A Non- Partisan Faith

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     All of you have seen the wall motto with the question, "What on earth are you doing for heaven's sake?" That pretty well sums up a lot of letters we receive. A sister in the east, whom I greatly appreciate, writes an epistle that is so typical I cannot refrain from sharing a bit of it with you.

     "Just what are you trying to do, and how do you hope to accomplish it? I think I know, but I'd like to be able to explain it to others. One man here says you do not think baptism is necessary. Another says that you are preaching for the Christian Church. Are you trying to get the Church of Christ and Christian Church together? I do not see how you will ever be able to do it."

     I regret that I have become a controversial figure, but I do not see how it can be avoided in a world of partisan alignments, if I remain true to my conscience. And although I have answered the above questions many times, I know that I will have to repeat the answers many times more, because my position is so different. I do not become impatient with my brothers and sisters for questioning me.

     A part of the problem lies in the fact that I once was a champion of a very narrow party in the restoration movement. When the grace of God opened my eyes to the true scope of fellowship and brotherhood which heaven revealed to earth, I did not leave the brethren with whom I had always labored and align myself with another faction. I simply renounced all factionalism as a work of the flesh and a symptom of immaturity and carnality.

     I learned that no faction among us constituted the one body in its majestic fulness, and that all of them together did not exhaust the possibilities of the community of saved ones. The kingdom of heaven is not confined to the restoration movement. God's family may include many who never heard of Alexander Campbell. The flock of God is still a scattered flock!

     My thesis is that brotherhood stems from fatherhood, and fellowship is the result of sonship. Our relationship in Christ, created by his precious blood, is more important than any of the things over which we have fractured into our little sects. For that reason we must restore a real vital sense of brotherhood and unity before we can even discuss our differences as members of a family instead of as adherents of warring tribes or clashing clans.

     We made a tragic error when we allowed Satan to manipulate us into a position where we divided over our variant views about instrumental music. Our philosophy, developed in facing that issue has been applied to every subsequent problem and has left a train of schisms with their attendant sorrows and shame.

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     Regardless of the right or wrong of using instrumental music, the whole subject is not as important as the cross of Christ. The fact that Jesus died "that he might reconcile us both to God in one body by the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end" is transcendently more significant than anything which has become a source of debate among us. Jesus was not raised from the dead to become the head of "an instrumental party" or of an "anti-instrumental party" but of the one body which includes every saved person on the face of this whole wide earth.

     It would be pleasant if we could simply blot out all of our troubles and go back to 1825 and start over, but we cannot do that. We have to face up to the fact that all of us, without exception, are in a faction, or fraction, of the restoration movement. It will not do to call out all those who are opposed to the factional spirit and band them together. That would only add another sect. An anti-party party is as sinful as any other.

     I have recommended that all of us stay where we are and share the truths we learn with those whom we know the best. It is ridiculous, when you learn a truth, to abandon those who do not have it, in order to join those who do. This would remove the leaven from the mass in order to associate it with other leaven. But there is nothing more useless than a pile of yeast-cakes.

     One need not be factional merely because he is in a faction any more than he must be a Communist because he is in Russia. We need to stay where we are and start loving all of our brethren where they are. We need to pray for all of them eagerly and earnestly. When we do this we will realize that our artificial barriers are not walls of stone but of ice, and they will melt away under the warm rays of brotherly affection. These walls are not opaque to one who loves. They become transparent and he can see through them and recognize brethren on the other side.

     But we must not hide behind our walls and peer through the cracks. We must come out from behind them and associate with our brethren. We must come to know them. We must listen to them regardless of their attitude toward us. We must attend their meetings even though fear and narrowness keeps them from reciprocating. And we must never quit loving them even though they manifest unlovely attitudes and treat us with coldness and reserve. "Love knows no limit to its endurance...it can outlast anything." I base my hope for the unity of God's people wholly and unreservedly upon love. There is no other power by which God's purpose can be achieved. There is no other potential for answering the prayer of Christ. It is love or nothing!

     The fact is that what I have written about fellowship has affected the thinking of some in every segment and sect among us. Some of the party leaders are growing desperate. If they can discredit me and distort what I say the membership will be more easily kept under their partisan yoke. This is the crux of the matter.

     I believe that faith in the great proposition that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and immersion in water upon the basis of that faith, are essential to unity with Christ. I recognize no unbaptized person as in the fellowship of the body. The problem arises, I think, from the fact that I do not feel called upon to usurp the prerogatives of God, and decide the eternal destiny of all, who for one reason or another, are not baptized.

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     I am under the authority of a King. His authority is absolute. As his willing slave I have no right, desire or inclination to offer salvation upon any other basis than his promise. But if his grace prompts him to go beyond his promise, I will not rebel but rejoice that others were allowed to share in the amazing grace which saved a wretch like me. I shall not bind God with the laws which he gave to bind me!

     I study the word as diligently as I can with my limited resources, in the hope that I may be able to edify the brethren. My watchword is, "Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me." I go wherever brethren invite me and whenever I can help his cause. I never ask them how they conduct their public devotions. I make no demand that they alter them because of my presence!

     Nothing disturbs our brethren more than to be confronted with one who is free in Christ and really means to be a Christian only. They frantically try to categorize him and put him in the proper pigeon-hole. The sectarian mentality must sectarianize every one it knows and everything it touches. Not long ago in Dallas, at a conclave of Independent Christian Church brethren, a good brother who could not even remember my name, solemnly declared that I had "gone with the Disciples of Christ." After I held a series of meeting at Gallatin, Tennessee, last year, a preacher in Kentucky openly announced that I had "gone with the pre-millennialists." A brother who edits a widely read journal in Texas, announced to a congregation in New Mexico that I had "gone liberal." The very same week another brother who writes for his paper, told an audience in Oklahoma that "Brother Ketcherside is really an ultraconservative and has the liberals fooled."

     The fact is, of course, that I am simply heeding the admonition of Paul to "Plant your feet firmly therefore within the freedom that Christ has won for us, and do not let yourselves be caught again in the shackles of slavery." I am simply trying to preach Christ and preach for Christ! The approval of the sect means nothing to me. Neither does their disapproval. I do not intend to be caught again!

     On this basis I could speak at the World Convention of Churches of Christ in Puerto Rico, and affirm my conviction in the Bible as God's revelation. On the same basis I spoke twice at the North American Christian Convention in Long Beach and Saint Louis. But I have also attended the Abilene Christian College Lectureship the last two years. I have twice spoken at Bethany College as well as at Emmanuel School of Religion, Milligan College and numerous Bible Colleges. In addition, I have shared my thinking with a number of Christian witness groups in state universities, but I have also met with many groups of hippies and beatniks and affirmed my belief in the Christian dynamic, and allowed them to question me by the hour!

     I have held public dialogue sessions with the president and cantor of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue, and three times testified to my faith in Jesus at the sabbath services of a large Reformed Synagogue. I was the only non-Jew present at a five day seminar on Judaism and

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shared with two rabbis in daily dialogue sessions on the relationship of the law to grace.

     I am even now a member of a dialogue group in which there are more than thirty Roman Catholic priests and doctors of philosophy, and as many Anglican canons and rectors. I am the only member from the restoration movement background and my task is to present the restoration ideal and allow it to be explored. Each session that I attend I find myself more convinced that we have something rare and wonderful to offer in this age of ecumenical thought. Each time I strive to present it a little more clearly and definitively. It is not easy to do that!

     I love all of God's children. They are all my brothers and sisters. I also love all who are seeking to know Him. I shall never again be the front-man for any party or segment. I will not allow myself to be maneuvered into a place where I must hate some of my brothers to be loved by others. They may attack one another, debate with one another, and refuse to associate with one another, but I will still go among them all for good, and not for evil. I will join no party! I am His!

     In closing, let me say that I regard the grace in which He allowed me to share as such a thrilling experience that I refuse to allow myself to be shut off from other "grace-sharers." I will not rob myself of the kindling flame of association with any of the saints lest my own gift flicker and be extinguished by the snuffer of schism.

     The attitude of others toward me is between themselves and God. They may live without me, but I cannot live without them for my soul is bound up in the bundle of life with all who have the Son. Just as "the life is more than food, and the body more than clothing" (Matthew 6:25), so to me the mutual life in Him is more than a means or a method, and the one body is more than a schism or system. Let men argue and debate about the transitory things which cleave them asunder. To me these are like the grass of the field which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven. The things about which we strive today will have their little place in the sun and fade away, but His love abides forever. There are eternal values which demand my heart and soul. Brotherhood in Christ is one of them!

     (Editor's Note. At the close of this year all of the issues of MISSION MESSENGER for 1967 will be bound in a 192-page, fully-indexed volume, bound in cloth. Reservations are being taken now for these at the prepublication price of $2.49 per copy, payable on delivery. The address is 139 Signal Hill Drive, Saint Louis, Missouri 63121.)