Two Unity Movements

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Its meaning as now used is closely akin to "catholic," which is from katholikos, universal, and which refers to that which is universal or general, affecting mankind as a whole. However, when "The Great Schism" occurred in Christendom many centuries ago, the Eastern wing of the cleavage adopted "Orthodox" as a title and the Western wing fastened upon the term "Catholic." It was to avoid confusion in the popular mind that "ecumenical" was chosen instead of "catholic."

     Yet, this usage of the word "ecumenical" is not new. The first person to so employ it was Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who was born about 1700. Karl Barth refers to him as "the first genuine ecumenicist." The historian Heinz Renkewitz says he was the first person to use the word oikoumene to carry the meaning "the world-wide Christian church." Zinzendorf was identified with the "Unity of the Brethren" which is better known as the Moravian Church. In our times the term "ecumenical

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movement" is used to designate a general attempt to unite all sects and denominations by discovery of the least common denominator as a basis for confession. Some have suggested for such a basis the Lord's Prayer, others the Lord's Supper, and still others "The Apostles' Creed." At the present time it appears that a profession of the Lordship of Jesus in the simple statement, "Jesus is Lord," is gaining prominence. It is believed from 1 Corinthians 12:3 that this was the test of the indwelling Spirit. "And no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except under the influence of the Holy Spirit."

     Within the Roman Catholic fellowship John XXIII gave the first real impetus to the movement. His successor, Paul VI, is proceeding in the footsteps of his predecessor, but with some apparent reluctance. However, the "ecumenical movement" was sparked by Protestants with Nathan Soderblom, Archbishop of Uppsala (Sweden) in the forefront. This 1930 winner of the Nobel Prize for World Peace, has been aptly called "the father of the ecumenical program." He was encouraged by Bishop Charles Henry Brent, Episcopalian; Dr. T. C. Chao, Dean of the School of Religion, Yenching University, Peking; Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, President-emeritus of Union Theological Seminary, and many others. The movement has attracted many other eminent theologians at home and abroad.

     Even a casual investigation of the ecumenical movement and the restoration movement will show a great divergency in approach to the grave problem of disunity. The ecumenical movement seeks to unite the sects on the basis of the least common denominator. The restoration movement seeks to unite the Christians in the sects upon the basis of a return to the ideal of God as announced by the apostles of Jesus Christ. One is upon the basis of an irreducible minimum wrung from the revelation of God; the other on the highest possible plane, the authority of Jesus Christ as expressed in the whole of the new covenant scriptures.

     This last is not Bibliolatry. It is not legalistic "patternism." It does not make a savior of the Book. It recognizes that our hope of salvation lies in a personal relationship of the heart, and not in an intellectual attainment of the mind. It can best be summed up in two very simple propositions.

     1. Only the Way of the Living Word can be absolute and authoritative for the life of the new humanity which He has created.

     2. There is absolutely no way of determining that authority except through the written word which he has provided.

     I propose herewith an investigation of the ecumenical movement and the restoration movement, to determine what they hold in common, as well as some areas of difference. I hope to be as objective as possible for one who is directly involved. Certainly, I shall not impugn the motives of the brilliant men who are in the ecumenical movement. I deplore such terms as "ecumaniacs" as being both uncharitable and un-Christian. Frequently they are the resort of the ignorant and uninformed. The restoration movement has had its share of "characters" also.

     I am not concerned with being on the extreme left. Neither am I concerned with being on the extreme right. I am

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opposed to extremists even in the "middle of the road." But I am concerned with being right, and I want to be as "extremely right" as possible. It is not always possible for me. I am quite human and quite limited.

     This has not always been a generally accepted view. When the pioneers of the restoration movement first set forth this principle, they were rather violently opposed. Many argued that the will of God could best be implemented through a variety of sects. Partisan debates were the order of the day. I feel that it is a refreshing change to find Catholics and Protestants alike deploring division and seeking for a way to overcome it. What has produced this altered climate?

     The answer is found in a new awareness of the teaching of the new covenant scriptures. A renewed interest in Bible study, encouraged by research and modern translations has made us all realize that our divisions are symptoms of immaturity and carnality (1 Corinthians 3:1-4), and that they are works of the flesh (Galatians 5:20). We realize that "those who behave in such ways will never inherit the kingdom of God." Regardless of our understanding of the kingdom of God, as to nature, extent, time or location, we know that schismatics cannot participate in it. Of course, we would never have known this without the written word, but it is enough that we have arrived at a mutual consensus drawn from this common source. Without the corrective word we could as easily have concluded that our fragmentary state with its rival factions was ordained of God.

     2. A belief that the prayer of Jesus for unity can be understood and answered, and must be.

     The words recorded in John 17:20, 21 are repeated fervently by those in both movements, and this is good. To say that they can be understood is not to say that any of us fully understand the depths of their implications as yet. For instance, I find myself wholly out of tune with those who quote them as justification for dialogue with those of non-Christian religions. I am not at all opposed to such dialogue, but it has nothing to do with Christian unity when pursued with a view of finding common ground. Jesus limited his prayer for oneness to all who believed on him through the apostolic testimony. Christian unity involves only these.

     Our unity is in Christ. "You are all one person in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28). This unity is individual and personal, not organizational and structural. The prayer was "that all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in Thee." Proponents of legalistic creedal bases of unity mistake the whole tenor of this statement. They reason that since the Father and Son understand everything alike, in order for us to be one we too must all arrive at the same understanding of every matter at the same time. This is as silly as it is impracticable and impossible.

     It is true that God and Christ have no differences of opinion and no misunderstandings, because they are infallible. But God does not demand of fallible men what it requires infallibility to achieve. Jesus did not pray for an impossibility. He did not say, "that they may all be one by understanding everything alike, as thou, Father, understand all that I say, and as I understand perfectly all that Thou sayest."

     He said, "as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee." He went on to explain that "they also may be one in us." This is not unity of intellectual insights, analytical attainments, or interpretative infallibility. It is a blending and merging of the personalities of those invested with the divine nature. It is the unity which results from the loss of selfhood in others.

     This prayer shows that unity can never be an end in itself. It is the means to an end. The purpose of our unity is

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that the world may believe that God sent His Son. Unity which does not stem from Christ and lead to Christ is useless. There is no point in uniting everyone if, in the process, we separate them all from God. The world will only be won to believe in Christ, when those in the world who believe in Christ are one.

     3. An acceptance of the proposition that Jesus is Lord.

     The advocates of the ecumenical movement are correct in their insistence that this is basic. But it is not a proposition stated orally, or subscribed to in writing, which transforms. It is the truth of that proposition enshrined in the heart, and embodied in life and action which makes the difference. On this very subject, Jesus said, "Not everyone who calls me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my heavenly Father" (Matthew 7:21). The acceptance of the proposition, "Jesus is Lord," is essential, but it must not become a mere unitive declaration. It must be a principle of life, the whole life, in every phase and facet.

     4. The goal of one church on earth.

     In reality there is only one church now. There has never been but one. The church is a creation of God, not a concoction of man. It is a divine organism, not a human organization. The church consists of the called-out ones. All of these are in it. Not one is outside of it. We have been betrayed into calling sects "churches." But no sect is the church, and the church is no sect!

     What we seek to do is not to create a church that is one, but to find a way of demonstrating or manifesting that the church which God created is one. The ecumenical movement postulates that this can be achieved by merging the sects through a spirit of compromise. I believe that it can only be realized by uniting of individuals to a common Lord through the Spirit of promise.

     The body of Christ is not composed of sects and no coalition of sects can ever constitute it. The body is composed of individuals joined to Jesus, as a common head, by the indwelling Spirit. "Now you are the body of Christ, and individually members of it" (1 Cor. 12:27). Since there is no bond between Christ and any sect as an organization, sects are doomed to become sterile and die. They cannot be renewed by putting them together in a new structure. Throwing a corpse into a new casket beside another dead body will not resurrect either.

     Before there can be a resurrection the spirit has to infuse the body. Renewal can only come as we are invested by the Spirit and sustain a vital relationship to Jesus. "You are on the spiritual level, if only God's Spirit dwells within you; and if a man does not possess the Spirit of Christ, he is no Christian" (Romans 8:9). Those who are on this level will manifest their oneness regardless of sectarian barriers and walls, for the Spirit which tugs at our spirit, also draws us to everyone else who has that one Spirit.

     5. A relevance to our age, and its culture and society.

     The Way represents God's approach to man in a historical moment. It came to man as he was and loved him as it found him. God staged the first great "love-in" demonstration on earth. And God did not love man because He changed him, but man changed because God loved him. The Way has not changed. It still comes to man as he is and loves him as it finds him.

     The Way never washes, bathes and cleanses man so it can love him. If it finds him in a homosexual pad, or in a house of prostitution, or in a room with heroin addicts, it doesn't get him out in order to love him, but it loves him, in order to get him out. For the Way knows that whether a man sleeps off a drunk in a flophouse or in a penthouse, he does so because he has lost his way. And one who is lost will remain lost until he has found the Way.

     Some of my good friends in the ecumenical movement (and how I do thank God that there are many of them who are my close friends) argue with me that men are merely creatures of environment,

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and that our problem is not to reach men one by one, but to go at it on a wholesale basis by changing the physical conditions of habitat. I want to see men lifted out of intolerable conditions. I want to see their little children reared in an area way from filth and garbage and rats. But I know men who dwell in mansions whose hearts are like pigstys, and I know others who live in dirty tenements who are pure in heart and will see God.

     Surely we must have a relevant approach and the Way must be presented in the language men can grasp, for "if I do not know the meaning of the sound the speaker makes, his words will be gibberish to me, and mine to him" (1 Cor. 14:11). We dare not seek relevance by conforming the word of God to men, but by transforming men through the word of God. The word of God must be translated into the words of men, in order that men be translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

     In summarization of this section and in spite of variant approach, let it be said that the ecumenical movement and the restoration movement hold these things in common: A conviction that schisms among Christians constitute a scandal to the church; a belief that the prayer of Jesus for unity can be understood and answered; an acceptance of the proposition that Jesus is Lord; a goal of one church, as the body of Christ, on earth; and a relevance to our age, its culture and society.

     1. The revelation of God is incomplete and open-ended.

     By "revelation" we mean the uncovering by God of what man could not discover for himself. We believe that when God created the universe as we now have it that he rested or ceased from his labors. We believe that when God finished his revelation with regard to the new creation, as contained in the sacred scriptures, that he rested, or ceased from his labors. As shown in our preceding article in this issue, catholicity must be based upon apostolicity. To argue, as many do, that the Holy Spirit reveals the will of God by modern consensus is to argue that the will of the mass mind is the will of God and to determine the divine purpose for our age we should not study the Bible but take a poll of the theologians.

     That the indwelling Spirit serves to illuminate the mind of a committed saint, we do not doubt, but this is achieved by use of the torch which God has placed in our hands. It is not by a force outside of the Word but by deeper insight into it that this is accomplished.

     2. The apostles simply recorded the struggle of a primitive people to discover truth.

     It is true that God never reveals to man what man can discover for himself. But there are things which man is powerless to discover through use of his natural faculties. "Things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love him, these it is that God has revealed for us through the Spirit" (1 Cor. 2:9, 10). Revelation is the means by which God uncovers for man what man cannot discover for himself.

     The Bible is not the result of man's groping through space to find God, but it is the revelation of God who reached down to grasp man. That simple, unlearned and ignorant fishermen, contrary to all of their own prejudicial culture, could have produced the dynamic

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of the Good News would require more faith to believe than that God spoke through them.

     Those who regard the Bible as the product of man's own search for the meaning of life generally contend that all truth is relative and there is no absolute criteria for measuring it. To this we take exception. The Greeks regarded truth as reality; the Latins as verity. Prepositional truth is the agreement or conformity of that which is affirmed with that of which it is affirmed. If all truth is relative there is no reality, but if this be true there can be no assertion of unreality, for one cannot know unreality unless there is a reality by which to judge it.

     To affirm that all truth is relative is either to state a truth or an untruth. If it is an untruth, then all truth is not relative. If it is a truth, then the statement itself is relative, and this leaves the possibility that some truth may not be relative. But to grant that some truth may not be relative is to cast doubt on the affirmation that all truth is relative. The man who begins with the assumption that all truth is relative can never make a really definitive statement about the relativity of truth.

     Our own view is that there is ultimate truth, and that it is not prepositional but personal. It is not the truth about someone or something. It is Someone who is the truth. It is the person of this Someone who is the treasure-house of reality which gives validity and meaning to the universe, and who is the criterion of all goodness. "There is none good but one," that is, in the absolute. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." These are not three different things. They are one person. The Way, the Truth, and the Life are one--one personality. By Him, then, all personality must be judged!

     3. Man is free under God to experiment with religious structure upon the basis of present utility.

     In our age of pragmatism we are betrayed into asking, "Will it work?" without questioning "Is it right?" But there are a great many things which work all right, that are not all right when they work. A burglar may perfect a "jimmy" which will open any window and may be the perfect tool for his profession, but his use of it may land him in prison.

     If God has revealed His will as to congregational order our task is to implement it and not to tamper with it. In the early centuries of the ekklesia of God, the schisms and heresies seemed to call for a strong and authoritative voice to define the faith, so the office of diocesan bishop was created as separate from the local presbytery. It worked, but it worked itself into the papacy, a system from which the whole world has suffered. The question should not be "What do you think will work?" but "How can we best work what God has said?"

     4. There is no definitive response to the Good News universally binding upon or demanded of mankind, but each man may surrender to God upon his own terms.

     Man, who is made captive to Christ, cannot dictate the terms of his surrender. The necessary response to the Good News has been stipulated by the same authority which announced the News. So long as the Message is valid the response must also be. Matthew, who was present at the mountain in Galilee, where Jesus made a special appointment to appear to the disciples, records how He came up and spoke to them and informed them, "Full authority in heaven and on earth has been committed unto me." He then commissioned them, "In view of this, go forth and enroll disciples from all nations, by immersing them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

     Mark, who probably received his information from Peter, who was also at the Galilean mount, in a disputed passage, records the words thus, "Go forth to every part of the world and proclaim the Good News to the whole creation. Those who believe the Message and are immersed will obtain salvation, those

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who do not believe it will receive condemnation." It is our very sincere conviction that one only enters the fellowship of the saved ones by belief of the Good News and immersion in water to implement that faith.

     The apostle seems to be very positive about the matter. "All of you are sons of God through your faith in Christ Jesus, for all who have been immersed into Christ, have put him on like a garment" (Gal. 3:26, 27). This appears to be both inclusive and exclusive.

     5. The essential thing being to hold up the light, the instrument for doing so is purely incidental and expendable.

     On this premise it is contended that the church is a dispensable item. We are treated to such statements as "post-Christian age," and "churchless Christianity." It is obvious that if God made no provision for a specific medium or means to hold up the truth, we may be free to discard the instruments we have used. But if the church is a divine creation and exists by divine authority, only that authority can discontinue it.

     The community of the redeemed is the church of God, and it is referred to as "God's household, that is, the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth" (1 Timothy 2: 15). In the first chapter of Revelation, the communities of believers in Asia Minor were represented by golden lampstands, with Jesus standing in their midst. Gold was a symbol of preciousness or value, and we conclude that God regards the church as indispensable. It is "the church of the Lord, which he won for himself by his own blood" (Acts 20:28). "Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for it, to consecrate it, cleansing it by water and word, so that he might present the church to himself all glorious, with no stain or wrinkle or anything of the sort, but holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:26,27).

     We must either receive the word of the Lord, or reject the Lord of the Word. We must either recognize that this is the age of the Spirit, or repose in the spirit of this age. We must either settle for a human fad, or struggle for an honest faith.

     I shall continue to contend for a recapture of the spirit and power of the original proclaimers of the Good News. When I prepare to cross over the Jordan of death, I would like to be able to say, "The word I spoke, the gospel I proclaimed did not sway you with subtle arguments; it carried conviction by spiritual power, so that your faith might be built not upon human wisdom but upon the power of God" (1 Corinthians 2:4,5).

     (Note: At the end of this year all issues of the paper for 1967 will be bound in a 192 page, fully-indexed volume, under the title "Apples of Gold." Advance orders may be sent for this at the special pre-publication price of $2.49 per copy. We urge you to send your order and thus assure preservation of the material in permanently-bound form. Address orders to Mission Messenger, 139 Signal Hill Drive, Saint Louis, Missouri 63121).