One hundred years ago some of our forefathers in the great Stone-Campbell movement made a decision they felt was good and wise. We believe subsequent events have proved them otherwise. Surely a one-hundred-year trial is more than adequate to prove or disprove a proposition! Hasn't there been enough of division and strife? Isn't one-hundred years of splitting and breaking of fellowship too much? Isn't it time to abandon an idea which has produced so much bad fruit?
At the annual meeting of the Sand Creek church in Illinois, August 17, 1889, a document which was the product of much discussion and deliberation was read by Peter P. Warren. It was, in effect, an announcement of formal division. The final paragraph states;
"It is, therefore, with the view, if possible, of counteracting the usages and practices that have crept into the churches, that this effort on the part of the congregations hereafter named is made, and now, in closing up this address and declaration, we state that we are impelled from a sense of duty to say, that all that are guilty of teaching, or allowing and practicing the many innovations and corruptions to which we have referred, that after being admonished, and having had sufficient time for reflection, if they do not turn away from such abominations, that we cannot and will not regard them as brethren."
"In my analysis of the rise of factionalism I have come to believe that the philosophy embodied in the Sand Creek Declaration laid the foundation for the subsequent disintegration of the restoration movement.. .It is our further opinion that this policy pursued regularly as a course of action can only culminate in more divisions,... Every time a truth is discovered, every time honest investigation forces a change of mind, there will be another division. This philosophy bars the door to further scriptural research, makes real unbiased study a crime, and places a premium on mediocrity. It throws a dam across the channel of thought, freezes the acquisition of knowledge, and constitutes an unwritten creed. It makes blind conformity a blessing and enthrones orthodoxy as the ideal." 1
" "The Sand Creek Declaration sounded the death knell for the autonomy of the local congregation..."
"Out of this kind of reasoning grew the idea that one congregation could 'disfellowship' another congregation and that elders of one church could pronounce the sentence of 'spiritual death' upon another congregation over which they held not the slightest degree of jurisdiciton."2
".. .Endorsed by Daniel Sommer in the north and by David Lips-comb in the south, this became the orthodox position of the restoration protestants. It has now become sanctified by three-quarters of a century (now a whole century, LAB) of practice and is generally regarded as the will of God. Its repeated application has shattered the restoration movement into numerous rival and antagonistic factions. In spite of its evil fruits of strife and division it is defended by most parties with such zeal that one who dares to challenge it is regarded as a heretic." 3
Brother Ketcherside has given us permission to publish his thoughts on these
questions. Unless otherwise indicated, quotations are from his writing in Mission
Messenger. We commend them to you for your honest and open study.
L. A. B., compiler