WHAT MUST THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
DO TO BE SAVED? (2)

I made it clear in the first installment of this series that I am not questioning the personal faith of its members when I speak of what the Churches of Christ must do to be saved. I may even be prejudiced in favor of our people, for I believe they are among the most wonderful Christians in the world, and that is based upon contact with thousands of people in Churches of Christ. When I speak of what we must do to be saved I am referring to our witness as a church in a troubled world that needs us so badly, to our effectiveness as a people of God. If we are “saved” in this sense there are some major changes that we need to make. That is what this series is about.

I may have a quarrel with my own folk in Churches of Christ, but no one can justly accuse me of being vindictive or disloyal. If it is a quarrel, it is a lover’s quarrel. I compliment myself only in one respect—I am among the best friends that the Churches of Christ have. I recall reading somewhere that a person who is pleading for change among his own people is paying them a great compliment, for it means that he believes in them and is persuaded that they are capable of greater things.

And I won’t leave, never. I feel the same way toward the Church of Christ as I do toward my wife Ouida. To leave her is unthinkable. I assure her that I will stay with her no matter what comes. If she ends up in a wheel chair, I will be at her side. When I was at Princeton Seminary it was suggested that I might become a Presbyterian. No way. The Church of Christ is stuck with me. If they should kick me out, which hasn’t happened yet—except that a group of black preachers once withdrew from me along with one of their own “liberal” ministers that I defended, but afterward they rescinded their action—I would be back the next day trying to get in.

Like old Raccoon John Smith, one of our pioneer preachers, used to say to the Baptists when they tried to run him off, I say to the Church of Christ, “I love you too much to leave you!” But as long as I am around I will persistently and lovingly plead with our people to go up higher.

The basis of my quarrel is our parochial, sectarian view of the church. I want our people to think big—ecumenically—when they think of “the church,” for this is the biblical view. I want them to envision the Church of Christ as consisting of all those everywhere, all around the world, who sincerely follow Jesus Christ.

We can never be saved for a meaningful and viable ministry to the world and to the church at large so long as we think of “the Church of Christ” in terms of those listed under that name in the Yellow Pages. It is typical for our folk to think of “the church” in a city like Denton, Texas to be only those that have “Church of Christ” on the sign out front. No body else. And we limit “the Lord’s people” to our own “Church of Christ” folk. The tragedy of this is compounded by the fact that many of our people really believe this. We are the only Christians!

I was reminded of this fallacy on our part when I recently visited the Word of Faith in Farmers Branch (between Denton and Dallas), which bills itself as “Charismatic-Fundamental,” where Robert Tilton holds forth. I was there to hear and to see again my friend and brother Pat Boone, who was special guest that Sunday. I had already broken bread that Lord’s day with the Singing Oaks Church of Christ in Denton at our 8 a.m. assembly. Two hours later I joined about 4,000 others at Word of Faith, where they really give visitors “the treatment.” They make one really feel welcome! At one point in the service I had a crowd of folk around me assuring me that my visit was appreciated. Scores of other visitors were being treated the same way. I was pinned, labeled, given literature and even a free gift (a cassette tape of a previous service).

And they really rev it up—a band (far too loud from where I sat), cheer leaders with pompons, special lighting, multiple song leaders, clapping and stylistic body movements, lots of praising (“Praise Him, church, praise Him! “), video screens that come down out of heaven, uniformed ushers galore—all first class, including the elegant edifice. It is a “health-wealth gospel” church and Rev. Tilton is the star performer. And he does perform, down into the aisles. He does indeed talk about Jesus, but there is no way to miss Tilton. His picture is on billboards and in newspapers from Dallas to Denton. He has a video presentation along with his sermon (on three screens that come down out of heaven) that features him in mission stations around the world.

If you join his church you will get rich (or something akin to that) and you are not to forget Rev. Tilton and Word of Faith when the money starts coming in. One does get the impression that those attending were all doing well, including more than a handful of blacks, but we may presume that those that tried it and did not get rich were no longer around.

The service went for two hours. We stood a lot of that time, reving it up and praising God. It got so loud, especially with the band, that at times I had to cover my ears. It was no place for an innocent non-instrument Church of Christ guy like me, but I was a good sport. But I thought they would never get to Pat Boone, who sat on the large stage all that time. And it is a stage, or a performance center with’ the latest state-of-the-art electronics. Robert Tilton goes first class, you better believe it! And he is not to be upstaged, not even by Pat Boone.

Tilton saved Pat about 20 or 25 minutes at the end, and he was super as he always is. Pat is not only a sweet singer of gospel hymns, but he is humble and projects the One he sings about rather than himself. That was not true of all who performed that morning!

When he gave his testimony between songs he talked about his life in the Church of Christ, including the preaching he did “at a little frame building in Slidell, Texas” when he was attending the University of North Texas in Denton. He told of his days at “a Church of Christ college in Nashville” (David Lipscomb) where he met his wife Shirley, who was the daughter of Red Foley of country music fame. But Shirley was a Southern Baptist, and even though she had been baptized into Christ just as he had, Pat convinced her that she was not a Christian and that she must be baptized again the right way and in the right church.

He explained that the way he saw it back then was that if a church didn’t have the right name over the door it just didn’t count. His people were the only true Christians, the only right church. Even though Pat expressed appreciation for Church of Christ people and for his heritage (“I learned to love the Book”), he had laid bare our Achilles heel. Most of his audience, being Texans, knew at least one thing about the Church of Christ—that we think we are the only true church and the only ones going to heaven.

Pat did not know, of course, that I or any others from the Church of Christ were in the audience. When I saw him after the service he hugged my neck and apologized with “I hope I didn’t sound bitter.” He was not bitter, and we both knew that what he had said was true and that there were things he could have said that he didn’t, such as he and Shirley being disfellowshiped by the Church of Christ because of their divergent views on the Holy Spirit. His parents in Nashville were treated the same way by the Church of Christ where they were members, as well as his sister in Dyersburg, Tn. I am personally acquainted with all these tragic episodes.

The story Pat told to that big church can be repeated a thousand times over by people who have been virtually destroyed by our exclusivism and sectarianism. People who have never been able to win their spouses because of it; couples who have gone elsewhere after giving up hope that things would change; preachers who have either quit or gone to other churches because they could not adjust to it; elders who have quietly exited because they could not conform to it; young people who have given up religion altogether in disgust.

Beside this we have tens of thousands in our congregations that are discouraged and don’t know what to do. They are unhappy with the way things are and yet they don’t want to leave. We are a people who theoretically abhor partyism, and yet we have allowed ourselves to become one of the most sectarian churches in America today.

I was present at a mainline Church of Christ recently when a visiting minister did something most unusual. Like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky he asked the assembly, “Has it ever bothered you to have to believe that your Methodist and Baptist neighbors are not even Christians?” He waited for a response. A few brave hands were raised, then a few more, and finally hands were up allover the house. Their hesitation was probably due to shock, for our people just aren’t encouraged to do that kind of self-examination. But that is the kind of thing we must start doing if we are to be saved.

We are at heart a magnanimous people, loving and gracious. Our people do not want to be narrow, bigoted sectarians. We have been sold a bill of goods by well-meaning but misguided leaders of the past who have bamboozled us into believing that if we have any fellowship with a Methodist or a Presbyterian then we endorse or approve of all the errors in those religions. If we call on a Baptist minister to address us or lead a prayer in our assembly, then we compromise the truth and approve of all Baptist doctrine!

We don’t ask ourselves, “Then how can we sing ‘Lead Kindly Light’ in church since it was written by John Henry Newman, a Roman Catholic bishop? In singing that hymn do we have to approve of all that we associate with Roman Catholicism?” If we can’t have fellowship with folk with whom we differ, then we can’t be in fellowship with anyone, not even our own spouses, for we all differ on some things.

To overcome the kind of advertisement Pat Boone gave us in Dallas—he nailed us to a cross of our own making—we are going to have to be up-front, come clean, and proclaim to the world that we have been wrong and we are sorry, and that we don’t believe that way anymore. We are going to have to say it from our pulpits, We have been wrong! and publish it in our journals far and wide. The schools of preaching and the Christian colleges must explain to our youth how we went wrong and that we are making (or have made) a mid-course correction.

It is not enough to do or to say nothing, or simply to preach more on grace and about Christ. We must repent. We have a serious sin to confess. We have been factious and sectarian, dividing among ourselves again and again. We have hurt a lot of people and confused even more, and we have churches full of people who are discouraged. We must become intolerant and disgusted with our own petty, narrow sectarianism.

We have been wrong! We are not going to be sectarians anymore! We are ceasing our insensitive practice of having nothing to do with other Christians and other churches! Henceforth we are going to treat all Christians as equals. and we will love and receive them even as Christ loves and receives us!

Let us say these things. You’ll see hands going up allover the assembly, all, across the country and around the world. It will be a time of liberation for our people. It is not too late for us to be saved.—the Editor