Summary and Review . . .
WHAT WE HAVE BEEN SAYING (2)
In this three-part series, which leads up to the demise of this journal with the next issue, I am reviewing things said and done over the past four decades. It give me a chance to get in "the last word" on a number of subjects.
Nature of the Church
One compelling theme through the decades has been God's community in heaven and on earth, the ecclesia - the one, holy, apostolic, and catholic church, both visible and invisible. I have sought to distinguish between the church and a denomination, between the church and the Restoration Movement, between the church and the "Yellow Pages" Church of Christ. I have often placed before my readers the most famous quotation of our heritage outside the Bible itself, Thomas Campbell's "The Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one."
I have noted that when Campbell wrote that he did not yet have a single congregation in his movement. He understood that Christ's church existed in his own day and had always existed on earth since the day of Pentecost. Like his son Alexander, and like Barton Stone, he believed in the inviolability and the indestructibility of the church. It may be in need of reform, but it has always existed, and he had no illusion that he was called of God to "restore" the true church, as if it had ceased to exist. He saw "The Church of Christ on earth" as a present reality - not the Church of Christ he was going to restore. It was an auspicious beginning for the Stone-Campbell Movement!
Campbell was saying what his heirs have been slow to learn, that the church by its very nature is one and cannot be other than one. In 1973 I took the hint from Thomas Campbell (and the creeds of the ancient church) and did a series on the oneness of the church, the holiness of the church, the apostolicity of the church, and the catholicity of the church. In the same series I showed the distinction between the church and the kingdom, presented the church as a pilgrim community, and indicated how to identify the true church. I quoted Karl Barth to the effect that a true church is where the power of Christ is present in the lives of the people.
If I have a final word on the nature of the church, it would be in reference to the church in the world as a witnessing community. The world is likely to see Christ only through the church, so the church must be in the world as the Body of Christ, suffering for the world like Christ did. As for the church at worship and in assembly, I am convinced that much more must be made of Body life. We are "members one of another" and we are to minister to each other. The church is not an assembly of auditors gathered to listen to professionals
Unity In Diversity
What Robert Richardson, the first historian of the Stone-Campbell movement, said about our heritage could be said about this journal: unity has been its consuming theme. Unlike most editors among us, all of whom claim to believe in unity, I have emphasized the one unique feature of our heritage that goes back not only to Stone and Campbell but the New Testament itself: We are free to differ but not to divide.
The NT makes it clear that the early Christians could and did differ, and even churches differed. The rich diversity of primitive Christianity is one of the recent emphases of NT scholarship. The NT churches were richly diverse, but still they were one in Christ. This means that diversity has its limits. We are united in Christ, not outside of Christ. But some in Christ are but babes, others are more mature. Some are conservatives with many scruples, others are liberals with hangups of their own. Differences may put a strain upon our unity and fellowship, but that is where loving forbearance comes in, which is the only means of preserving unity.
Paul and Peter had such differences that Paul once rebuked Peter publicly to his face, but still they were brothers and still in fellowship with each other. This is because they had that love that hides a multitude of sins.
We are free to differ but not to divide! It is a liberating principle. We cannot divide because it is sinful and it goes counter to the apostolic mandate that there be no divisions among us. We cannot divide because it is contrary to our Lord's prayer for the unity of all believers. We cannot divide because it is a scandal and a disgrace for Christians to be divided. But we can differ, we will differ, as all sincere people do in their search for truth. But our differences lie in areas of opinion, not essentials of the faith. Luke mentions "the things we most surely believe." Here we must be united. It is in peripheral matters, opinions and methods, that we can differ - always lovingly, agreeing to disagree.
Travel Letters
I have written while "on the road" all across America and around the world. There was lots of drama right here in the states, such as "Imprisoned For Truth" (1955), which was the incredible account of my being put in jail in Henderson, Tn., while attending a lectureship at Freed-Hardeman College, where I was once a student. "High Adventure At Pat Boone's House" (1971), in which I told of Pat immersing seven Jews in his swimming pool, and "In A Broken-Down Ambulance in Dallas" (1967), which was an account of a wild ride to the hospital in an ambulance that broke down on the way. By the time they transferred me to another ambulance and got me to the hospital, I had recovered from what proved to be only a heat stroke.
But my favorite travel essay was "The Professor And His Poodle" (1973), written in a Mississippi college town. This professor was given a hard time at the Church of Christ for holding views he read in this journal. I went to visit him and had meetings in his home. At church on Sunday we were both excoriated from the pulpit and abused by some of the members.
It was no big deal to me, but the young professor was devastated. He sat in his livingroom afterwards and unashamedly wept, the tears streaming down his academic cheeks. His poodle climbed into his lap and licked the tears away. It was one of the most touching scenes I had ever witnessed. I told the story of how a man with a broken heart received more love and comfort from a poodle than from his sisters and brothers at the Church of Christ.
My travel abroad through the years has been both exciting and educational, and I have shared much of it with my readers. In 1963 I purchased an airline ticket from "Dallas to Dallas," which allowed me to visit 12 nations in a journey all around the world. I was a Fulbright scholar to Taiwan (Free China we called it) to study Chinese culture for the summer, but found time to visit Buddhist temples in Japan, the Taj Mahal in India, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the pyramids in Egypt, the Acropolis in Athens, the Coliseum in Rome, an orphanage (from which we had adopted a son years before, now deceased) in Germany, the Mona Lisa in Paris, Westminster Abbey in London, William Barclay in Glasgow. While studying in Taipei, I had audience, along with 21 other professors, with Chang Kai Shek at the presidential palace.
When I wrote about all this in the 1963 Restoration Review. I named Scotland as my favorite nation visited, gave details of my conversation with Prof. Barclay, and stated that wherever I went I enjoyed people far more than places. Having taught some of their daughters at Texas Woman's University , I was wined and dined by elite families in Taiwan, to the envy of my fellow professors who did not have my advantage. Traveling alone much of the time, I was able to walk the back streets of cities where tourists never go. I wrote of seeing women bathing in the streets of Agra (India).
All these years I have addressed travel letters to my readers from allover the world. From Thailand I wrote on "Teaching Romans in the Heart of Asia." From India (a later visit): "Did Gandhi Go to Heaven?" From Japan (a later visit): "From the Land of Mikado." From New Zealand: "Christian Unity in a New Zealand Village." From Ireland came my most visceral report: "A Grim Night In Northern Ireland," in which I told of an Irish minister, once a policeman, walking me one night through the streets of Armagh, born bed-out in a Catholic-Protestant war. He walked me to my hotel through barricaded streets, quietly telling me that we were in danger to be out. I had noticed we were the only ones in the well-lighted streets. My hotel was kept locked and I could enter only be being identified by the minister. It was indeed a grim night!
Then there was '''Reconciled Diversity' in Geneva," my report on a gathering of ecumenical leaders of the World Council of Churches. I was impressed with the diversity of those present, some coming from Orthodox churches from what was then "the Iron Curtain" and telling of their persecution by the Communists. "My Pilgrimage to Ahorey" told of my visit to Campbell country and to the church where Thomas Campbell was once pastor, and being hosted by the present pastor and his wife, who liked Thomas Campbell but not his son Alexander, who was too belligerent for her. I regaled her with stories of Alexander's softer side, including his tenderness toward his wife amidst tragedy, until she at last conceded, "Well, maybe he was not so bad after all."
Then there were the Philippines, Korea, Singapore, South America, etc., all of which found a place in my travel letters, but this has to stop somewhere. I have made my point. As an editor I have not viewed the church in the world only from my study, but I have been something of an "ambassador at large," in a small way, for the church. I have been with believers of many cultures and tongues, from a bamboo hut in Thailand and army barracks in Korea to a grove of trees in Canada and a Union Church in San Salvador. It has all given me a better understanding of what it means to be the church.
I agree with Augustine that the world is a great book, of which they who never stir from home read only a page. --the Editor