The Party Spirit

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     "Now the works of the flesh are plain...strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit...I warn you, as I warned you before that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God" (Gal. 5: 19-21).

     The party spirit is a work of the flesh. It is here listed with other things which will debar from heaven. This alone should cause us to examine ourselves to see if we are free from its blight. We earnestly desire an entrance into the everlasting kingdom. We must be willing to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. But the party spirit is very deceptive. Those who boast the loudest about their freedom from it are often the tragic victims of its poison. How can we know if we are beset by it? We suggest a few indications of its presence.

Symptoms of Party Spirit

1. A reluctance to admit the truths held by others. Truth is truth, regardless of who holds it. The partisan is afraid to acknowledge truth held by those outside of his group for fear it will reflect favorably upon them. It he does admit truth on the part of another, he must hasten to speak deprecatingly of the person or some other position he holds. If someone remarks that Billy Graham certainly spoke the truth in his fight against evil in a radio address, the partisan replies, "Yes, but look at all the money be gets for doing it." If questioned as to how much Graham gets for his radio service, the partisan cannot tell you. He does not know, but he seeks to offset the fact that truth was spoken by creating suspicion against the man and his motives. No one in the group to which the partisan belongs ever preaches for money, but every person who is a member of another religious party and who speaks any truth, does so insincerely, because he knows better, and his sole object is to inflate his pride and secure filthy lucre.
2. Inability to rejoice over the good done by others. It seems that some would rather see men left to wallow in misery than to see others credited with helping them. They "pass by on the other side" and then revile the "Samaritans" who stop and relieve the wounded and desolate. Recently I was in a town where the local Christian Church preacher had made numerous trips to the home of a drunkard to read the scriptures and talk to the man about his soul. Eventually he had immersed the man who straightened up his life and gave evidence of making a good husband and father. I took occasion to express my gratitude for such an accomplishment in the home of one of the brethren. He scoffingly said, "They cross land and sea to make one proselyte, and then make him twice as much a child of hell as themselves." I am opposed to instrumental music in the public praise service of the congregation, but I trust I never get so little that I would rather a man would stay in a drunken stupor, or

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   kick and beat his wife and children, than to be led to faith in the Christ by someone who differs with me on instrumental music. I'm opposed to Roman Catholicism but I rejoice at every leper whose path on earth is made freer from pain by the ministrations of the Catholic nurses in a leper colony.
3. Unwillingness to hear both sides of an issue. The Catholic sect seeks to maintain its narrow exclusiveness by refusing to permit its members to read anything which conflicts with its tradition. The clergy can read what they please, but laymen are not allowed to do so. Yet, at Paragould, Arkansas, a clergyman in "The Church of Christ" stood in the pulpit and advised his parishioners to mail back copies of "Bible Talk" and MISSION MESSENGER without reading them, although he reads them all of the time. I know a preacher who cancelled his subscription to one of these journals with a letter consisting of a tirade against the publisher, yet he can hardly wait until he gets his hands on the paper when it comes to a home where he is staying. He just wants to be "in the clear" when he is questioned, so he can say, "I do not subscribe for his paper." 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.
4. A tendency to abandon the search for truth and rest satisfied. I asked a brother how the cause of restoration was progressing in a certain area, and he told me it was not progressing -- they had already arrived! All of the debris of sixteen hundred years of the dark ages had been fully swept away. There was nothing left to learn, no new discoveries to be made. All that was necessary was to parrot the same sermon outlines, misapply the scriptures in the same fashion, defend the same fallacies in reasoning; mistake the same customs and traditions for God's word, and stir up the same false emotions in the congregation toward others. Every reformation in history ended in another sect; every such sect proclaims that it has arrived in Jerusalem and persecutes those who call upon it to rouse up and keep marching onward and upward. There is nothing which bothers a sect more than to be around one who refuses to be made a sectarian. No partisan is ever at ease in the presence of one who is unwilling to allow the God of the universe to become a tribal deity or local divinity. 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. There is nothing beyond to challenge his thinking or stimulate his intellect. There is nothing ahead but stagnation and decay!

Effects of Party Spirit

1. It breeds inconsistency. There is not a congregation existing in which all of the members are agreed. In many, the arguments are frequent over marriage and divorce, relation to civil government, our obligation to non-members, etc. In all of these, despite these differences, the members recognize and call upon each other for prayer. Sometimes one is called upon to participate whose moral life has been a disgrace and whose conduct has been a constant source of trouble. He is a member of the party. But let one come in who has been a shining light in the community and who has lived a life of consecration, and he is given the deep freeze treatment, because he does not share with those present in their view upon some point of doctrine. He may be mild, inoffensive, and possessed of a sincere desire to know the truth, and may be doing the best he can in the light of his present knowledge, but he does not yet know the party pass word, so he is a pagan.
2. It shrivels the souls of men. The humanitarian love of God which should expand our souls and cause us to grow in grace withers under the chilling frost of the party spirit. In a certain community a prominent citizen died, and the grief stricken members of his family asked the local Church of Christ for permission to conduct the funeral service in their meetinghouse. They were refused on the ground that they were not using one of "our preachers" and the brethren were

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   afraid of "bidding Godspeed" to one who brought not this doctrine. In another place the Red Cross asked permission to set up an emergency food kitchen in a meetinghouse to serve disaster victims. They were turned down because the brethren did not endorse the Red Cross and did not believe in having a kitchen in the church building. When the Methodist people offered their building, the members of the Church of Christ got in line and marched in to get their plates filled. Their bellies were not partisan; it was just their hearts.
3. It destroys the sense of proper spiritual values. The party spirit, in opposition to the Spirit of Christ, always demands "sacrifice instead of mercy." In many places a man will be tolerated regardless of his life if he is sound on the party test. In one of the most intolerant and bitter factions of the disciple brotherhood, a number of the preachers have been loose in morals, but their straying from the path of virtue is whitewashed because they are adept at defending the party line. Some of the most bigoted, haughty attackers of "the sects" have personal records which will not bear too close inspection. Some are careful and scrupulous about the Lord's Supper. The bread has to be prepared a certain way, it has to be broken just so, and passed to the audience in a certain manner. But some who are so zealous about these things often indulge in profanity and other wickedness. The murderers of Jesus would not enter the judgment hall "lest they be defiled and not be fit to eat the passover." They did not scruple to kill the Son of God, but they must be careful not to be ceremonially defiled.
4. It produces legalistic extremes. The members of each party regard that party as the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church of God upon earth. In some cities there are six different "Churches of Christ" each claiming to be the "only faithful church." The members of one hardly dare speak to the members of another. If one rises above the narrow confines of his unwritten creed and visits another to discuss with him points of difference, he at once becomes a subject of comment and censure. "When Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying, 'Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?"' If the apostle Paul were here today, he would not long be allowed to remain in a single faction of the disciple brotherhood. He would be talked about, criticized, and soon excluded from any of them now existing. Paul spent his life in opposing the attempt to bind anything upon men as a basis of fellowship except faith in God's Son, as the Messiah. He was under constant fire from the circumcision party in the church, whose members insisted upon laying another foundation. Recently a preacher announced as his sermon topic, "Where Would Paul Attend Church in This City?" I told him it would not make much difference, because they would soon withdraw from him, wherever he went.

     The party spirit will keep us out of heaven. All of us have been tinctured with it. It is a passion of the flesh. We should try to overcome it. We need elders today who will cultivate in their flocks a breadth of vision, a charitable spirit, a love for fallen humanity, and a sense of the need of reformation. It is with the bishops that the future of the church of God actually rests. We must all revere God's revelation, refuse to compromise truth, and cling to the word of God as the sheet anchor of our liberty. But we do not need to be dogmatic, arbitrary and hateful. It requires no sacrifice of principle to make allowance for honest mistakes, early religious environment, or lack of proper education. We do not forfeit truth when we make a distinction between those who knowingly and deliberately disobey the Christ, and those who obey him to the best of their present knowledge, even though it is faulty and imperfect.

     Just here a word of caution may be necessary. We should guard against unwise generalizations. It is easy to say there is no excuse for a person not seeing all of the truth since he has access to the Bible. But more is required than mere

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possession of the Book. A man who inherits a rich farm which was long since cleared from the wilderness may conclude that the poor man across the road with a hundred acres ought to be as well off as himself. But he may overlook the fact that the other has to dig sprouts, cut down timber and clear away undergrowth before he can plant his grain. Let those who have been more fortunate in inheriting truth discovered by others, exercise charity toward those who are still laboring to discover what we have. Let us not try to bind God with the law which He gave to bind us. It is better to use the truth we have in charitably helping those who struggle upwards than to use it to repel and drive them away.