"The Movement We Love" is a series of three letters written to a young man who is seeking information regarding Churches of Christ. They cover backgrounds and beliefs that mean most to these churches it Australia.

      C. G. TAYLOR, B.A. (Hons.) served as a Home Missionary with the church at Brookton, W.A. (1934-36) before entering the Federal College of the Bible, from which he graduated in 1938. While serving the church at Parkdale he did a History Honors course at the Melbourne University, graduating in 1942. He has since ministered to the Victorian churches of Hampton, Canton (Lygon St.) and Brighton, and for more than six years has been at Doncaster. After over six years as a College lecturer (1945-51), he has been Editor of "The Australian Christian" for the past twelve years. For 1962-63 he was President of Churches of Christ Conference, Victoria and Tasmania. He goes to Chatswood, N.S.W., at the end of 1963.

      A Minister writes to a young man concerning . . .

Dear Harry,

      I'm delighted to learn that you young people of different Churches want to share with each other what you believe about Christ and his Church. You tell me you want to find out what makes some of those you rub shoulders with in interchurch camps and committees think as they do about certain things. And, incidentally, you would like them to learn from you something about Churches of Christ! That's where I come in! You want me to sketch in the background and help sort out the beliefs that mean most to you as a member of Churches of Christ in Australia. Thanks for the privilege.

Australian Backgrounds.

      In the first place, I think it's worth remembering as an Australian that, when Captain Philip landed at Sydney Cove in 1788, there was no organised communion of Churches of Christ anywhere in the world. Yet within sixty years, a Church of Christ had begun to meet in Adelaide, and found itself linked with similar churches meeting in the United States of America, Great Britain and even New Zealand. In one sense, then, Churches of Christ, have practically grown up with the country itself. They are now active in all Australian States, and this year (1962) reported a total active membership of 33,385 in 389 churches.

      Right from the first small church formed in Adelaide in 1836, members have been very much aware of their links with the slightly older churches in Great Britain and the United States. They appealed to each country in turn for preaching help to be sent to them, and some Australian settlers even for a time sent, financial aid to churches of Christ preachers in England itself. That was an early sign of the spirit of brotherhood, which has always been a strong feature of the churches' life.

      Actually, it was American preachers who gave the most effective and lasting help to the growing young Australian churches. Main reason for that was the much more rapid growth of the Restoration Movement (as it was widely called) in U.S.A. than in Great Britain. By the latter half of last century, American churches had the resources and the preachers ready to help in a sense that the struggling British churches never had.

      Yet Australian Churches of Christ have never forgotten their British backgrounds, nor the fact that some of our early pioneers came to this land, strongly influenced by the earnest Bible-searching of men like John Glas, Robert Sandeman and the Haldane brothers. During the 18th and early 19th centuries, such men had been urging in various ways a return to the simple faith and practice of the New Testament. Church. This became a basic conviction of Churches of Christ, and some congregations using that, name were formed about 1809-1810. The first Co-operative Meeting of British Churches of Christ held in 1842 marked a decided advance. Though they have never been strong numerically, they have produced some outstanding personalities, including men who have made an important contribution to interchurch affairs. British Churches of Christ have also proved warmhearted hosts to two of the six World Conventions of Churches of Christ held since 1930--at Leicester in 1935 and at Edinburgh in 1960. Australia was able to return some of that hospitality when the Fourth World Convention was held in Melbourne in 1952.

American Developments.

      At the same time as Churches of Christ were being formed in Great Britain in the early 19th century, things were stirring across the Atlantic. Some early American churches owed their origin to the influence of British reformers, but they were small, and held no hint of what was to prove "the most rapid growth of any religious movement in the whole history of the Church since the Apostolic Age." The main human factor behind that amazing growth lies in the story of a father and his son Thomas and Alexander Campbell.

      Thomas Campbell was a Presbyterian minister, who came from Ireland to America in 1807, to take up duties as a frontier preacher for the "Old Light Anti-Burgher Seceder Presbyterian Church." An unlovely name for a church! But it was typical of a time when even the main church bodies were fantastically split up into bitterly opposed groups. Campbell soon discovered that this kind of division was just as much "a horrid evil" (as he later called it) in America as in Ireland. Because he administered the Lord's Supper to Presbyterians who did not belong to the Old Light Anti-Burgher Seceders, he was strongly censured, and eventually withdrew from the body. To him the Lord's Table was "the Table of unity and love"--not to be hedged off from other Christians simply because they disagreed on some item of creed orgy practice. Others who sympathised with his views joined in forming the Christian Association of Washington. This became a separate church in 1811, but only after the failure of all efforts to have it admitted to another Presbyterian synod. Meanwhile, Thomas Campbell had composed and published in 1809 a remarkable call to Christian unity, known as The Declaration and Address. Its 30,000 words filled 54 closely printed pages. Despite his own unhappy experience, he wrote with optimistic love: "Let, the ministers of Jesus but embrace this exhortation, put their hand to the work and encourage the people to go forward upon the firm ground of obvious truth, to unite in the bonds of an entire Christian unity . . . Who would not willingly conform to the original pattern laid down in the New Testament for this happy purpose?" His optimism was scarcely justified. Few read The Declaration and Address, even though it was posted to all preachers in Washington County. A divided church dismissed it with contempt. It was a century before its time.

      Today, men begin to see the document in its true perspective, and to admit the greatness of this gentle-hearted but passionate believer in Christian union. He affirmed thirteen main propositions, whose main points have been summed up as: (1) The Church is essentially one; (2) The final authority is the Bible, especially the New Testament; (3) Creeds are futile as means of union; (4) Remove human innovations and unity will result; (5) Christians of all denominations are brethren and should be united. (A Biblical Approach to Unity--Williams). By modern standards it's a wordy document. Even so, I once spent, a day in the Melbourne Public Library, reading the latest pronouncements by both Roman Catholic and Protestant writers on the subject of Christian union. Last of all, I re-read The Declaration and Address. Of all I had read that day, that 1809 document was the most timely and provocative.

      Alexander Campbell, son of its author, felt the same way when he arrived in America in 1809, and was given a freshly printed copy to read for himself. His reading and recent contacts, both in Ireland and Scotland, had led him to much the same line of thought, and he enthusiastically endorsed all that his father had written. A powerful personality, with a brilliant intellect, he quickly became a leader in the new movement. Following through his father's principle, "Where the Scriptures speak, we speak; where they are silent we are silent," led him to the conviction that immersion of believers was New Testament baptism, and not the infant baptism to which they had been accustomed.

      This soon became standard practice among their followers, and led them to link up with the Baptists in 1813.

      Meanwhile, another man had emerged as the leader of a group of people who preferred to be known simply as "Christians." He was Barton Warren Stone, who, as a young Presbyterian minister, had been active in a religious revival in Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801. Later he was attacked because he and other Presbyterian ministers had worked alongside Baptist and Methodist preachers during the revival. They withdrew from the synod and formed the independent Springfield Presbytery. This body only lasted a year before, in 1804, they issued the so-called Last Will and Testament of the Springfield Presbytery, chiefly remembered today for the striking phrase, "We will that this body die, be dissolved, and sink into union with the Body of Christ at large." After that they were known as "Christians," and their numbers grew quite impressively. They, too, came to convictions about immersion of believers being Scriptural baptism, but they did not make it a test of fellowship. Human creeds were abandoned; the Bible alone was to be their rule of faith.

      Barton Stone was a passionate believer in Christian unity. Towards the end of his ministry he was able to say, "For 32 years of my ministry I have kept in my view the unity of Christians as my polar star. For this I have labored, for this suffered reproach, persecution, and privation of ease, the: loss of friendship, wealth and honor from men." It's not surprising to find that by 1806 his group had linked up with two other movements. In 1832 began an even more significant step--union with the followers of the Campbells, the so-called Reformers. These folk had met with growing difficulties during their time in the Baptist fold. Personalities were involved, as well as differences in doctrine and practice, and a rather uneasy alliance had begun to break up around 1830. The twenty thousand Reformers had formed themselves into "Churches of Christ," and it was these who gradually united with the greater part of the Western "Christians" to form the nucleus of what is now known in the United States and elsewhere as Disciples of Christ.

      Not all the "Christian" Churches joined with the Reformers--nor, with the passage of years did the Disciples of Christ remain intact.

      A group which opposed the use of organs in worship, and the development of missionary societies received census recognition in 1906 as a separate body altogether. These folk, known as Churches of Christ have recently established congregations in Australia, but they have no connection with Australian Churches of Christ as such. In the Gospel Advocate (8 2 62), W. J. Stanley (one of their preachers gave their total Australian membership as about 400.

      By now you're probably wondering whether we shouldn't be rather ashamed of some of our ancestry! In a summary like this, these forefathers of Churches of Christ look rather like a bunch of malcontents who left established Churches because they couldn't get on with other people--and who didn't always succeed in getting on with one another! But such a conclusion would be grossly unfair, even if there is at least some sting of truth in it. These men were moved by great convictions, and in my next letter we must look at those convictions and see what they meant, and continue to mean to Churches of Christ.

      The Minister writes a second letter

Dear Harry,

      In my last letter, I tried to summarise for you something of the history of Churches of Christ. This time I would like to make a start on discussing some of the basic convictions we hold as a people. Remember that what I'm writing now is a personal statement; as you know, our churches have always been opposed to written creeds as tests of fellowship, and none such has ever been composed and made binding on our people. But while emphases may vary, I hope that what I write will help you to see the strength of the convictions that unite us.

      For example, look at the twofold emphasis on

Restoration and Union.

      These are twin ideals which, even in my sketchy outline last week, I hope you could see emerging in the history of our churches. Some have emphasised one more than the other--some even one against the other--but they belong together. Thomas Campbell saw that clearly enough when, in his Declaration and Address, he not only urged that "the Church of Christ on earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one," but also, in advocating unity, went on to ask, "Who would not willingly conform to the original pattern laid down in the New Testament for this happy purpose?"

      But what is this "original pattern"? Does the New Testament supply us with a "blue-print," perfect in every detail? On the contrary, some scholars have argued that there are many patterns of churches in the New Testament. But we believe, as Principal Williams has well said, that "there are principles, precepts and precedents by which we must be guided. We have facts and commandments which give us a foundation, and there is a framework within which we must build, and within which all development must take place. Nothing which is contrary to what is clearly given can have any place in the Church, and nothing can be made binding on any Christian for which there is no clear imperative through principle, precept or precedent."

      We see the restoration of the New Testament Church, in its spirit as well as in its practice, as the essential plan behind the plea for union. This saves us from being

the kind of impotent people who adopt a vaguely benevolent "unity-at-any-price" approach. But there is an opposite danger which I hope you'll learn to recognise and fight against--that kind of deadening legalism which, in its attempts to restore forms, adopts a "holier-than-thou" exclusiveness. Some have embraced extremes like these. It takes both courage and vision to walk the tightrope between them. But as churches that is our task--to insist that the basis for union can be found in New Testament truth, as accepted by "the competent, qualified spiritual scholarship of the Church in all ages," with a readiness to discard anything in the Church's life contrary to that New Testament faith and practice. At the same time, we must be prepared to adventure more in love and understanding with our fellow-Christians in other Churches. Together we have much to learn--not only about each other, but about God's will for us all. And, surely, part of that Divine purpose is Christian union'.

      Fundamental emphases like these spring from what we believe about both

Bible and Church

      and we must take time to try to make those convictions clear now.

      As you know, "Back to the Bible!" has been a watchword amongst us, as well as among other earnest groups in the Church's history. When you were welcomed into church membership, you were handed a New Testament and told to read it carefully, as the Book containing "our only rule of faith and practice." Churches of Christ have always urged that Christians should know their Bibles--and especially their New Testaments. Dr. William Robinson tells us that in many of our early churches, both in Great Britain and America, at least one-third of the members could read their Greek Testament! We may not reach quite that standard, but unless we are a Bible-reading, Bible-studying people, we have no real future as Churches.

      The Scriptures are especially important to Churches of Christ because, as I said at the start of this letter, we have no written creed. Our forefathers rejected all human creeds because they were used as tests of fellowship, and so contributed to division in the Church. For the same reason, we refuse to accept or frame for ourselves any other creed than the fundamental truth contained in Peter's great confession of his Lord as "the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). That is our test of fellowship. This doesn't mean that help and encouragement cannot be found in such historic documents as the Apostles' Creed. But it does mean that such statements are rejected when used to enforce uniformity. Instead, we have asserted, "No creed but Christ," which means that the Book which gives us the facts about him, and shows the revelation of God climaxed in him, has for us an unrivalled importance. Here God speaks. Here is divinely inspired authority. But we do not worship the Bible as such; rather, we worship the Lord whom the Bible reveals.

      It is because of this emphasis on the Lordship of Christ as revealed in the Bible that we have urged Bible names for his Church--hence Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ (America). Such names are not used in any exclusive sense; as has often been said, "We are Christians only, not the only Christians." Members of the Church are those who have expressed their faith in Christ, and their own repentance, by making a public confession of that faith and being baptised. This, it has seemed to us from a careful study of the conversions recounted in the Book of Acts, was the normal basis of New

Testament membership. New Testament evidence has also been accepted as supporting a congregational form of government, so that individual churches elect deacons (and sometimes elders) and other needed church officers. Ministers are called by each church. This system is not without its critics in our own ranks today, but it persists as common practice. These individual congregations co-operate on the State, federal and international levels in conferences and conventions. In the case of State and Federal Conferences in Australia, resolutions may be passed and referred to elected departments or committees, which give leadership in tasks on which the churches have agreed to work together--Missions, Christian education, social service, etc. On certain matters, advice and help are available to individual churches on request. In all the States, there is a growing body of full-time leadership for the various forms of co-operative service. In recent years, full-time Conference Secretaries have been appointed in South Australia and Victoria. Conference Presidents are elected annually at all State Conferences, and every second year on the Federal level.

      We co-operate with others in inter-church matters, ever challenged by the insistence of the New Testament on the oneness of the Church. Churches of Christ belong to the Australian Council of Churches; our representatives have been at the great gatherings of the World Council of Churches. Some are strongly opposed to such representation, and resolutions of both New South Wales and Tasmanian Conferences have been against it. The issue has twice been keenly debated in the Victorian Conference, and on both occasions affiliation with the Council has been endorsed. The cooperative work of the Council is well supported in many ways throughout Australia. At the same time, it should be remembered that many of those who oppose the World Council have shown themselves ready Lo co-operate in Christian service on other levels--such as in evangelism and missionary enterprise.

      In my final letter I want us to think of what baptism and the Lord's Supper mean to us, and the place of our ministry and service in the life of the Church.

      The Minister concludes his letters to a young man

Dear Harry,

      From what you've told me, whenever you young people start talking together about the beliefs of the various Churches, the questions you're most asked concern the attitudes of Churches of Christ on

Baptism and The Lord's Supper.

      It is true, of course, that these two great ordinances of the Church hold a special place in our teaching and practice. Once it was said that a Church of Christ preacher could begin from any text in the Bible and end up on baptism! Some think we have swung too much to the other extreme today. Baptism certainly shouldn't be treated as the all-important feature of our message--but it is important. We believe that the act of baptism in the New Testament is immersion, marking the believer's response both to the love and to the command of Christ. It is connected with the process of salvation, as being "unto the remission of sins" (Acts 2:38), but it does not involve what has been called "baptismal regeneration"--

there is no magic in the water. Immersion is true to the symbolism of baptism as stressed by Paul in Rom. 6:4, but those word of Paul underline the fact that there is much more to baptism than the physical act of immersion. Unless it is accompanied by real faith and whole-hearted response to God's grace in Christ, the physical act alone is worthless. But when it follows on faith, repentance and confession (as our study of the Book of Acts convinces us it did in the New Testament Church) we believe that the terms of salvation are fulfilled, and that the person immersed is baptised into Christ, and added to the Church.

      This means, of course, that we reject infant baptism. Scholars of all communions have agreed that immersion of believers was the original practice of the Church. So, when we plead for this, the are not expressing the quaint view of some off-centre sect, but a "catholic" or "universal" belief shared by many of our fellow-Christians. We know some of the reasons why the practice of infant baptism evolved in the life of the Church. We understand better than once we did the underlying concern for child and family expressed by some of its earnest supporters. But we still see no justifiable reason why we shouldn't all be prepared to stand together on what is (to say the least) the surer New Testament support for believer's baptism, which fulfils the true symbolism of the act.

      As for the Lord's Supper, the have emphasised, among other things, its weekly observance. The Sunday morning meeting is recognised as the communion service, though in Australia at least an opportunity for communion is also given either during or after the evening service. The weekly observance is based on such passages as Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor. 11:26, as well as on later historical references to the life of the Early Church. Far from finding this weekly remembrance monotonous, or robbing the act of its significance, actual practice has shown that the service containing the Lord's Supper can prove richer in worship content than any other. It is our response to Christ's own command. Taking the bread and the wine as the symbols of his body and blood, we remember all that his self-giving means to us, finding the act a source of grace and strength, as we have fellowship together, and with him, "in his own appointed way."

      There have been differences of opinion as to whether the Lord's Supper should be "closed communion"--that is, confined to those who have been immersed and thus become members of the Church. Today, in Australia as well as in America, the emphasis is on the fact that it is the Lord's Supper, and it is not for us either to "invite or debar." Hence, members of other Christian bodies may take communion with us in our regular worship services. However, children of our own church families wait until they have themselves confessed Christ as Saviour, been baptised and joined the Church before they share in communion.

      Now, before I finish, I want to say something about

Ministry and Service.

      Today, Churches of Christ believe in an adequately trained ministry. A Federal College in Melbourne and a State College in Sydney exist to train ministers and missionaries for full-time Christian service, as well as to aid those who wish to give better leadership on the local church level. Plans are now being discussed for another such College in Brisbane. Friends of yours who have met some of our leaders are probably puzzled by the fact that

qualified ministers of Australian Churches of Christ use neither clerical title nor clerical dress. Why not? The answer lies in a vigorous attempt to express in practice "the priesthood of all believers." With a strong sense of democracy, our pioneers reacted from any idea of a priestly class, different in status from other church members. The reaction at times went to extremes; instead of "preacher-dominated" churches there emerged in some cases church "bosses" among deacons and elders, the elected leaders of local churches. Today there is a much more balanced picture -trained ministers, looked to for leadership, but working in full co-operation with the elected representatives of their congregations. This isn't to claim that the relationship is always satisfactory on both sides, but there is a growing awareness of the work a fulltime minister can do, and must be adequately helped to do.

      Ministers fulfil some duties which are theirs alone (e. g., marriage services), and they normally have the responsibility for conducting the Sunday evening services. But in the conduct of the Sunday morning communion service they have the co-operation of other members--one "presiding" at the Lord's Table; others reading, helping, etc. These are chosen on their merits and Christian character--in some cases after attending training classes conducted by the full-time minister. This "mutual ministry" (as it is called) goes further in the enlistment of men and women of the congregation in varied tasks. This has proved one of the strengths of Australian Churches of Christ, and Correspondence Courses and Extension Lectures from the Federal College of the Bible, and various forms of training for leadership courses and camps are doing much to raise the standard of this type of service.

      The emphasis in the local churches has been on evangelism. Sometimes this has been in the narrow sense of so-called "gospel services" and tent missions, with opportunity given in at least one service on the Sunday for converts to make a public confession of their faith in Jesus as Saviour and Son of God. Today, special efforts are still widely used, but evangelism is being stressed more as the on-going activity of the whole church, expressed in personal witness, Christian education visitation evangelism, etc.

      Since 1891, Overseas Missions have become a growing part of our churches' activity. Missionaries are at present at work in India, the New Hebrides and New Guinea. On the home front, strong support has been given to Aborigines Missions, with the chief stations at Norseman and Carnarvon, W.A. Much has been done in the field of Social Service, including the provision of some magnificent Homes for the aged. In these and other forms of service, the women of the churches, organised in such groups as Christian Women's Fellowships, have been in the forefront. Youth, too, have set the pace in club and camp activity, etc., with special leadership (either on full or part-time basis) in all the States. Through the Austral Graded Lessons, prepared for Bible school use, the Federal Board of Christian Education is doing a magnificent piece of work, co-operating in some measure with our Baptist friends. Men's groups in the States have been growing in number and activity.

      All these and other phases of church services and activity have been recorded over the years in the Federal weekly, The Australian Christian, now in its 66th year, and published by the Austral Printing and Publishing Company, printers of other Christian literature which has been helpful in

the growth of our churches. Ocher papers preceded the Christian, and the various States have also produced monthly or bi-monthly papers. We have our own Australian Churches of Christ Hymn Book, now being used in most of our churches.

      Well, there it is, Harry--a necessarily cramped and certainly incomplete picture. I haven't said anything about the great facts of the faith that we hold in common with so many of our fellow-Christians--such as the saving gospel of Christ, the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, etc. But you wanted me, rather, to look at some of our distinctive views and practices, and I have tried to do that, Inevitably, it is a personal picture; another man's emphases would probably differ, as I said in my first letter.

      But I hope that what I have written has helped you to share with me something of the thrill of being part of an on-going Movement. For Churches of Christ are that, and will continue to be that, while there are young people like yourself willing to confer and cooperate with others across denominational boundaries; to share convictions and to seek the will of Christ together. And surely--as Churches of Christ have always said--his will for his Church is unity. For us that means more than a pious sentiment. Humbly but tenaciously, we must bear our witness, wherever and whenever we can, to a plea and a plan worth thinking about in the light of our Saviour's own passionate plea for unity. You, and others like you, must see to it that we keep moving on this task--that we don't bog down in our own form of smug denominationalism.

      That could happen. For God's sake, don't let it happen! James Martineau once said that men discuss with the lips each other's creed, instead of going into the silence with their own God. But surely we must do both. Discuss together! Pray together! And lose no chance to work together!

      That way lies the doing of the will of God. May you know his presence and help every step of the way.