The Devil and Factions

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     I guess I'm a little old-fashioned for the modern theological world. You see, I still believe there is a personal devil, a real, genuine, dishonest-to-God devil. I do not hold with the little kid in Sunday school, whose teacher asked, "Children, is there really a devil?" "No," he answered, "it's like Santa Claus, it's your dad!"

     I do not hold with some of the Anglican clerics in England either. They proposed to get rid of Satan by knocking the "d" out of devil, and accrediting everything bad to our own inner tendency toward evil. I have some acquaintance with both England and the Bible, and I suspect that it would be easier for them to get the devil out of the Bible than it would to get him out of England.

     There are some pretty brilliant folks I know who have marked the devil off of their list. He has some of them thinking that he never was here in the first place, and others that he retired when they got too sophisticated for him to handle. Actually, I think that with these the real problem is not how they regard Satan, but how they look at Jesus. They admire Jesus but they are not disciples of his. One can admire a schoolteacher from across the street without enrolling in her class.

     I've enrolled under Jesus, and I'm majoring in life. It happens that Jesus knew the devil personally and they had some head-on encounters. It is unthinkable for me to claim to be a disciple and deny what my master teaches. So long as I am

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in school I'll take my instruction from the Teacher and not from the drop-outs who hang around on the corner to make fun of those who are still learning.

     Did you ever try to put yourself in the devil's hooves, and attempt to work out the strategy you'd employ to accomplish his purpose? Suppose you had the forces of Light all ripped to shreds, clawing and fighting one another, while you sat on the porch, picking your teeth and watching them. Then about 1809 years after He had invaded your territory in the Great Breakthrough, a little group of the dispossessed inaugurate "a project to unite the Christians (that dirty word!) in all of your sects." What would you do to that movement?

     You'll agree, I think, that you'd abort the purpose of the project by fragmenting its adherents into warring factions and deluding them into augmenting the very condition they proposed to alleviate. So far, so bad, for that's exactly what Satan has done to our "noble experiment." He pulled the wool over our eyes and hoodwinked us into thinking that the way to be faithful to the Leader was to slash his body to ribbons.

     He took about fifty years to decoy our fathers into looking away from the stauros which was their only hope, and to beguile them into debating and berating one another over the proper way to show homage unto Him whom they all professed to love with the same intensity with which they began to despise one another.

     When the original ruse had succeeded, the time was ripe to make the family feast, which was eaten in His memory as a public proclamation of unity, the source of bitter strife and wrangling. Taking advantage of that curious temperament which blends unquenchable zeal with incessant nit-picking, Satan planted the thought that the important thing was not eating and drinking together "until He comes", but rather how long the fruit of the vine has been kept on hand, how it was passed to the children of God, and how the bread was broken. There was thus precipitated a series of violent quarrels which filled the hearts of the communicants with such a spirit of rivalry and hatred as to make their participation a farce and mockery. "Their table was made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompense unto them." Now, at long last, after almost a century of civil war, a generation has arisen which is beginning to question the validity of the assumptions and inferences upon which the party spirit has fed. The sun is once more starting to peek from behind the dark clouds of sectarian animosity.

     It is true that the partisan leaders are working overtime to plaster the chinks in their crumbling walls. Soldiers of the old guard are being frantically called up to man the bastions. But the party cries sound hollow and empty in an age of increasing knowledge and concern. And the clever ruses and feints of yesterday no longer appeal to the thoughtful.

     Recently, in a journal whose editor mistakenly equates advancing the factional plea for advocating "the old paths," there appeared a statement which shows that the sectarian attitude still lives. After quoting at length from another brother whose article showed a strange inconsistency on what could be "tolerated and fellowshipped," the editor in question declared that what had been said about some other things "can just as aptly and logically and scripturally be said against individual communion cups on the Lord's table, fermented wine in the cup, more than one loaf on the table at one time, unscriptural ways of breaking the bread, the assembly divided into classes to edify the church, and women teachers."

     A great many brethren confuse seeking for old paths and searching out the old ruts. And this causes a lot of folk to want to rend their garments, throw up their hands in despair and shake the dust of their feet off against the restoration movement. I'm not inclined that way at all because I'm sure that wherever you go Satan will be there injecting the party spirit by exalting the trivial. I freely admit that our brethren have prob-

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ably shown a greater inclination than most other folk to piddle around with the paltry, and fiddle-faddle with the frivolous, but they are victims of a philosophy which they inherited. But Church of Christism, like other isms, will have its day. Some fine morning our brethren will be able to distinguish between the coat handed down by their fathers and the robe of righteousness handed over by the Son. And they'll shed the first and don the second.

     I plan to stay and fight the devil on the territory that I know best. I feel a great deal better about my chances since I've learned that I don't have to outsmart him by myself. My strategy consists of staying close to the One whom Satan couldn't even keep down after he had killed Him, and loving all of my brethren from that vantage point. A long time ago, one who had actually associated with Him during the period of the Supreme Sharing put it this way, "His orders are that we should put our trust in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another--as we used to hear him say in person."