Two Letters

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     An ever increasing load of mail brings some interesting letters to our desk. Here is part of one received several months ago from a young brother in a large state university:

     I cannot adequately express my joy at having discovered your publication, Mission Messenger. I was so disillusioned with "Church of Christism" that I was thinking seriously of investigating an Episcopal or Presbyterian Church in the hope that I could find some people somewhere who were really interested in solving the problems of today and not in just reiterating the same old line I had heard for years. I feel very similar to the biology student whose words your publication quoted in the January issue. I am a candidate for the Ph.D. degree in history here at _____, and I really have a hard time getting anything out of a church service. I think that now, however, I can see the way a considerable amount clearer than before, thanks to you.

     In the very same delivery we found another letter from an older brother who is one of the bishops in an Oklahoma congregation. Here is the introduction to his letter:

     Someone sent me your paper and I've been reading about these young college people who think they know more than the old faithful gospel preachers who planted the church at a great sacrifice. Well, I've been an elder for years and I've got some questions to ask too. If these people are tired of the Lord's church, why don't they get out and go to the denominations? We'd be better off if we got rid of all these critics. Why isn't the word of God good enough to guide us like it always has in the past? Can you tell me just what this college-educated bunch of complainers don't like? I want everyone to know I am satis-

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fied with things just like they are and we ought to be working together to build more churches like we have.

     These letters point up an interesting fact. A few years ago I sought to list the areas of tension which present problems in any movement, religious or otherwise. I finally boiled them down to five, one of which is the ever present struggle between youth and age. Without realizing it both are seeking the same ultimate goal, but one believes it can be attained by cutting loose from the past, the other believes it can only come through inflexible defence of the status quo. Both are partly right, and both partly wrong.

     Although I am not young I'd like to be a humble instrument in the hand of God to help bridge this and other gaps, because all of us need each other. I know I need the tremendous insights of the brilliant young intellectuals of our day, but I need no less the steadying influence of those who have borne the heat of the day. And since I have so often answered the questions of the collegiate segment I'd like now to answer the questions of my respected elderly brother.

     In many respects our younger brethren do know more than those of us who are older proclaimers of the word. They have access to many tools of learning which we did not have. New discoveries in the linguistic field, coupled with new versions and translations of the sacred scriptures, have given them a greater knowledge. Too, we live in an intellectual age which provides a powerful incentive to learning. Some of us grew up in factions where advanced formal education was feared and where it was believed that ignorance was a guardian of the faith.

     I am thrilled that we have left the swamps of credulity and crawled out to higher ground and I learn a great deal indeed from earnest and sincere young men and women. Granted that some of their views are impractical and unrealistic, but I've had some peculiar ideas of my own from time to time.

     Our younger brethren are not tired of the Lord's church. I think they love it a great deal and that is why they become incensed when we take that noble organism and squeeze and shape it into a narrow partisan mould. Our beloved brother is the victim of our past sectarian thinking which has equated the Lord's church with a particular fragment of a specific restoration movement. The Lord's church is the one body. It is composed of all the saved of all the earth. Every born again person in the world is in it.

     Unfortunately, because of our divided and strife-torn condition, many of the Lord's people are scattered over the sectarian world. No one of our factions has gathered them all into its own corral as yet. I do not regard myself as separated from a child of God in "one of the denominations." The brand of love which fills my heart can penetrate any wall, batter down any gate, or soar over any barrier to reach and touch the heart of any of God's children or my brothers. I challenge any sectarian to plant a thicket which my faith cannot pierce.

     I'm sure we would not be better off if we drove out those members of the family who are dissenters. God loves all of his children like I do mine and my love does not operate for my loved ones only when they agree with me. Actually, we need critics more than we need yes-men and sycophants. I would not want to see any of my brethren leave, although I will not hate those who do.

     The word of God is good enough to guide us, but it is too good to guide us as we have been guided in the past. Actually we have not been guided by it. For example, nothing is clearer in God's word than that division in God's family is a sin, a work of the flesh, and a badge of carnality and immaturity. Yet we could not be more divided if God's word had commanded it. We have not really been guided by God's word but by a system we have devised and contrived by scrapping the Bible for prooftexts for what we already believe and do. Brethren are beginning to see this and revolt against the deceit in it.

     I am not sure that I can tell our aged brother all of the things that "the college educated bunch of complainers" do not

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like, but I have talked with many of our younger brethren and have some idea of the things which cause them deep concern. Probably a lot of them are like the rest of us, they can tell what's wrong a lot easier than they can tell how to correct it. I think there is a general revolt against the following attitudes.

     1. The pre-occupation with matters of secondary importance and the exaltation of partisan issues above the welfare of human beings for whom Jesus died. There is a feeling that man is not only worth more than a sheep, or many sparrows, as Jesus plainly taught, but that he is also worth more than any idea about the millennium, cups, classes or colleges.

     2. The arrogance of clericalism which projects one man as the official spokesman for the congregation while silencing others who have proven themselves capable in the educational and professional world but who are never invited to share their convictions publicly before the saints. There is growing contempt for that kind of hypocrisy which pretends that we do not have a professional clergy when actually we are more clergy-dominated than almost any other group in our contemporary society.

     3. The assumption of our infallibility in the interpretation of the holy scriptures, resulting in dogmatic and authoritarian unwritten creeds which may never be questioned.

     4. The studied refusal to take a positive stand upon those important problems which threaten the world of mankind, such as the population explosion, birth control, racial inequity, hunger and famine, under the guise that human concern is a God-denying social gospel.

     5. The hypocrisy involved in making it appear that we have no partisan power structures to restrict or restrain brethren, but all are free under God to serve him without fear of journalistic attack or reprisal.

     6. The unwarranted equation of the historic restoration movement with the one body and the conclusion that no one can be saved outside of one of our factions or splinters and that all of God's sheep are found securely hiding behind our barbed wire fences.

      7. The scrapping of scriptural texts and the picking through the Word, selecting isolated passages, to create a system, with the consequent quoting of the same texts to validate and defend that system so devised as the will of God. It is this to which many refer as Church of Christism.

     8. The closed door policy toward meaningful dialogue with other sincere students of God's Word, and even with brethren in other segments of the restoration movement. This attitude promoted under the banner of loyalty to Christ is recognized for what it is--a conceited view of our own place in God's world program and a fear of what direct encounter on all theological fronts will do to some of our cherished traditions.

     9. The intrusion of censorship groups into the personal lives and even into the reading habits of the individual saints and the judging of their fidelity to Christ by the brotherhood journals or literature to which they subscribe. The utter abrogation of freedom in Christ by a clerical caste or a presbytery which regards itself as a divine bureaucratic police force over God's other children is deplored.

     10. The vanity which exhibits itself in some who have majored in Bible and who conclude that this makes them experts in all other fields, including science, psychology and behavioral patterns, and which betrays them into making authoritative pronouncements in those areas where they are utterly lacking in both research and training.

     Whether we are justly criticized in all of these areas we must allow each reader to form his own conclusion. In this article I am seeking only to list the complaints as requested. I suspect our aged brother reacted too strongly and I doubt that any of us are "satisfied with things just like they are." But whether we are or not, we are going to see great changes. The lines we have drawn in the past are losing their relevance in a new day and in a different world.

     The gentle rays of the Sun of righteousness are thawing the icy hearts of bitter

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partisans, the healing of his wings will act as balm to the rents and wounds we have made in his body through our misguided zeal. If our good brother cannot stand to see fellowship transcend our sectarian attitude he will be sad indeed, for such a time is fast approaching. Already the partisan categories of yesterday grate upon the ears of the saints and the Spirit is purging our hearts and purifying our speech.

     And I urge our young brother who is majoring in history not to defect. He will not better himself in this age of thought ferment and he may surrender a great many values for which he and his newly-found associates will some day be reaching. I am here to stay, an imperfect person among an imperfect people. My consolation in my own weakness is that my hope does not rest on one's perfect knowledge but upon knowledge of the Perfect One. Don't count me out as long as he counts me in!