Restoring a Movement

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Thoughtful men and women who are members of the community of saints planted by Jesus Christ as a result of his personal visit to our planet are deeply concerned with the fact that the proportion of those who acknowledge Him as Lord is a constantly receding one. Not only are they a minority group, but they are a shrinking minority. The birth boom, or population explosion, adds to the teeming millions who walk the surface of our troubled earth, and increases

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the gap between the few who know Jesus as Lord and the many who do not.

     The Christian witness is hampered by the divisions among those who seek to lift it up, and the community which should be an example of unity and peace to a frightened world, presents a picture of discord and strife. Indeed, those who shared a relative degree of harmonious cooperation as pagans are often converted into warring clans when rival "Christian" parties move into their territory.

     Recognition of the futility of seeking to unite men in Christ by a community militant against itself has challenged sincere men in all generations to search for a means of healing the breaches so that all disciples of Christ could engage in a united testimony to the power of the Prince of peace. One ever-recurring proposal has been to leapfrog over the existing sects and schisms, and by a mighty act of will, return to the primitive order of things, as announced by the apostles, as special ambassadors of Christ. Other suggestions have also been put forward, but every century has produced its restoration movements.

     In our own nation, since its inception, numerous such movements have flourished. Most of them have been imported, and a number of them have borne the stamp of their land of origin. The majority of the readers of this paper are heirs of a movement indigenous to this New World, although directly sparked by Presbyterians of Scotch and Irish descent. Since such movements originate in reaction and revolution, they generally gravitate into other sects with their own institutions, organizations and vested interests. The search for truth gives way to the defense of traditional positions, and adherents fragment into parties, thus helping to intensify the very situation which the movement was created to alleviate.

     It is the history of such movements that they generally are regarded as outcasts by the sectarian Establishment, and this helps to contribute both to rigidity of position and to frenzied effort, much of which is directed toward proselytization.

     The result is that numerically they become a force with which to reckon, and eventually gain social recognition as a result of decades of improvement of their distinctive educational institutions, and the growing magnitude and location of their architectural structures.

     For awhile, probably as a result of an institutional adolescence, every restoration movement seeks to attain the dignity and age denied it by the cold facts of history through direct identification with the primitive company of witnesses. On the cornerstones of edifices will be chiseled such inscriptions as "Established in 33 A. D." or "Primitive Baptist Church." The movement thereupon ceases to be a movement and becomes a monument. It has arrived and all others have departed!

     Each ascending rung of the social ladder brings a new stratum to influence. The little frame building on the other side of the tracks with its appeal to the economically and culturally deprived gives way to the attractive brick edifice in affluent suburbia. Those things which were once condemned as evidence of pride--rugs, kitchens, air-conditioning, educational buildings--become a part of the modern structure. The ritual undergoes a transformation to conform to the needs of young executives and their families.

     Although our brethren bitterly deny it, they have developed into another sect, and being one of the newer sects they are resentful of those which have grown older and whose sectarian peculiarities have come to mean less to them. One of the very first symptoms of sectism is exclusivism. A sect creates its own little world and equates it with God's big one. God moves and works only within and through the sect, as they view it. He is limited, hampered and restrained by the indifference of the sect. Members must be cajoled, driven and implored to become active so that God will not fail. It never occurs to members of a sect that "God is able of these stones to raise up children." God is powerless without the party!

     Of course, no sect ever likes to think

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of itself as such, for there is a sort of subtle relationship of the term with Pharisees and Sadducees with whom our Lord had some rather stirring encounters. Various subterfuges are proposed to distinguish between "the Lord's church" (consisting of the chosen ones, ourselves) and "other churches" (made up of the rejected). One rather childish little trick is to spell their titles with a capital "C" (Church of God, Church of the Nazarene, etc.) while spelling ours with a lower case "c" (churches of Christ). The inference is that we are apostolic while others are apostate. We are called in; they are cast out!

     The fact is that regardless of how we spell it, we have adopted "Church of Christ" as a distinctive title, and since "denominate" simply means to name, we have accepted an exclusive designation and we are a denomination. To say this in print makes one very unpopular. Each of our two dozen parties thinks all of the others are sectarian, and this is quite frequently implied in their respective journals, but each always excludes its own party from the accusation. The thing that strikes home to all is when one like myself, without intended rancor and simply as a statement of fact, points out that we have sectarianized the whole restoration movement. We have even made the tragic error of equating a movement with the kingdom of heaven. All of us are caught up in the same human predicament. Our real hope lies in the fact that one need not be a sectarian to be in a sect, and we will be saved as individuals, and not as a mass.

     I think that history will prove that no sect ever returns to a movement status. Its vested interests will not allow it to do so. We would like to believe that the Spirit of God could prove that this doctrine of sectarian continuity and uniformity is not unalterable and that "the law of sectarian progression" can have one exception. I hold that nothing else could make the impact on a twentieth century world, sick and tired of its own sectarianism, as to see a sect reverse its trend and recapture its pre-sectarian spirit and once again become a movement. In our own case this would mean a renewal through recovery of the concepts and ideals which launched the movement.

     Of course, at this juncture, some will at once interpose that they are not interested in going back to the beginning of a movement, and their concern is to go back to Jerusalem and restore the church. But there is one fly in this ointment. Those who say this actually think they have already restored the church. They are it! Thus, they have ceased to be a movement among Christians, for there are no Christians outside of the party. The only moving that can be done is toward them. To be called out of the world is to become a member of "The Church of Christ." If every sincere person could start with their presuppositions, accept the infallibility of their interpretations, and unquestionably surrender his right to examine the scriptures for himself, some degree of uniformity could be achieved, and "The Church of Christ" could unite all believers under its authoritarian canopy. But since such conditions will be resisted by thinking men who will not surrender their freedom, we tend only to confuse and clutter up the theological landscape with our parties. What would we need to accept and advocate to return to our original aim? Permit us to suggest a few items of importance.

     1. We must once more become a unity-oriented people, dedicated to an active and aggressive attempt to answer the prayer of Jesus for all who believe in Him through the apostolic proclamation. This means a calculated renunciation of the philosophy of division among God's children as a means of proving fidelity to God.

     Alexander Campbell described the movement which was launched in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1809, as "a project to unite the Christians in all of the sects." To revive this project we must again recognize that there are Christians in the sects, a thing which was never questioned by the restoration pioneers. We must move among the sects as did Alexander Campbell who spoke in all

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kinds of sectarian edifices, and in a manner devoid of arrogance or unnecessary offense we must make our plea known and felt by all who "sigh over Jerusalem."

     2. We must again affirm that "the Church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally and constitutionally one," as did Thomas Campbell in the first proposition of the "Declaration and Address," and we must understand the meaning and implication of each of these terms. We must distinguish between the "Church of Christ" as here mentioned and the modern party which has appropriated the words as an exclusive title. When Mr. Campbell penned these words he was still a Presbyterian and there was no group known to him which was meeting behind a signboard with this designation. Indeed, when the reformers were driven to become a separated group there was long and anxious discussion of how they should be designated.

     The church of Christ is the universal community consisting of all of the saints. Every saved person upon earth is in it. Many of these have allowed themselves to become allied with parties and sects. They do not grasp the glory attached to guarding the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We must move among them in the irenic attitude manifested by Thomas Campbell, who wrote, "We would also desire to adopt and recommend such measures as would give rest to our brethren throughout all the churches--as would restore unity, peace and purity to the whole church of God." At the time this was written, the phrase "all the churches," did not include separatist parties called "Church of Christ" or "Christian Church," nor did the author dream that in the future such organizations would summon his words to defend a partisan existence or to justify rival religious clans.

     3. We must make a clear distinction between the divine revelation and human interpretation of it. Revelation is what God said, interpretation is what we think he meant by what he said. We cannot make what we think the basis of anothers' loyalty for he also has the same right as ourselves to read and to think. Every child of God in surrendering to the lordship of Jesus over his life, thereby pledges himself to be bound by the doctrine of God's word as he comes to understand it, but no one can formally bind that doctrine upon him beyond his personal knowledge and apprehension. And our deductions cannot be made tests of fellowship since they are not conditions of entrance into Christ, but are rather related to growth which is always gradual and by stages. In one of the most perceptive statements I have ever read Thomas Campbell put it thus:

     "That although inferences and deductions from Scripture premises, when fairly inferred, may be called the doctrine of God's holy word, yet are they not formally binding upon the consciences of Christians further than they perceive the connection, and evidently see that they are so, for their faith must not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power and veracity of God. Therefore no such deductions can be made terms of communion, but properly do belong to the after and progressive edification of the Church."

     We can never be a genuine movement for unity across the whole Christian spectrum so long as we postulate that oneness depends upon attainment to the same level or degree of knowledge. Each party or sect will attempt to establish its own plateau as the intellectual height to which all must climb to be acceptable as a brother without error. Each will accuse those upon plateaus above as making laws where God has not made them, and those below as being liberal and loose in their thinking. The irreducible minimum of knowledge in every case will be the deductions of the faction woven into their unwritten creed. The restoration trailbreakers saw this and Mr. Campbell wrote as follows:

     "That although doctrinal exhibitions of the great system of Divine truths and defensive testimonies, in opposition to prevailing errors, be highly expedient, and the more full and explicit they be for those purposes the better; yet, as these must be, in a great measure, the effect of human reasoning, and of course must contain many inferential truths, they ought not to be made terms of Christian communion, unless we suppose, what is contrary to fact, that none have a right to the

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communion of the Church, but such as possess a very clear and decisive judgment, or are come to a very high degree of doctrinal information; whereas the Church from the beginning did, and ever will, consist of little children and young men, as well as fathers."

     It is my conviction that the "Church of Christ" projecting the image of simply another sect, as it now does in most places, will have no unifying effect upon a divided Christendom. Its preachers dare not even participate in ecumenical dialogue forums and are often restricted from association with other parties growing out of the restoration movement. They are helplessly entangled in an authoritarian web woven by editors and scholastic administrators, doomed to talk only to themselves through fear of financial loss or other reprisal.

     But free men who have grown up in this background, and have caught the real vision of the restoration ideal, while extricating themselves from the party machinery, can again assert their right and intention to be Christians and Christians only. As such they can spark a movement which will help the whole Christian framework to reconsider the values accruing from renewal through recovery of the apostolic proclamation, purpose and power. As a sect we will do nothing but divide Christians into factions; as a movement we may once again become "a project to unite the Christians in all of the sects." Then it can be said again, as it was aptly stated in 1809:

     "We are also of opinion that as the Divine word is equally binding upon all, so all lie under an equal obligation to be bound by it and it alone, and not by any human interpretation of it; and that, therefore, no man has a right to judge his brother except in so far as he manifestly violates the express letter of the law--that every such judgment is an express violation of the law of Christ, a daring usurpation of his throne, and a gross intrusion upon rights and liberties of his subjects."