What Divides Us?

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Archbishop William Temple, of the Church of England, uttered a profound statement when, in speaking of the disunity existing in the Protestant realm, he said, "So long as any of us are in schism, all are in schism." To those of my brethren who restrict the church of God in this age to the heirs of the Restoration movement undertaken by the Campbells and their contemporaries, this statement still strikes home with tremendous impact. I do not equate that movement with the church of God, but most of my brethren do, reluctant as they would be to admit it. The disciple brotherhood is fractured into more than two dozen splinter parties, each with its unwritten creed and its special tests of fellowship. Each one of these claims to be the church, whole and entire, perfect and wanting nothing; each regards the others as factions.

     This attitude precludes any possibility of ever achieving unity while it exists, as each separate unit remains fixed and adamant, demanding that all others move toward it. So long as each regards itself as "the faithful church" and all others as disloyal and apostate, we are treated to the ludicrous picture of some twenty-five organizations making an identical claim, at the same time that the very attitude of each makes its claim impossible and ridiculous. Yet, it is only by a common recognition that these bodies can make an approach toward unity and begin to answer the prayer of God's Son. If each will recognize itself for what it really is, a party or segment, and not the whole, then all of the parts can begin to move toward each other and come closer together. It is in the very nature of things that if one regards itself as "the faithful church" it will create an ever-widening rift between itself and the others. If each regards itself thus, then all must shrink from the others, and the space will continue to become greater between them all.

     The term "schism" means "a rent, or tear, as in a garment." If a garment is torn into four pieces, neither of these four is the garment in its entirety. And if the garment is rent, and one part is in schism, all are in schism. Even the Roman soldiers at the cross knew that much, and

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thus cast lots for the garment of the Saviour. Each knew that if it was torn he would not have the garment but a remnant.

     Neither of the splinter parties to the Restoration movement is "the faithful church" for all have been guilty of the attitude, and that attitude is the tap root of most of the sins of schism and division. This is an inherited condition. We did not create these parties. They were created by our fathers, but they will be perpetuated by us, unless we conquer the party spirit. It is here the devil will make his last stand in the hearts of most of us. Pride will cause us to rebel against the very thought of admitting that our party is not the one church of God in its entirety, whereas, the members of all the others are not brethren, but outcasts, apostates, heathen and publicans. Preachers of the gospel will have the greatest fight, because they have professed to know the most, and it is more difficult for them to admit an error, seeing they have set themselves up as "instructors of babes, and teachers of the Gentiles."

     Brethren will try every way they can to avoid the showdown. They will plead for sympathy by prejudicial methods, they will try to escape the partisan stigma by creating new parties, they will accuse those who face boldly up to truth as being traitors. None of these things affect the real issue. 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 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!

     Some brethren impractically think that all we need to do is talk about Jesus, and quit talking about unity, fellowship and restoration, and we will cure all of the ills of the world. Such an approach to the grave problems of our day is childish, immature and pathetic. It is not describing the character, or discussing the attributes of a physician that makes a patient well, but taking the medicine prescribed by that physician, if it is bitter or not! The way to show you love Jesus is to try and answer His prayer. You can write about Him until He comes again, but that will not cure a sick church or a sick world. No one can do a better job of writing about Jesus than the Holy Spirit, but despite His writings which we have had for nineteen centuries, we are in a mess. Why? We have not been humble enough to apply what He said to ourselves!

     One sign of maturity is to face up to things as they are. The immature create dream worlds of fantasy into which they can retire. They like to build little walls of presumed perfection about their world. They resent those walls being torn down by the battering ram of fact, they cannot stand the cold hand of truth tumbling them from their cozy nests. But fact is fact, and truth is truth, regardless of what you do to the man who declares it. You can stop your ears, gnash your teeth, refuse to listen--or cancel your subscription--but what you do does not affect truth one whit! Truth does not become false because you refuse to read it, or because you may rant and rage in your helplessness because you cannot destroy it!

     Not every congregation in these days is partisan. Under leadership of godly men some are throwing off the shackles. They have renounced the party spirit, and when that spirit is discarded, littleness, bigotry, hate and factionalism will die. We have had little leadership of a non-partisan character. All of us have been trained to represent a clique, segment, or group. Many cannot do otherwise. They are motivated by fear! They dread the misrepresentation of motive and teaching, the boycott and ostracism, the hostility of those who once regarded them with reverence.

     It takes genuine courage to face up to the fact that though we have differed with others on many points of understanding and interpretation, and still do, that in one respect we are all in the same boat. We may have been in an anti-Sunday School faction, a one cup faction, a fermented wine faction, an anti-institutional

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faction, a premillenial faction, an anti-premillennial faction--we could run the whole gamut of things that have torn, rent, split and shivered us to bits, yet all of us know that none of these divided us. It was not classes, cups or instruments that divided God's people. These are all neutral. They are neither good or evil in themselves. It was the party spirit that divided us. The things enumerated may be a sin, or they may not, as used, but the party spirit is a sin. The Holy Spirit says it is! You could be right about all of these other things and still be a sinner by manifesting the party spirit. I suspect that if we conquer it, most other things will take care of themselves and go to their proper places eventually!