Barton Stone’s Address to the Churches of Christ. . .

WHAT MUST THE CHURCH OF CHRIST
DO TO BE SAVED? (17)

It would be understandable if concerned Americans appealed to the virtues of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln as a possible answer to the predicament this nation faces in the 1990’s. In times of crisis we look to our past for possible clues on what we might do to solve our problems. Those who have gone before and who struggled with similar problems often have wisdom to bequeath. But we are slow to learn the lesson of history. Lincoln, for instance, warned that a nation cannot endure half free and half slave. Yet we continue to be enslaved in part by racism, injustice, and poverty.

In the same way the Church of Christ might save itself from obscurantism, obsolescence, and irrelevance (as well as exclusivism, sectarianism, and isolationism) by an appeal to a nobler era of its history. Warnings that we are in trouble are being heard from unexpected places. In listening to some of the tapes of the recent lectureship at Pepperdine, I heard one speaker, who was frequently interrupted by applause by his large audience, cry out in no uncertain terms, “The Church of Christ is dead!” He was calling for change, particularly in reference to the ministry of women, “bringing the women into the church,” as he put it.

Those who are calling for change these days are not always aware of the contributions that can be made by our forebears. They too went through the crucible of change, and out of their struggle comes wisdom that would serve us well. The lessons from our past are there for us to learn. Must we go on making the same mistakes over and over again.

As an illustration of what I mean I refer to but one document, a single letter in fact, by Barton W. Stone, entitled most appropriately for our purposes, “An Address To the Churches of Christ.” It was written in 1832 and grows out of the drama and trauma of the union between the Stone and Campbell churches that had taken place in Lexington, Ky. that same year. In this address Stone was seeking to effect the union further by addressing problems that troubled the Movement both then and now.

So, in this installment I am saying that the Church of Christ can be saved by taking heed to the principles set forth by Barton Stone in his address to Churches of Christ 160 years ago. That he was not wholly ignored back then is one reason why the Movement enjoyed substantial success and remained united for at least two generations. It would be well if this address were published in its entirety as a resource for change in our time. It is in order for us to consider the main ideas set forth.

In addressing “the Churches of Christ,” Stone is using but one of three names our people used in the early years of our history, the others being Christian Churches and Disciples of Christ, the latter being preferred by Alexander Campbell. But generally our people used all three names and they applied to but one people, one church. It is a travesty that the Movement eventually divided so thoroughly that we now have three branches (a euphemism for factions?), each known by one of these names, mainly.

It is incredible how well Stone read the future as well as the present in what he said to the Churches of Christ in 1832. Early on in the Address he warned against unwritten creeds, which he considered more dangerous than written ones. The purpose of both, he noted, “is to exclude from fellowship the man who dissents from them.” He observes that there are those who clamor against (written) creeds and yet have creeds (unwritten) of their own, and they are as intolerant toward those who dissent from their creeds as those who make written creeds are toward their dissenters.

Stone could have added that it is always the “liberal” or the innovator that motivates creed-making, for creeds are calculated to defend orthodoxy. Creeds are designed to draw lines and to defend the party line. Stone was right in preferring written creeds to unwritten ones, for written ones are more reliable and predictable. In unwritten creeds people make up their rules as they go along, tailoring the creed to fit the occasion or the one “to be marked.”

What pain we would have avoided had the wisdom of this pioneer reached our ears. With ne’er a (written) creed in sight we have been creed-makers, and, like Stone said, we have used them to draw lines on each other and to exclude one another from fellowship. We have made creeds of our opinions, whether in reference to theories like millennialism, questions such as marriage and divorce, or methods like instrumental music or Sunday schools. It is of course appropriate for each of us to follow his own conviction in reference to any of these, but it is not all right to make a creed out of them. Creed-making makes parties, whether they be written or unwritten creeds, and that is what lies behind all our divisions.

Barton W. Stone probably said more about the Holy Spirit’s ministry in the life of the Christian than any of our leading pioneers. In this Address he refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit as “more necessary” than faith, reformation, and immersion. The Holy Spirit more important than baptism? In an open letter to Churches of Christ? Most of us would not have supposed that we have that kind of emphasis in our early history. Stone names the gift of the Holy Spirit as “the crowning blessing of all blessings. He quotes Gal. 3:14 and Acts 5:32 to show that the Spirit is received through faith and that it is given to those that obey Christ.

In this connection Stone laid out the plan of salvation in a way that somehow got lost before today’s Church of Christ came along: “God’s plan appears to be this, that whoever believes, repents and is baptized, or obeys the gospel, shall be saved, shall receive remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Stone was always emphatic about the Holy Spirit. One of his favorite sermons was “Four Kinds of Unity,” three of which he named as false unities. Head union, book union, water union are not true union, while fire unity, the radiating Spirit of God within us, is what makes us really one. In another context he named the difference between the Holy Spirit and the sectarian spirit. The Holy Spirit. he said, bears the fruit of humility, forbearance. love, peace, and unity. The sectarian spirit leads to pride, preeminence, intolerance, and opposition to those of another party. He went on to say that it is the sectarian spirit that causes discord, strife, and division. (Christian Messenger, 1832, p. 21).

In the light of such teaching it would hardly be appropriate to label the modern Churches of Christ as Stoneites. Somewhere along the line we forgot that the Holy Spirit had ever been given, or we supposed he went into retirement in some past age. And how many of us would say that the Holy Spirit is more important than baptism?

While in this Address Stone makes a strong case for immersion, he stops short of saying that only the immersed are Christians. He put it this way: “We have no doubt that multitudes have been changed, are pious, and will ultimately be saved with an everlasting salvation who have not been immersed.” He went on to concede that immersion is God’s plan, but that we cannot hold God to his plan and not allow him to pardon a humble penitent without immersion. He added, “Far from us be this sentiment.”

But this sentiment, a hard-line, legalistic position on immersion for remission of sins, has not been far from us in the Church of Christ. We can see that it did not begin with Stone.

Stone was hopeful that this Address would help to unite the Stone and Campbell movements despite their differences. He therefore emphasized what he considered a crucial principle of their plea for unity: Christians may differ without dividing. He referred to two differences between their churches at this time, which troubled people on both sides. The Campbell people placed greater emphasis upon immersion for remission of sins than the Stone churches, and the Campbell churches broke bread every first day while the Stone people didn’t.

This diversity of doctrine and practice led Stone to emphasize what had characterized the Movement from the outset: “We who profess to stand upon the Bible alone, and contend that opinions of truth should not be made terms of fellowship—shall we be intolerant towards each other because we may differ in our opinions? Forbid it, Heaven!”

Here Stone is telling us what we must do to be saved. We must cease and desist from making our own interpretation of what we believe to be the truth (an opinion, Stone calls it) a test of fellowship. And he says this includes such matters as the design of baptism and the frequency of the Lord’s supper. Hear him: “All believe that immersion is baptism:’ referring to the Stone and Campbell people, “why should they who submit to the one baptism contend and separate because they do not exactly view every design of it alike?”

Stone went on to say what should be proclaimed in every Church of Christ in the land today: “If you think your brother in error, labor in the spirit of love and meekness to convince him; but imposing zeal against him will only harden him against any good impression you would make. It will probably stir up strife. and ultimately destroy love, the bond of union.”

Note the words “imposing zeal against him,” such as in a big debate. It was not by accident that Barton Stone never had a debate, which is seldom “in the spirit of love and meekness” that he called for in his Address. Here we have the recipe for our salvation from “Father Stone” as they called him in his old age . We have fought, debated, and divided ourselves to the point that love, the bond of union, has been destroyed.

We must repent of our ugly, sectarian past and resolve to follow Stone’s advice when he went on to say in his Address to us, the Churches of Christ: “A little longer forbearance with each others’ weakness, and truth will triumph.”

In that Address the old reformer went out to give expression to his motto, which is today engraved in stone under his name on the cenotaph that stands in front of the Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Nashville: “Let the unity of Christians be our polar star.” The motto was inspired by Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17. We are to be ONE so that the world might be WON, our Lord says in that prayer.

With our eyes cast on that polar star, the unity of all believers, and our hearts and minds resolved to do our part to answer the Lord’s prayer so that the world may believe, we can get back on track and save ourselves as well as others.—the Editor