THE ONE CHURCH INDIVISIBLE 

Is Christ divided? — 1 Cor. 1:13 

One nation indivisible — Pledge of Allegiance 

I was telling Ouida about some things I had learned about Abraham Lincoln, and concluded by saying I might have to write an article about it. Well, here is the article, which is inspired by Lincoln's undying conviction in the indivisible character of the nation over which he served as President. As I said to Ouida, "If we could but see the unity of the church as Lincoln saw the unity of the nation . . ." Paul apparently did, for it seemed impossible to him that Christ or the Body of Christ could be divided.

If ever we had a leader who saw the United States as "One nation indivisible," it was Abraham Lincoln. It was this principle of unity that bore him through the four grueling years of the Civil War, which left him drained and worn. When he first campaigned for the presidency, he made it clear that his intention was neither to end slavery nor to preserve it but rather to "preserve the Union." This became his obsession. But the legislature in South Carolina did not believe him. To them Abraham Lincoln was bad news, and no sooner did they receive word of his election in 1860 that they seceded from the Union.

Even before Lincoln took office the Confederacy was already formed and eventually eleven of the 33 states of the Union had formed themselves into another nation. Even the mayor of New York City, which was dependent on Southern cotton for its mills, threatened to withdraw that city from the Union if the South did.

It was the principle of the inherent union of the States that controlled Lincoln's mind, both in war and in peace. To him the Confederacy was illegal. There was still but one nation indivisible. A state or a city can no more secede than a man can leave his wife. They share in a covenant and in a destiny. To Lincoln secession was unthinkable and intolerable. And whatever else the Civil War accomplished it accomplished that, for no state has ever again assumed the right to secede from the Union.

To Lincoln the United States was not in a war with another nation known as the Confederate States. The United States was at war with itself. It was a very serious and deadly family quarrel. When at Gettysburg he spoke those memorable words "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth," he was referring to all the 33 states of the United States. And when in his second inaugural address he spoke of "bind up the wounds of the nation," he was referring to the North and South alike.

When word reached Washington that General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Va. on April 7, 1865, which was only one week before Lincoln was assassinated, the city celebrated with canon fire and dancing in the streets. When a large crowd gathered on the White House lawn to honor the President who had preserved the Union, Lincoln appeared, haggard and spent, and called for the band to play Dixie, a song that he always admired. The song is ours now, he told the crowd, for we are all one people.

President Lincoln celebrated the end of the Civil War by having the band play Dixie on the White House lawn! There is something about that spirit that speaks volumes on the meaning of unity, fellowship, and acceptance.

When those who were vengeful toward the South asked Lincoln how he was going to treat the rebels, he replied, "I will treat them as if they had never left." When Congress debated the conditions on which the rebel states would be received back into the Union, Lincoln suggested that there might be no reason for debate in that those states never really left the Union.

One nation indivisible! may well be the crowning principle of our republic. Abraham Lincoln seemed to think so, for he was willing to endure the agonies of a fratricidal war on the basis of it. A divided United States was not a viable option to him.

With such a view of unity and its practical applications Lincoln would have made a good Campbellite, for this was the position held by the leaders of the Stone-Campbell Movement: the church is indivisible. And here let us try once more to lay to rest the unfounded rumor among our people that Abe Lincoln was immersed by John O'Kane, a Disciples minister of Indiana, which is now and again retold in some of our papers. The report that O'Kane baptized Lincoln in private and that the President wanted it kept a secret is sheer myth, if for no other reason Lincoln was not the kind of person who would be clandestine about something like that. Too, no American's life has been so thoroughly researched as Lincoln's, and if he had ever been baptized and joined any church, however furtively, the scholars would have found it out.

Thomas Campbell launched his movement for the unity of all Christians on the principle that the church by its very nature is indivisible. As he put it in the Declaration and Address, our most important founding document: The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one. He wrote that line in 1809, years before he had his first congregation. He did not say the church should be one, or that it will be one once he had done his work, but that it is one. Since the church is the Body of Christ it cannot be other than one.

Campbell was not saying that the sects were that church, for no sect can be the Body of Christ. He was saying that the true Christians scattered among all the sects are the Body of Christ, and that they are one because of their relationship to Christ.

The church may be "divided" in the sense that factions, parties, and sects are imposed upon it, but the Body remains one in spite of all the schisms. It is not unlike a marriage in trouble. The couple may even be separated because of their problems, but still they are one, a unity that they must come to appreciate. Lincoln's America may have been severed by civil strife, but it was still a Union as he saw it. And once the unity is seen and prized, it is less difficult to overcome the debilitating factions.

It is a matter of thinking right about the church. It isn't divided; it can't be. Sects might be, but not the Body of Christ. Lincoln thought of a nation indivisible and he saved the nation. When we think unity, The church is one!, we too will more likely behave like unity-minded people.

Did this principle not dominate Paul's mind in his Corinthian correspondence? His resounding question Is Christ divided? permeates the entire letter. In spite of factions within the congregation, along with all their other shortcomings, the apostle could still address them as "the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ" (1 Cor. 1:2). Moreover, he spoke of them as "the temple of God" in whom the Spirit of God dwells (3:16). This means that to Paul a divided church is a contradiction, for the Body of Christ is one by its very nature. That Body is God's temple where the Holy Spirit dwells, even when some things are not right.

Sometimes when I sit in an assembly of believers in Denton, Texas, I think of the Body of Christ all around the world, especially in distant nations where I have been privileged to visit - a military retreat center in Korea, a bamboo hut in Thailand, an upper room in Japan, a union church in El Salvador, a store front in Taiwan, an ancient Presbyterian church in Geneva, and on and on, including some forty different churches I've recently visited in my own city. These are all the one, indivisible church, I say to myself, not that the church is a composite of all denominations, but, as Paul puts it, "all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours" (1 Cor. 1:2).

Then there is the family of God who is already in heaven, made up of "all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues" (Rev. 7:9), with whom we are in fellowship. So, the church in heaven and upon earth make up the one, indivisible Body of Christ. It can be no more divided than Christ can be divided.

When this great truth permeates our thinking we will no longer allow ourselves to think in terms of a divided church. —the Editor