Walter Scott invented the famous "five finger exercise." Faith, repentance, confession, baptism, gift of the Holy Spirit. All Christian theology is wrapped up in them . . . It is easier to rattle them off than to understand their implications.

      THERE is a general impression both outside and inside our Movement, that the main thing Churches of Christ stand for is baptism; that baptism is our reason for existence; that it is the great thing that distinguishes us from other Christians. Yet many of the spiritual ancestors of our British Movement were unbaptized, and in the United States the Restoration Movement was under way for some time before the issue of baptism was faced. Obviously, then, baptism was part of something larger for which our pioneers were pleading.

Reasons Why Baptism had the Major Emphasis Among Us

      1. Baptism is unique, dramatic, different. There is something singularly inspiring in baptismal services, even when we have not given sufficient thought to practising them worshipfully.

      2. It is easy to point to and explain this difference of practice from the denominations, other differences between us, though just as important are less easily explained and less spectacular.

      3. Because we have taken a strong line for the scriptural practice of baptism as against the un-scriptural practice of the paedobaptists, we have been forced into an emphasis out of proportion to that of the New Testament.

      4. Baptism is readily argued about. Once accept the authority of the Scriptures, as most "free" churchmen do, and there can be only one conclusion; that valid baptism is the immersion of penitent believers.

      5. The position taken by the pioneers of our Movement demands thought and study.

      * It involves understanding such things as textualism, interpretation, Calvinism.

      * It means understanding the view of the scriptures held by the pioneers.

      * It means a knowledge of the scriptures as a whole and how to handle them.

      * It involves the defence of the idea that the New Testament is a sufficient basis for the union of Christians; an idea that we have accepted as an axiom, rather than a position to be explained, defended and demonstrated.

      Many of our people have been unwilling to do the necessary thinking and study involved in all this, finding it easier to learn up the unassailable New Testament position on Baptism and argue about that.

      Quite early Walter Scott popularised the message of our Movement in a very ingenious way, by inventing the famous "five finger exercise": faith, repentance, confession, baptism, gift of the Holy Spirit.

      Like all slogans, it was simple, quotable and readily accepted without being fully understood. Yet these five things are so profound that all of Christian theology is wrapped up in them. It is easier to rattle them off than to understand their implications.

      There has been the tendency to fasten on baptism as the step amongst the five in which we are most different from others, while we have frequently forgotten that, as a people, we stand for other things that are just as important, even if they are less readily understood by ourselves or explained to others.

The Results of Baptism Having had a Major Emphasis Amongst Us

      What has been the result of this tendency to emphasise baptism out of proportion to other parts of our plea?

      1. Some have thought that baptism is the only distinctive thing about us. Ask a group of young people at a camp or in a Bible class, or an average group of Church members how we differ from other Christian groups, and they will mostly reply, "Baptism!"

      2. Because of our strong baptismal emphasis, we have been willing to receive into our membership all who are baptised believers, irrespective of their views on other matters.

      We were right in doing so, but there have been interesting and unexpected fruits of this.

      a. Such baptised believers had little or no understanding of, or loyalty to, our position on other things. In some small places where each loyal soul counts, there has sometimes been a toning down on these other things, in order not to offend these newly welcomed baptised believers.

      b. Many of these newcomers have infiltrated into our Movement, beliefs that were out of harmony with our position as a people. Many were Baptists or Plymouth Brethren, bringing with them such views as "once in grace always in grace," "Salvation by faith alone" and particular theories of the Second Coming. It was quite in order for such views to be held.

      However there was a tendency for those holding them to desire and expect them to be held by every member of our Movement. In some local congregations where these influences predominated there was the tendency for these views to be set out as the official Churches of Christ position.

      c. There has not been as much teaching on other aspects of our plea as there could have been: hence the ignorance of many of our people concerning "the things that made us a people" failed to match the enthusiasm and definiteness of those baptised people who have come to us from other backgrounds. It is not surprising then to find views imported with these folk, often gaining ground in our churches today. One will often come across such things as opposition to Christian unity, the practice of using texts out of their contexts to support particular theories, a weak view of the design of baptism, and the desire to make certain human theories or interpretations of some of the great doctrines binding on all.

      It must be disconcerting to those who have always said, "No creed but Christ," when sincere and earnest people today attempt to impose their strong convictions in the form of written or unwritten creeds.

Further Paradoxical Results

      Our tendency to emphasise baptism out of proportion and out of relationship to the rest of our plea has also led to--

      a. a movement away from our traditional position on baptism.

      b. a movement away from our plea.

      c. a movement away from our Movement.

      1. Argument about baptism led many of the younger generation to become tired of it. Baptisms' were sometimes crude and led to the ordinance being taken lightly. To a generation already unaware of many facets of our plea, this softening up on baptism led to a slackening of loyalty to the Movement.

      2. With the coming of various movements where Christians of all communions worked together and saw a lot of one another, our people began to meet obviously saintly people who had never been baptised.

      Having been brought up to think of baptism as bound up with salvation, they were rather disturbed to discover unbaptised people manifesting the evidences of salvation and the fruits of the Spirit. Perhaps then, baptism was not so important and essential after all, they began to think.

      Then followed the obvious conclusion that if baptism is the only thing that differentiates us from these people and baptism is not very important then there is not much difference between us at all.

      In still more recent times large numbers of our people have become interested in undenominational missions and evangelical societies of an undenominational nature. Usually these societies and groups have as a plank in their platform that "salvation is by faith alone." This has also tended to weaken the position on baptism once normally held amongst us.

      Thus there has arisen amongst us:--

      1. A weakening of what was once our position on baptism.

      2. A failure to see it in its context with the rest of our plea.

      3. A failure to understand fully the rest of our plea.

We Have Thus Produced a Generation Not Greatly Interested in Our Plea

      1. We have the phenomenon of members complaining when the preacher says too much about the history, personalities and message of our Movement. We have members wondering wishfully what to say when their friends ask them, "What does your Church believe?"

      2. We are losing many people to the denominations when they move into new suburbs and towns where we are not represented. Rarely do they set up the Lord's Table and seldom do they attempt to make contact with other Churches of Christ members. It is not often on their conscience to do something about our witness, And frequently there is no desire to link up with our Churches when we do come "late and triumphant" on the scene.

      3. Many members have been absorbed in the Baptist Church. Before proceeding further we must pay a sincere tribute to the Baptists as a great people with a noble historic witness and a great zeal and consecration.

      Many of our people go lightly into membership with the Baptists, saying, "We are practically the same as the Baptists." It is interesting that the Baptists do not say, "We are the same as the Churches of Christ." The pioneers of our Movement were forced out from the Baptists because there were fundamental differences that made similarity of teaching on some aspects of baptism a mere incidental.

      Baptists cherish their denomination and separateness. By and large they are indifferent to Christian union. They are alone in the theological world in the doctrine of the design of baptism. They believe in the doctrine of "salvation by faith alone" with a restricted view of both faith and salvation.

      By and large they still represent the emotionalism, denominationalism and textualism that our fathers found distasteful in their day. (In saying all this it must be recognised that many Baptists would not fit into some of the above categories. They are true though of the majority group of Baptists, the American Southern Baptists, after whom many Australian Baptists follow.)

      4. We are largely failing to make an effective witness to the Christian world, because so many of our people frankly find it hard to say what our contribution is.

What Can We Do About All This?

      1. We must restore baptism to its true value and significance.

      Today the attention of the theological world is being directed towards the doctrine of New Testament baptism more than ever before. Unparalleled opportunities of witnessing to the ordinance are made available in the discussions at the world, national and local levels of the modern "Faith and order" movements.

      The ordinance of Baptism must be re-established amongst our people as a rich experience, full of spiritual significance. We must make its practice such that the candidate and the congregation can really see in it the identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.

      We must take a lot more trouble to see that the persons baptised really have the will to put off the old life and to put on the new life in Christ.

      2. We must re-think for ourselves the relationship of baptism to salvation.

      We must be asking ourselves these questions and be seeking an answer.

      a. What is baptism?

      b. What is salvation?

      We must seek to resolve the dilemma that:--

      a. The New Testament relates baptism to salvation.

      b. There are many obviously saintly people who have not been baptised.

      There are several possible positions one might take.

      a. The position held by the Brethren and many Baptists.

      God has saved us. Jesus commanded baptism. It has nothing to do with salvation, being merely an external. But as Jesus has commanded it, it is to be followed as an act of obedience, but it is not very important. Some would go further and say that baptism is only for those who feel that it is God's will for them.

      b. The regenerationist position.

      Baptismal Regenerationists believe that salvation is the legal right to go to heaven when we die. Baptism secures for us this legal right. The Baptismal Regenerationist is not prepared to concede that any are saved without baptism.

      c. The position that the present writer believes is the New Testament position on both baptism and salvation.

      Salvation in the New Testament is a new, rich, full, victorious, abundant, deathless (eternal) quality of living that comes when the whole of life is committed to Christ.

      Baptism is the wonderful spiritual experience of sharing in symbol the experiences of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It is the active putting off of the "old man" and the putting on of the "new man in Christ."

      Just as the grace and love of God come through to us in the sincere partaking of the Lord's Supper, so the grace and love of God come through to us in the sincere experience of the ordinance of Baptism.

      Viewing salvation and baptism in this fuller New Testament sense, it is not hard to see how the experience of Christian baptism contributes greatly to the abundant, full, deathless living that is salvation.

      3. We must urgently and fearlessly re-examine our present position and practices in the light of the New Testament that our witness might be consistent and intelligent.

      Certain questions must be fearlessly asked and answered. Here are some:

      a. Where does our present conception of the ministry fit in with New Testament teaching?

      b. Is there a New Testament basis for our present congregational autonomy?

      c. What is it we really want to restore?

      d. If we are sincere in our desire for Christian Unity, where do we start negotiating with other Christians with a view to unity?

      4. We must teach our people concerning those things which, besides Baptism, made us a people with a witness.

      Some of these things should loom large in our teaching programmes.

      a. The history and message of our Movement.

      b. The historical interpretation of the Scriptures backed with a thorough course on the structure, Purpose and authority of the scriptures.

      c. How to handle the Scriptures (as opposed to the use of proof texts to bolster preconceived notions).

      d. Our traditional position of acknowledging as Christians all sincere believers in Christ without demanding the acceptance of human interpretations of the words of the Word of God.

      e. The New Testament conception of the Church its life, and faith, and worship and order.

      f. The centrality of the Lord's Supper (particularly in the light of the re-awakened emphasis in modern theology of the concept of the Church as a fellowship).

      5. We must re-think, re-state, and consistently teach the one great thing which made us a distinctive people, and which is still predominantly our distinctive offering to Christendom: Namely--

      The union of all Christians is possible on the basis of the New Testament alone, without insistence on any human interpretations of its message, and in the spirit of love and Christian understanding.

      a. All Churches will accept the New Testament as the authority for faith and practice. We have that much common ground to start with.

      b. We alone plead for this basis only. All other bodies want some common, agreement on the basis of human statements. These expressions of human opinion can only be incomplete, divisive and themselves requiring of interpretation.

      c. We believe that Christians can unite on the basis of the New Testament alone, with a wide liberty of interpretation, provided that our different interpretations are held in love and mutual tolerance of the opinions of others. E. g. There may be room for many interpretations of the second coming.

      d. We believe that there can be a growing oneness of thought on what the New Testament is actually saying to us, as we examine its words in the light of their context, without pre-conceived notions.

      We welcome the fact that modern scholarship is throwing more and more light on the Sacred Word, and that there is a growing consensus of opinion on what the New Testament teaches. Our people must become increasingly New Testament scholars.

      e. We believe that love is the underlying dynamic in our plea.

      * Only through love can we all come together, ready to throw aside everything human, in accepting the New Testament as the only rule of faith and practice.

      * Only through love can we tolerate and accept others as Christians on the basis of their faith in Christ as Son of God, even when their interpretations annoy us profoundly.

      * Only through love can we all come together to a fuller understanding of the light of Christ breaking through to us from the New Testament.

      * Only through love can we take the Living Word and apply it, with other Christians, to the practical task of working out forms of worship, and government, and life, that are satisfying to those coming from different traditions and, at the same time, in harmony with the spirit of Christ.

      Against all this, it is a sobering thought that we in Churches of Christ, who are supposed to believe all this from the depths of our hearts, do not love one another as much as we should, and we are often cold and sensitive to those whose opinions differ from ours on the great facts that we hold in common.

      The above pages have been written, not with any thought that they are the last word on the subject. No doubt many of the observations made would reveal that the writer is not as observant as he should be.

      But they are made by one who loves the Restoration Movement and believes in its message and destiny in our day. He will be well repaid for the work of setting his thoughts on paper, if they stimulate the brethren to think. He does not ask any one to accept or agree with anything he says; rather he hopes that they will do their own urgent and painstaking thinking on all of the points raised.

      God has a purpose for us as a people. This demands our deepest consecration and our best thinking.