THE MOTTO THAT GOT US IN TROUBLE

Where the Scriptures speak we speak, where the Scriptures are silent we are silent. —Thomas Campbell

While Thomas Campbell is not to be blamed for it, this is the motto that got us in trouble. And it continues to get us in trouble. It is the one motto that was original with our pioneers. Others came out of the Reformation, such as “In matters of faith, unity; in matters of opinion, liberty; in all things, love.” Another popular one was probably adapted from John Wesley’s emphasis on being “downright Christians” which our people expressed as “Christians only.”

But none of the mottoes, original or borrowed, has blown up in our faces like this one that Thomas Campbell bequeathed to us. It is, unfortunately, the one we’ve paid most attention to. Others that might have turned us in the right direction we have virtually ignored, particularly Barton Stone’s great dictum, “Let Christian unity be our polar star.” And there is one that we have blatantly disobeyed: “We are free to differ but not to divide.” It is the motto that we all have memorized and practice the most that has boomeranged on us, serving as fodder for our multiplicity of divisions: Where the Scriptures speak we speak, where the Scriptures are silent we are silent.

As to whether we have failed the motto or it has failed us depends on what Campbell meant by it or how we interpret it. Campbell never expanded on what he meant by it. He first introduced it to the Christian Association of Washington, the para-church entity he organized in 1809 when he launched his movement to unite the Christians in all the sects. When it was pointed out that if he followed such a rule he would have to give up infant baptism, he conceded that such might be the case, a decision he finally made. But Campbell never examined the broader implications of his motto as a rule of interpretation, such as whether something is forbidden if it is not expressly stated in Scripture, or if we are authorized to act only “where the Scriptures speak.”

Because of what Campbell says in his Declaration and Address it is highly unlikely that he intended his motto to be supportive of “blueprint hermeneutics,” which underlies all our factions, each of which says of its particular “Issue”: We are being silent where the Bible is silent, whether it is Sunday school, instrumental music, societies, or the sponsoring church. In that unity document Campbell recognized the principle of unity in diversity, and at one point referred to “the general rule of obedience” that allows for “some variety of opinion and practice.” He went on to say that such diversity existed in the apostolic churches without any breach of unity, and that it can be true today.

Strictly interpreted, Campbell’s slogan allows for no diversity and demands conformity. If the Bible is silent about a congregation owning property and having trustees, then such is forbidden. No latitude and no room for differences. Where does the Bible “speak” about hymnals, four-part harmony, baptisteries, lesson leaves, loud speakers, overhead projectors, Communion cups, song leaders, pulpit ministers, youth ministers, etc., etc. And we must all believe alike and practice the same on all such issues, for together we are silent where the Bible is silent and we speak only where the Bible speaks. So, we splinter and sub-splinter so that each may be in a “faithful church.”

But Thomas Campbell allowed for variety in opinion and practice just as in the apostolic churches, and this without any breach of unity. So he didn’t mean by his motto that the church can’t adopt useful innovations as required by the progress of culture and civilization. He himself lived to see his own people organize a missionary society over which his son Alexander served as president, and he offered no objection, even though the Bible is silent about missionary societies.

Then what did he mean by the motto? It has to be interpreted out of his own time and circumstance. The churches were creed-bound, making them tests of fellowship. The motto was intended to convey the principle of having no creed but the Bible: We do not speak what the creeds of men say, but only what the Bible says.

In the light of what he said in the Declaration and Address about loving and accepting one another even as Christ loves and accepts us in spite of our weaknesses and errors, I am persuaded he meant something more by the motto. By saying “We speak where the Scriptures speak” he meant we will require only what the Bible requires; we will not impose any creed or opinion on you. By “We are silent where the Scriptures are silent” he meant that if the Bible lays down no rule for fellowship we will not. He was saying, in short, that (only) where the Bible binds will we bind, and where the Bible looses (in opinions and methods) we will loose.

When the motto is interpreted legalistically, as it usually is, no one is consistent in following it, for each one “picks and chooses” when he wants to speak and when he wants to be silent. One segment among us is “silent” when it comes to instrumental music but not when it comes to the Sunday school. Another segment is “silent” when it comes to the Sunday school but not when it comes to multiple cups. Another is “silent” about multiple cups but not about grape juice (rather than wine). On and on it goes. We are “silent” when it comes to our party issues, but we have no qualms about “speaking” where the Bible does not speak in areas where another party among us is “silent.”

This is why I say the motto doesn’t work, not the way we interpret it. It in fact blows up in our faces, dividing us asunder. Thomas Campbell would be horrified that we have taken a motto that he set forth as a unity principle and used it to beat each other over the head. The cry of our many factions has been, “We speak where the Bible speaks and are silent where it is silent and you are not, so we are faithful and you are not.” Relying on that motto one only needs to ask, “Where do you find in the Bible?” You can fill in the blank according to your own scruple. Blinded by the presumed implication of the motto, we dare not respond with what is obviously the truth, “We do not have to have a Bible precedent for everything the church does. The Bible is not that kind of a book and was never intended to be such a book. If it were it would impede the progress of the gospel in a progressive society.”

To illustrate my point I quote from a tract entitled Unity With Christ and Christians, written by a sincere minister of the “Conservative” Churches of Christ, who are sometimes uncharitably referred to as Anti’s” (We all are Anti about some things!) because of their objection to Herald of Truth and other “church sponsoring” projects. Notice his use of the motto we are discussing. In referring to our pioneers’ desire for the “unity of The Divine Standard,” he says:

One preacher who set his heart to this work put it this way, “WHERE THE SCRIPTURES SPEAK, WE SPEAK; AND WHERE THE SCRIPTURES ARE SILENT, WE ARE SILENT.” When one man said, “If we adopt that as a basis then there is an end to infant baptism,” the answer was, “Of course, if infant baptism is not found in Scripture, we can have nothing to do with it.” Human practices were abandoned in favor of the ancient order.

The writer goes on to say that by the late 1800’s many of our people abandoned this “back to the Bible” position by introducing innovations, and he names them: instruments of music, choirs, centralizing arrangements, social-gospel practices. These caused divisions, he says. Since about 1950, he says, still more innovations came, “wholly unknown and unauthorized in the New Testament.” Then he names Herald of Truth, the “sponsoring church,” and such human institutions as orphanages and colleges, as well as fellowship halls, picnic centers, and game rooms.”

All this is drawn from the presumed soundness of Thomas Campbell’s old motto to the effect that we speak only where the Bible speaks and are silent where it is silent. But notice the brother’s select list of innovations. He names only those things where he chooses to be silent. His “Anti” Sunday school brother believes that innovation to be “wholly unknown and unauthorized in the New Testament” and so he is silent where our conservative brother speaks. Neither does he mention literature, multiple cups for Communion, grape juice, and baptisteries. On these things he chooses to speak where the Bible doesn’t speak. We have “Anti” brethren who are silent on all these things. He names fellowship halls where he elects to be silent but not fellowship vestibules where he chooses to speak. He lists colleges where he is pleased to be silent but not journals for which he writes.

If this is what Thomas Campbell meant, he did us a disservice, for he handed us a rule that no one can practice, not consistently at least. None of us is always silent where the Bible is silent, but none of us always speaks where the Bible speaks. When it comes to footwashing we do not speak where the Bible speaks as do the Seventh Day Adventists. The Dunkard Brethren not only wash feet but practice the holy kiss, all because the Bible speaks of these things. When we choose not to follow Campbell’s motto strictly, we explain it away with, “It does not apply today.”

We are slow to see that others who are as sincere and as intelligent as ourselves, and who have the same view of Scripture that we have, come up with a different conclusion. They believe these things do apply! The only answer to this is to allow for such differences and thus preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, like the Bible tells us to. It isn’t differences or even innovations that cause divisions, but an unloving, factious spirit.

When a motto gets us in this kind of trouble we had better reexamine it or chuck it, and look for a more reliable hermeneutics. Another of our pioneers, Isaac Errett of the second generation, may provide us a more reliable guideline when he says, referring to what our people are supposed to stand for:

If men are right about Christ, Christ will bring them right about everything else. We therefore preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We demand no other faith in order to baptism and church membership than the faith of the heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; nor have we any term or bond of fellowship but faith in the divine Redeemer and obedience to Him. All who trust in the Son of God and obey Him are our brethren, however wrong they may be about anything else.

I should emphasize that this is what heirs of the Stone-Campbell Movement are supposed to believe. We repudiate our heritage when we make things like organs, methods like Herald of Truth, and opinions like premillennialism bonds of union and tests of fellowship. Errett put his finger on the genius of the Movement: to make nothing a test except faith in and obedience to Jesus Christ according to one’s understanding.

And Errett gives us a maxim that might serve as a better slogan: So long as one is right about Jesus Christ he can be wrong about a lot of other things. And if this brother who is “in error” (Have we any other kind?) needs to be brought around, Christ will bring him around. We don’t have to worry about him, just accept him in forbearing love. That way we don’t have to keep score on him. How liberating!—the Editor