"We have been conditioned by years of factional teaching and training. We have been shown how to hate instead of being taught how to love. It will be difficult for us to reverse our attitude. We do not want to compromise conviction nor undermine the structure of faith. But someone must dare to do something or the mistakes of the past will be permanently embalmed."1
"I am dedicated to the destruction of all sects and the uprooting of all factions by killing the taproot which sustains and nurtures them-the party spirit."2 "Can a man be in a faction or belong to a schismatic group and be a part of the church of God? Certainly so, although his attachment to the party is condemned of God... God formed the church but men created these parties...They were in the church by the grace of God and in the party by the mistake of men."3 "Perhaps the greatest problem that faces us is not that Christ is not preached, but as it was in the days of Rome, men 'proclaim Christ out of partisanship'. Are we as anxious to see people saved as to have them see things like we do?"4 "A factious man is one who is contentious, seditious, and party-spirited. He will sacrifice the peace and harmony of the body to have his way. He builds a clique about himself. He is the spearhead of a splinter party, the sachem of a segment, the chief of a confederation. He does not love the brotherhood, for to him no one is a brother who disagrees with him. No one is right with God who is not in good with him. No one is in the favor of God who falls under his disfavor. It is this spirit which has shivered, severed, and segregated God's people into warring tribes."5 "The disciple brotherhood is divided. Division is contrary to the will of God. The party spirit is a sin. No single one of these parties is the church of God exclusively. Therefore, every one of us has been in a party or faction! There is no use trying any longer to damn every one else to hell in a vain attempt to save ourselves. We may all be damned together by perpetuating division, none of us can be saved by doing so!"6 "There are two kinds of schismatics. One injects his opinion about a thing and seeks to build a party around it; the other sets up an unwritten law in which he makes opposition to such an opinion his test of fellowship."7 "Any group who forces you to believe something other than the great fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, as a condition of admission to their fellowship, has laid another foundation than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. And that 'something else' is the creed of that group, and the group constitutes a sect in the fair import of that term."8 "A real partisan does not seek for new truths. He does not need to do so. His party has ascended to the highest peak of spiritual attainment."9 "Any person who erects a wall of partition to divide, separate, and segregate brethren, regardless of what that wall may be, thereby opposes the work of God's Son and does despite to the Spirit of grace!"10 "Heresy, as that term is used in the New Testament, is not the holding of an opinion, either true or false. Neither is it the mere advocacy or expression of such an opinion. A man can be in error and not be a heretic; he can be a heretic in conjunction with the truth."11 "A heretic is one who seeks to build a party around his view to the division of the children of God."12 "The church is composed of all whom God has called out of the world. Sects are composed of those who are called out from other believers. God seeks to separate the saved from the domain of sin, sects seek to separate those who profess to be under the dominion of Christ from each other."13 "We must see it (sectarianism) as God looks at it. We must recognize it as a hacking to bits of the body of our Lord, an attempt to cure a malady by dismemberment and willful chopping off of the organs which the Spirit made into one sacred organism."14 "This was true of the saints in Corinth... They were fragmented and schismatic. They were raucous with their party cries. But the Spirit did not confuse their sectarian alliance with their relationship in Christ. They were in the body by the call of God who is faithful. They were in a party by their own choice. They were baptized into the one body, but they were badgered into schism. However, it must never be forgotten that it was these who came together 'not for the better but for the worse', who composed the one body at Corinth. Paul did not once imply that their relationship in the sect cancelled their relationship to the head of the body."15 "One might as well try to justify adultery or idolatry as to sanction partisan strife and schism. To continue in it as a part of a traditional heritage would be like indulging in drunkenness because one's father or grandfather were alcoholics."16 "Every person on earth who is a child of God is my brother. He is in 'the brotherhood'. When we talk of the brotherhood in such a manner as to exclude any of God's children we are sectarian."17 "I want to visit all of my brothers. I want to learn from them, to gain their insights, to share in their thinking. I want to show kindly affection to them, regardless of their past allegiance or present predicament. I have no desire or intent to proselyte them to my thinking. One cannot evangelize saved persons and he ought not proselyte them. You evangelize for the sake of the person. You proselyte for the sake of your party. Evangelizing is the work of the Holy Spirit, proselytizing is the fruit of the party spirit."18 "The party spirit operates to produce conformity, the Holy Spirit to encourage community. The party spirit begins with recrimination, the Holy Spirit with reconciliation. The party spirit makes antagonism inevitable, the Holy Spirit makes it irrelevant. If we are to be workers together with God we must help men see the cross purpose of God and cease to be at cross-purposes with one another."19 "Freedom from error is the result of the rational faculties exercising themselves in research in an attempt to arrive at the truth. Belief in Jesus is the response of the heart to testimony related to historical facts. When you substitute knowledge of propositions for faith in a person, as the basis for unity you become a schismatic, and you are divisive and disruptive."20 "You can no more confine the church of the firstborn ones to party structures, programs, houses and signboards than you can capture the Holy Spirit in a box and slam the lid shut."21 "All of our factions, without exception, find it easy to be charitable toward those who oppose what they have. And all of them refuse to recognize those who have what they oppose."22 "A sectarian is one who endorses what the group opposes; an extremist is one who opposes what the group endorses."23 "We become members of the one body by acceptance of the great universals of the faith, we become adherents of sects by emphasizing unduly peculiarities or distinctions within the faith."24 "Factionalism is a rebellion against heaven, a revolt of the citizens against the will of their King. The division and splintering the family of God into rival tribes and clashing clans is a sin of such deep dye as to forfeit the heritage of heaven for the factiona-list."25 "The party spirit is a work of the flesh, an activity of the lower nature. . .The saint has a clear choice between the Holy Spirit and the party spirit, between intolerance and inheritance. He cannot have both."26 "We are victims of the party spirit which breathes hatred and bitterness under the guise of loyalty. We must become partakers of the Holy Spirit so that the fruit of love, joy and peace' may reside in our hearts."27 "Any party which does not contain within its confines all the saved on earth today is a sect pure and simple. Any group which creates traditional positions, explanations, interpretations and opinions as the basis of its fellowship is a sect regardless of how boastful and arrogant its claims or how loud and clamorous may be its disclaimers."28 "To oppose evil from a factional standpoint is as wrong as to uphold evil from any standpoint. It is not opposition to evil but the factional spirit which is wrong. "29 "No man can attach another to Christ, no man can detach another from him. We are joined to each other only because we are joined to Christ... "The very attempt to segregate myself from others in him by giving a special title to those who concur in certain orthodox views is sectarian."30 "A sectarian man is one who devises partisan tests and separates from his brethren or drives them out if they do not concur with his views. Any person who makes a test of fellowship out of anything which God has not made a condition of salvation, and who holds himself aloof from his brethren on that basis is a sectarian man."31 "We confuse brotherhood with conformity and fellowship with endorsement. Unwittingly, all of us who do this have become heretics. We are motivated by the party spirit and this is heresy. Every faction among us is a miniature sect, a heresy in embryo if not in fact."32 "Not every person in a sect is a sectarian. Sectarianism is the party spirit. It is an attitude toward truth. It is not so much what a man thinks as how he thinks; it is not so much where he is as why he is there! A man can be wrong on a doctrinal matter and not be a sectarian. He can be in the Methodist Church and not be a sectarian; he can be in the 'Church of Christ' and be a sectarian."33 "Free men in Christ are not afraid to read anything, go anywhere, or hear anyone. Party men must stay in good with the party or be given a Russian purge. "34 "We must be careful that in our opposition to the party spirit we are not mere partisans. I am fully convinced that many of my brethren are opposing sectism from a sectarian standpoint. They are interested in getting people out of 'their sect' and into 'our sect'."35 "But we are convinced that the party spirit is a work of the flesh, and in the same category as adultery, fornication, and murder."36| 1Feb., 1963, p.28 | 19Nov., 1970, p. 172 | ||
| 2June, 1961, p. 6 | 20Dec., 1968, p. 183 | ||
| 3June, 1961, p. 6 | 21Nov., 1967, p. 163 | ||
| 4May, 1961, p. 9 | 22Sept., 1967, p. 130 | ||
| 5Mar., 1960, p. 8 | 23June, 1967, p. 81 | ||
| 6Aug., 1959, p. 11 | 24May, 1966, p. 94 | ||
| 7May., 1959, p. 12 | 25May, 1966, p. 82 | ||
| 8Sept., 1958, p.5 | 26May, 1966, p. 81 | ||
| 9Mar., 1958, p. 2 | 27Sept., 1963, p. 142 | ||
| 10Jan., 1958, p. 2 | 28Sept., 1962, P. 13 | ||
| 11Dec., 1957, p. 7 | 29Feb., 1962, p. 5 | ||
| 12Dec., 1957, p. 7 | 30Dec., 1962, p. 2 | ||
| 13May, 1964, p. 66 | 31July, 1961, p. 7 | ||
| 14Feb., 1972, p. 18 | 32July, 1961, p. 8 | ||
| 15Jan., 1972, p. 6 | 33June, 1961, p.11 | ||
| 16Feb., 1972, p. 18 | 34Mar., 1958, p. 2 | ||
| 17Sept., 1958, p. 5 | 35May, 1958, p. 9 | ||
| 18Dec., 1971, p. 179 | 36Jan., 1957, p. 8 |