and in the church revealed in the Bible. But I would distinguish between the Body of Christ as revealed in Scripture and what we have come to know as the Church of Christ (a distinct name, no other is usually used) such as is associated with Pepperdine University, Abilene Christian, and the Gospel Advocate. One is a denomination, generally recognized as such; the other is the community of God that has existed since Pentecost. I see all Christians as in that community of God, not just those in churches associated with the Stone-Campbell Movement.

I would not challenge your position on being non-instrumental. I am also. But I would question your right or my right to make that opinion or conviction a test of fellowship. You say you use a tuning fork and round notes in order to assist you in singing. This I can appreciate, but you must realize that in using such things you are not being true to what we usually argue about "the silence of Scripture." Where does the Bible authorize a tuning fork and round notes? If you can use a tuning fork which assists you with one note at a time, you should be able to understand why your brothers in the Christian Church use another kind of instrument that makes several notes. Is it the number of notes that makes it wrong?

You say that Paul tells us what instrument to use, the voice and heart. But if you can use a tuning fork and round notes to help you to sing and make melody in your heart, why cannot your brother use shaped notes and a piano to assist him in doing the same thing? Actually this is all that goes on in either a Church of Christ or Christian Church. We are all singing and making melody in our hearts to God. The aids we choose to use are a matter of opinion and preference. In fact even in a Christian Church they are all just singing and praising God. Only one person is playing, and she usually is not singing! So how can that be a big deal to us? Besides, it is not really any of our business what accessories others may choose to use, whether choirs, gowns, candles, hymnals, instruments. All we have the right to ask is that they honor the "Thus saith the Lord" of Scripture, those things clearly and distinctly set forth in the Bible. We must honor what all our people agree to: "In matters of opinion, liberty."

You misunderstand me, or I have not made myself clear, if you suppose that I believe it does not make any difference what name one wears. All my life I have urged what our people have always made their plea: Christians only. I delight in being a Christian. That name matters greatly to me. But I can believe in being a Christian only without believing that we are the only Christians. Moreover, I can believe that a Baptist is a Christian even when he wears a name I could not conscientiously wear. That is because he too loves and obeys Christ like I do, to the best of his understanding, and he too honors the name of Christ by professing to be a Christian.

I share your concern for divisions within the Body of Christ, but I cannot understand your implication that I am somehow contributing to such divisions. My plea is for peace and harmony among brothers in Christ. I contend that we can love and accept each other as sisters and brothers in Christ and yet differ in preferences, methods, and opinions. We can unite upon "one Lord, one faith, one baptism," as Eph. 4 assures us.

I would remind you, kind brother, that most if not all the divisions you decry are created over matters of which the kingdom of God does not consist. We have divided and subdivided because we reject other Christians and make tests of fellowship over matters of opinion. Surely I cannot be accused of causing division when I remind our people that we are guilty of making laws that God has not made, and creating parties over our own personal interpretations. If so, then our Lord himself is also guilty of  causing division, for this was part of his message to the Pharisees.

We in Churches of Christ will never be the unity people that both our history and our heritage would have us be until we rise above three damaging fallacies: (1) that we are the only Christians; (2) that what we call "The Church of Christ" is the only true church; (3) that acappella singing is the law of God and that it is sinful to use instruments of music. These are more than fallacies or myths or errors, for they reflect an attitude on the part of many Church of Christ folk that must change if we are to have an authentic witness in the larger Christian world. It is imperative at this point in our history to confess to our fellow Christians that we have been wrong on these three points. If we did that, they would both love us and admire us, and they would then listen to us in reference to the many things in which we are right. What a cleansing message it would be, We have been wrong!

Not only do you call me "Mr." throughout the letter, carefully avoiding any implication that I might be your brother in Christ, but you also name me as a wolf among the faithful sheep. While you close on a note of hope, it is not hope in Christ, but a hope that my readers will recognize my writings to be the trash it is.

The ideas and the spirit reflected in your letter are what I am seeking to correct in the Church of Christ. Do I have to agree with you that instrumental music is a sin and that all those outside "The Church of Christ" are going to hell before you will accept me as your brother? Am I a wolf in sheep's clothing because I do not equate the Body of Christ with what you call the Church of Christ? (If so, dear brother, there are more wolves around than there are sheep!) And is my writing trash because I criticize our own people as well as praise them?

So be it. Since I know where you are coming from and since I was once there myself, I have no problem loving and accepting you as my brother. I see hurt and despair in your letter, and so I may love you even more. I hope you will keep reading and that after awhile you will write again. 

Peace!,            

Leroy Garrett