DR. DESMOND CROWLEY.
Dr. Desmond Crowley who obtained Ph.D. from the University of London, came to Australia in 1959. He is originally from New Zealand. Dr. Crowley is now Assistant Director of Adult Education, University of Adelaide; Current Affairs Commentator for the A.B.C. In Church life he is a member of The Department of Christian Education in South Australia; a deacon of the Edwardstown Church of Christ.

      Churches of Christ have always felt that they had a special mission towards the promotion of Christian unity. When he formulated the position which we still very largely hold Alexander Campbell had in the forefront of his mind the "sin of disunity", and consciousness of the value of this position as a means to ultimate union has remained strong within our movement to the present day. In recent years, however, the ecumenical movement has made remarkable advances, accompanied by revolutionary changes in the thinking of other churches on doctrinal problems, the interpretation of the Bible and their form and order. What is the relevance of our position to these developments? Does it need re-stating? The points offered in this pamphlet are meant to be a contribution towards an answer to these questions.

      On the face of things, it would seem most likely that over a century and a half which has seen such remarkable changes we alone among the churches should not need to re-examine our position. Yet it is the present writer's view that, though a difference of emphasis is perhaps needed in some places, our general position is still sound: no major change is necessary. What is more urgently required, perhaps, is some change in our attitude to wards the other churches. These present notes are stimulated by the writer's attendance at the Inter-Church Conference of Christian Renewal held in Adelaide in January, 1963, when it was his impression that a number of our members, brought into intimate contact with our brethren from other denominations, had to make, like himself, a healthy change in some of their attitudes or beliefs concerning these churches. It is a great pity that more of our membership cannot share this experience. Nevertheless the impression was also confirmed that our position is sound and profitable.

      What, for the sake of clarity, is this Churches of Christ position of which we speak? Its essence is surely the view that Christian unity is made possible, and the realities concerning our state of knowledge of Christian doctrines is best expressed, if we insist only upon agreement on the essentials in Christian beliefs and allow complete freedom of belief on other matters. And that the essential item of belief, clearly laid down in scripture, is acceptance of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and our Saviour and Lord. Since we must reach agreement on a certain minimum of practice in order to function as a church, we follow as closely as possible the practice of the New Testament Church, including believers' baptism. It is on this ground that we also base our weekly observance of the Lord's Supper. We also stress the supreme authority of the Bible.

      It is fair comment, surely, that while most of our members would probably agree generally with this statement of our position, different members emphasise different parts of it, without denying the remaining parts. Some stress believers' baptism while placing less stress on the toleration of divergent views on doctrines. It is also fair comment that in reality we impose greater uniformity upon ourselves than this theoretical position would

suggest. There are many questions on which as a movement we have a generally accepted view, divergence from which would be regarded by most of our members as "wrong."

      One lesson that Churches of Christ members quickly learn at inter-church conferences is that it is not nearly enough to say, as many of us tend to, that we take our stand on the Bible. The old slogan--"where the Bible speaks we speak; where the Bible is silent we are silent"--is not very useful. The difficulty is to know what the Bible is saying. Other churches, too, base a large part of their doctrinal positions, more than we generally realise, upon scripture passages, and while we can dispute their interpretation of any verse it is generally impossible to disprove it. We have to admit that the meanings we see in scripture passages are interpretations too. We all interpret the Bible: so much depends on the meanings we give to words, on emphasis, on whether we take a passage literally or figuratively, and on how we relate it to other passages. There are so many passages where different interpretations are possible--and this is why Alexander Campbell insisted that there must be complete toleration on all but the essential of our faith--the divinity of Jesus.

      It has also been part of our experience at inter-church conferences--and a wonderful part--to see how obviously the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of Christians whose beliefs are different from ours. One learns to marvel, in fact, at the varied channels through which the Spirit is clearly at work.

      Another discovery, new to the present writer at least, is the much greater similarity between different systems of church government in practice than one would expect from a study of their constitutions as written. This arises from the fact that these constitutions are operated not as secular constitutions are operated, by persons in authority using their powers in accordance with their own individual views, but through decisions taken after prayer and the seeking of God's guidance. Those who on paper seem to possess autocratic powers--such as in the appointment of ministers to congregations--seek guidance in prayer and through consultation with representatives of the congregations so that the appointment becomes much more of a calling by God than it might seem and at the same time much more of a democratic process. Not that the difference between other systems of church government than ours are not considerable and important, nor that their systems are preferable to ours: the point is rather that they are not so much different as perhaps we have tended to think.

Unity Through Growth.

      A further impression one brings away from inter-church conferences is a realisation that unity will come about by the churches growing together. Just as so many of our beliefs are so deeply held and our practices followed from such deep conviction that we could not surrender them for the sake of unity, so too beliefs and practice of other churches are based on sincere conviction. Though a weakening of certainty about some of these has occurred and has been an important factor in fostering the ecumenical movement, they will not be discarded easily. There has been a relaxation of the old dogmatism/ which has brought other churches closer to Campbell's position on toleration; but the denominations are still far from the degree of agreement on the questions of church government and practice that would be necessary for union.

      In this situation, so greatly changed from what existed even just a few decades ago, we of the Churches of Christ should surely re-examine our position critically, without any assumption that it will in fact need fundamental alteration.

      Are we sure our position is still the best basis we can find for a unified church and the closest we can come to what we feel is God's will for His people? How can we approach such an examination?

      I want to suggest that, instead of trying to delve more deeply in a direct way into the meanings of the already familiar scripture passages, it is helpful to consider the essence of our beliefs and practices and relate this to the historical evolution of the Christian church.

      When we do this, I suggest we will find that running through our particular position is a rejection of what might be called (for want of a better word) the "superstitious" elements in the teachings of other churches. In other words, we have tended to emphasise what happens within the Christian through his response to the grace of God and to reject beliefs based on emphasis upon God's powers of acting externally upon us, which can be described as "superstitious."

The Rejection of "Superstition."

      We see this particularly, of course, in our teaching on salvation and baptism. Our insistence that baptism is for believers, and must be preceded by a confession of belief in Christ as Saviour, is based upon belief that the believer is saved largely through his response to God and that this is an essential element in salvation, as contrasted with the belief implicit in infant baptism that salvation is an act of God alone, external to the individual concerned. Similarly, in our celebration of the Lord's Supper we do not believe that any miracle occurs in the elements, as some other churches do; but that the efficacy of this ordinance depends upon the worshipper's consciousness of and response to the presence of God. In prayer we see no value in itself in the repetition of a form of words, but believe that each prayer is effective to the extent that it is a real and appropriate expression of a truly prayerful attitude of the worshipper. We do not believe that buildings are made holy by prayer, or that a man cannot be admitted to a particular ministry in the church except by the laying on of hands. Rather we hold that any Christian who has the appropriate abilities can perform any ministry more or less adequately, and is open to the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit in the performance of this ministry. Though we hold with others that the working of the Spirit within us is a miraculous phenomenon and a central part of the Christian life, we teach--or our teaching implies--that it is a mistake to look to God for any external influence upon our lives: in other words that to do this is "superstition."

      From an historical viewpoint, this is the most advanced position taken up by any of the Christian churches. As those who have read extracts from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, or Chaucer's poems, or other medieval documents, will know, the evolution of the Christian church has constantly, since the Dark Ages, been marked by the steady reduction of the superstitious element in its beliefs. After the passage of a number of generations after the crucifixion, when the original contact with Christ had become remote, the Church lapsed into a system of beliefs which contained a large admixture of superstition. This was a natural result of human weakness, for men find it easier--they still do--to look for an external miracle rather than heed the inner prompting of the Spirit and shoulder the personal responsibility it requires. When all the church was Roman Catholic, there was notable stress upon miracles, and sainthood, and salvation by "works" (which were often no more than gifts to the church or the poor). The Reformation constituted an important step in the cutting-away of superstition, and the process has continued. It still continues; the Bishop of

Woolwich's "Honest to God" is, in the general trend of its argument, a current example among many of the process, though in its detail it may perhaps have departed from the main path.

      It is very largely because of this trend in the development of Christian thinking (which is a centuries-old continuous process of moving constantly towards a truer understanding of the nature of God and His will for us) that the Churches are now drawing together. An important part of the growing enlightenment has been an increasing doubt about teachings implying that God acts externally--increasing doubts in particular about infant baptism, the separation of the clergy and the traditional views of the nature of the Lord's Supper. This tendency has also produced a growing together by the Churches because of doubts it has raised about the dogmas that separate; and this emergence of doubt has amounted to a movement towards the Churches of Christ position where we contend that there can be no certainty about many elements of doctrine.

      What then must we do in this situation? Since the other churches are moving towards our position, should we stand still and wait for them to come to us? The answer, unfortunately, is not so simple.

      Certainly we must resist certain tendencies which can be seen in our movement to drift towards the traditional position of other churches. This would be to move against the tide of history, at a time when the tide is steadily flowing towards us. Examples of this trend are, particularly, instances of attempts to separate the paid ministry from the rest of the membership, as in an induction service at which the writer was present recently where the congregation was asked to pledge obedience to the minister. Induction services, ordination, the consecration of buildings or of other physical things or of persons, and the use of symbolic aids to worship are surely permissible within our movement if they are aids to Christian devotion. But the danger that they come to be regarded as essential to worship or to the practice of Christianity must always be guarded against vigilantly, for this would be a complete contradiction of the essence of our teaching. To fall into this error is to revert to superstition at a time when Christianity is freeing itself from this carnal element.

The Danger of Stagnation.

      There is a reason why there has been a particular tendency within our churches--not a strong one, but noticeable nevertheless--towards giving special status to the paid ministry: the lack of recognised authority within our movement. Our emphasis on the "mutual ministry" has too often been distorted into a denial of the value of Christian scholarship: into a belief that all men's opinions on doctrine are of equal value. Those who have been trying to elevate the trained ministry have apparently been trying to counter this trend. It is very true that unless there is respect for scholarship we shall stagnate as a movement, for men cling passionately to their beliefs, and their response to the new conceptions that are the product of continued scholarship is to reject them angrily. Without scholarship there can be no leadership, and therefore no further development of Christian thought among our membership. Though the leadership of Alexander Campbell placed us in advance of the main current of Christian thinking, we are now in grave danger as a movement of being overtaken and being left behind. Since it is the development of Christian thought that is drawing the churches together, to be left behind would mean being left apart from the other churches instead of growing together with them. But to try to induce respect for the ministry by external or artificial means is no answer to the problem. Respect (which does not of course mean obedience) is an attitude that can only be fostered or nourished: we can at least hope that the qualities of our ministers and the continuing increase in educational standards of our membership will help to promote this nourishment.

      We are especially weak in our lack of systematic theology and the failure of our membership to keep pace with recent advances in Biblical study. While we have always been right in rejecting dogma (in theory at least, for we have plenty of unofficial dogmas), we cannot avoid an attempt at the systematic exploration of the theological implications of our essential position, though it would be wrong, and unscholarly, to be tempted into the theological hair-splittings of the past. And in our common thinking we often contradict our main position. We have not attempted this development of our theology because we have loaded our scholars with teaching and other responsibilities and have thus left them no time for scholarship. Further, though Campbell was revolutionary among Bible students of his day with his stress upon context, we have ignored the further revolution in Biblical studies that has occurred in recent years and have failed to relate this to our position. In so doing we have failed to make the contribution to the ecumenical movement that should have been ours, and to participate in the movement as fully and effectively as we should have done.

      To stand still is not to share in the growing movement towards unity, but to let it move away from us. And since the movement is part of a drawing closer by Christians to God, to stand still is to separate ourselves unnecessarily from our Father.