WHAT MUST THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
DO TO BE SAVED? (3)

It is most unusual for a denomination to confess that it has been wrong, but that happened recently with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. The moderator of the church went before a multiracial conference and apologized in behalf of his denomination for the sin of apartheid, which the church had justified on theological grounds for over 200 years.

This was as daring as it was noble for South Africa’s main denomination. It was a repudiation of the church’s historic practice of justifying the separation of races on biblical grounds. We have been wrong!, the leaders of the church told their people, and they are now lending their influence to bring an end to the sin of apartheid. As a result of this bold move some have left the church and formed a splinter group known as the Afrikaner Protestant Church, which will continue to defend apartheid on theological grounds. But the majority has stood up for the Dutch church’s position, seeing it as mandated by the gospel and in keeping with the spirit of Christ.

It is noteworthy that the leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church did not simply call for more preaching on grace, brotherly love, and equality between Christians of all races. While that might have kept the boat from rocking too much, it would have been a cop out. They saw that action had to be taken and a sinful tradition reversed. So they publicly repudiated the position of their forebears: We and our fathers have sinned!

How noble and courageous of the Dutch Reformed Church! Don’t you know that what they did pleased God! Their action will do more to correct the evils of apartheid in South Africa than anything else that has happened. There is power in repentance!

In this series about what my own church must do to be saved I am calling upon the leaders of the Churches of Christ to do as that church in South Africa did, to rise up and say We have been wrong. In previous installments I have said that we must confess that we have been wrong in our position on instrumental music, which has set us at odds with every other church in Christendom, including the Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ who share our own heritage and believe and practice what we do except for instrumental music.

I have made it clear that I do not mean that we should start using instruments in our worship, for that would violate the conscience of many of our people. But we must confess that we have been wrong in making instrumental music a test of fellowship and for saying it is sinful for others to use instruments. It is of course right and proper that we should sing acappella if that is our preference and conviction, but it is wrong for us to make our position a command of God for all others. We must repent and confess that we have been wrong in rejecting other of God’s children because of their use of instrumental music. We have made a law where God has not made one, and this is wrong. Let us say it, loud and clear!

I have also said that if the Church of Christ is to be saved as a viable witnessing community to a lost world it must repent and confess its sin of exclusivism and of projecting itself as the only true church. We have in fact sold ourselves a bill of goods, handed down to us by sectarian leaders of the past who should have known better, that we and we only are “The Church of Christ.” Early on in our history, back in the days of Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone, our motto was “We are Christians only, but not the only Christians.” That is right on—biblical, defensible, and even unifying—and that is what our pioneers believed. But since we became the first splinter group of the Stone-Campbell unity movement we have repudiated that slogan by claiming to be the only Christians.

There is a big difference between being Christians only and the only Christians. And it is in that difference that we went wrong. Let’s say it, We have been wrong! If a denomination in South Africa can do it, we can do it. Let’s make it clear that we really believe that wherever God has a child we have a sister or a brother. And that brother or sister doesn’t have to see everything eye to eye with us for us to accept him or her as an equal in Christ.

In this installment I am adding another thing we must do to be saved as a people with a message and a mission: We must repent of and confess our sin of internal bickering, debating, and dividing into sects and sub sects. In my home state of Texas we have at least 15 or 20 different kinds of Churches of Christ, large and small, that are at such odds with each other that each considers itself the true church and has no fellowship with any of the others. We have a directory of churches entitled Where The Saints Meet, published in Austin, Texas, that lists thousands of our congregations in all 50 states.

But it is a shameful spectacle to behold, for in a sincere effort to list all Churches of Christ the editors felt it necessary, the situation being what it is, to identify each segment with a label all its own—except the “mainline” group, which published the list, which is not so labeled! And so we have “PM” Churches of Christ, meaning that they are premillennial; we have “NC” churches, meaning no classes, that is, non-Sunday school; we have “NB,” meaning no building; “NI,” meaning non-institutional, “Ch,” meaning charismatic. Then there is OC, OCa, OCb and OCc, as well as OC+c, which attempts to identify five different sects of the one cup (for the Lord’s supper) Churches of Christ, for while they are all one cup they are divided over fermented or unfermented fruit of the vine, breaking of the loaf before serving, classes, and the pastor system.

We must face the fact that this tragic habit of splitting into sects and sub-sects is due largely to a faulty “Restorationist” hermeneutics, which says there is an identifiable pattern for the work and worship of the church which spells out the necessary details, which when adhered to “restores” the true church. Each wing commander sincerely believes he has followed the pattern exactly and has thus restored the true church. This scenario further insists that the other interpretations of the same pattern are false and so their churches are “unfaithful” and cannot be fellowshipped. So, our divisions have no end. Since 1894 when Churches of Christ separated from the Disciples of Christ we have further fragmented at least once each decade. In some cities in the South there are as many as eight or ten “faithful” Churches of Christ, none of which have any fellowship with the others.

A fallacy that accompanies the pattern-blueprint concept is one that makes unity among believers impossible, for it holds that to be united and enjoy fellowship with each other we have to see all these things alike. Oddly enough, the leaders of our factions dismiss “unity in diversity” as a false doctrine, which by definition that is the only kind of unity that is possible since there is no way for everyone to see everything alike. Whether in a marriage, in nature, or in Christ the only kind of unity there is is a unity in diversity. True unity finds its center in a common devotion to Jesus Christ. The common life we are to share, which is what fellowship means, is a matter of each member of the Body “holding fast to the Head” in spite of differences. We don’t have to agree on everything or practice everything alike in order to love and accept each other as equals in Christ.

To be saved as a people who can be taken seriously we must show a disdain and an intolerance for our ugly divisions. While it helps, we must do more than preach peace, love, and unity. We must repent of our sins of division and confess that we have been wrong. Like that church in South Africa, we would do well to call a convention for the express purpose of confessing our sin of being one of the most divided, sectarian churches in America.

We need to write out a “Proclamation of Repentance” that would say something like, “Whereas, we have sinned against our Lord’s prayer for the unity of all his followers by becoming a factious and divided people; and whereas, we have sinned against the mandate of the holy Scriptures and the holy apostles in their plea for unity; and whereas, we have sinned against our own heritage as a unity people; we do hereby confess our sin and ask for each other’s forgiveness, the forgiveness of the larger Christian community, and the forgiveness of Almighty God; and we hereby declare that we repudiate our divisive ways, and are resolved to take the following steps to correct the erroneous course taken by our fathers and by our-selves. . .”

Such a proclamation could circulate as a petition among the churches. It would be signed by thousands. Let it at last be read at our lectureships, on college campuses, in the churches, and let it be published in our journals. Let this be followed by a day of prayer and fasting. Let the press carry the news to the world that we are fed up with our divisions, we repudiate them now and forever, and that we are henceforth a unity people once again.

Nothing has to change in regard to our differences. We can have churches that are premillennial and those that are amillennial, along with many that don’t even know what millennialism is about. We can have brethren who support the cooperative radio-TV Herald of Truth program and never watch it and those who are opposed to it but never miss it. We can have Sunday school churches and non-Sunday school churches, as well as those who serve the Supper in ways that differ. We don’t have to be of one mind on all such issues in order to be one in Christ. In fact, we are already one in Christ. That happened when we were baptized into Christ and received the gift of the Holy Spirit which is what makes us one.

It is therefore a matter of realizing our oneness and repudiating our factionalism. It is a matter of loving and accepting each other even as Christ loves and accept us. It is a matter of obeying holy Scripture:”Receive one another even as Christ has received you, to the glory of God” (Rom. 15:7). This means that we can and do differ on opinions and methods so long as we are united on the basics of the faith—and we are united on the essentials, which makes workable the trusted old motto, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

To be saved as a witnessing church we must show the world how we love one another. No more debating and fussing and dividing. Like Thomas Campbell, we must become sick and tired of the whole sectarian mess. We will show our unity by our love, by our love, by our love. Jesus assures us in Jn. 13:35 that this is how the world will know that we are truly his disciples—not by dotting every “I” and crossing every “T” in doctrinal conformity—but by our love one for another.

Are you ready to sign the proclamation?—the Editor

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We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.—Thomas Jefferson