Commandoes for Christ

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     If there is any period one would desire to be born in, is it not the age of revolution, when the old and the new stand side by side and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and hope; when the historic glories of the old can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? The time, like all times, is a very good one if we know what to do with it.--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

     Commandoes for Christ! This will be our theme for a year. You will have to read what we write for several months before the appropriateness of the title can be really seen. We will not say all that should be said on the subject, but we will speak frankly and positively about those aspects which we do cover. We expect to make our meaning clear and plain. We shall pull no punches.

     I confess freely that I am motivated by a sense of inner urgency, impelled by a fire which burns within my bones. I have examined my heart to be certain that what I say will be but an outburst of passion for the Lord, and not the clamoring for expression of some baser desire. I write because I must do so, for if I do not write I can no longer live with myself and I would not dare face Him in the great by-and-by.

     Some of what I say will appear revolutionary. It is intended to do so. We cannot continue to mill around inside of our partisan enclosures, shielded from the very world which we are expected to penetrate and assault, and truly be the people of God. We must tear the blindfolds from our eyes and strip the masks from our faces. We must give up our clever little sectarian ruses and sly little strategems by which we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are something, when we are nothing!

     Any illusion that we are conquering the world for Christ must melt away in the glare of reality. We are losing the battle. After nineteen long centuries we are becoming an ever growing minority. Even the "numbers game" which we have adroitly played by manipulating statistics only serves to show the widening gap between those who are born once and those who are born again.

     It was not intended to be thus. The host was to be "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners." The language employed in the inception of the heavenly invasion of our earthly domain was military language, studded with such words as fighting, victory and triumph. The soldiers of Christ were to be "more than conquerors."

     There was to be discipline, hardship, suffering and endurance. We were to grapple with the foe in hand-to-hand combat, swinging the sword while climbing over alien parapets. There was to be blood on our armor but glory in our eyes. We were to share in the Great Adventure, pressing back the enemy under the leadership of the Prince, singing as we went, "Where He leads me I will follow!"

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     But, somewhere along the line the bold endeavor came to a grinding halt, except for an occasional sally or skirmish. The minions of the Enemy infiltrated our ranks and convinced us that we should withdraw from the combat zone and build fortresses into which we could retire and find safety and security. We became imbued with the idea that we must hold our own and save the truth, by shielding it from exposure.

     It was no longer a matter of coming together to repair our armor and to lick our wounds. The armor was hung up in the arsenal and the only wounds we received were the unkind cuts given by our fellows in the mess-hall. We now have an army top-heavy with those who do not want to fight. They will desert before they will go to the battlefield. They enlisted for the entertainment provided at our weekly bivouac and for the pension at the culmination of the term of service.

     If there is any fighting to be done it must be carried out by trained mercenaries, men who want to make a career out of defence of the status quo, and who study the use of the sword primarily as a fencing weapon. A great part of the taxation must be spent upon their upkeep, providing a salary for their administration of company policy, officer's quarters for the comfort of themselves and their families, and vehicles for their use in carrying out the responsibility abdicated by others. There must be an office at the base headquarters, not a field office with a dirt floor in emergency facilities, but an air-conditioned room with soft rug and matching furniture. And there must be provision for stamps and stationery, and for the printing of the weekly agenda of sacred services and entertainment features for the troops.

     The result is that we are victimized by our own creation, slaves to a system which we have developed, and which now dominates our lives. The tragedy is that we confuse this with that for which he agonized at Golgotha, and drive ourselves to perpetuate it because of a false sense of loyalty. We bring our twentieth century equivalent of "burnt offering of rams and the fat of fed beasts," and do not realize that our often heartless services may be a burden to our God and that He is weary of bearing them. Often we draw nigh with our lips and honor him with our mouths while our hearts are far from him.

     Then what shall we do? A great many, especially among our more youthful compeers are deserting the structure and "going over the hill." They have become disillusioned and discouraged with life in the monastery, and want to get out where the happening is. And a lot of them like to think of me as an antiquated die-hard because I do not "fly the coop" and flex my wings for a flight into "the wild blue yonder."

     I share their eagerness to get on with the task, but I do not share the same enthusiasm for the strategy by which they hope to accomplish it. There are a good many reasons for my own thinking and they probably mean more to me than they do to a lot of the rest of you. Because they are important to what I shall be writing this year, I shall take the risk of boring you with a few of them.

     1. I recognize that what we think of as "the church" bears but slight resemblance to the ekklesia of God about which the apostles wrote. We have taken a divine-human community idea and subjected it to pressures and tensions and political and cultural influences for a good many centuries, and we have constructed an institution which has satisfied us and given us a a base from which to launch

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out in an attempt to share the message of Christ with the world. Our institution and his glorious ideal are not necessarily the same.

     It is true, however, that the ekklesia has been in the world all of this time and while men may have submerged it beneath their fads and forms they could not drown or destroy it. It will continue to be here until Jesus comes. It has proved its hardiness by surviving the attacks of its foes and the mistakes of its friends. And while it may not be always, or even frequently, identified with the image we have projected upon the screen of history, it has permeated the hearts of many of those who have watched the projection with mixed emotions, and has involved them in the one body through the Spirit. If one works in a fellowship (and there is no other way to work effectively), he must work through that which exists. And that is exactly what I intend to do.

     2. It has been my observation in the study of history that those who defect from the existing community because of the sectarian attitude of its constituency always end up creating another which eventually becomes more sectarian than the one which they abandoned. The quickest way to fill the world with "disloyal" churches is to pull out and start "loyal" ones. If the congregations planted by the apostles could get in the mess they did during the lifetime of the men who started them, it is not likely the ones we start will "hew to the line" or "stay in the beaten track."

     Most of our brethren would not have stayed in the congregation at Corinth a week. A bunch of them would have gotten their heads together and pooled their resources and rented the Odd Fellows Hall on the corner of Tenth and Main Streets, and put an advertisement in the Saturday evening edition of The Corinthian Times, under the heading "Church of Christ (Non-Tongues)." Those who did would have missed hearing Paul when he was in the city for he wrote that he intended to meet with "the liberal group."

     Although every "pull-outer" would deny it, the real reason why a separatist protest group turns out sectarian is because it is started by sectarians at the outset. The very essence of sectarianism is the self-righteous exclusivistic attitude. The very word "Pharisee" means "separatist." And God did not think very much of the idea since he had Jude to write, "These are the ones who separate themselves, worldly people, who are empty of the Spirit" (verse 19). When sectarians separate from other sectarians, you end up with two groups of sectarians. One is too much!

     I am not referring here to those brethren who are sometimes ejected from the party because their loving disposition embarrasses those who do not possess it. There is a great deal of difference between jumping overboard because you just do not want to be around the other passengers, and being thrown into the sea by the other sailors. Jonah found that out. There are some places where the wineskins are pretty old and if your thoughts begin to ferment you have to get out before an explosion occurs and everyone in reach gets doused!

     3. I am not imbued with the idea that you have to give "book, chapter and verse," for every little action as are some of our brethren who spend their time cooking up slogans for which they cannot give "book, chapter and verse." The early saints had no book, and when they finally got one they could not give chapter and verse for about fifteen hundred years until someone came along and divided it up. The man who did it was blasted as a modernist, and some of his contemporaries said he was moved by Satan to number the verses as David had been to number the people. If you would have asked any of the apostles to "give you book, chapter and verse," they would have looked at you in amazement.

     Recently one of the congregations in our city advertised that the preacher would engage in "Book, Chapter and Verse Preaching." Since I had never read of that kind in my Bible, I went and listened, but it was no different. It con-

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sisted of very little "book" and a great deal of explanation, elucidation and exposition. It did not take God very long to say what he wanted to say, but it takes quite awhile for our brethren to tell what they think he meant by what he said. And I am always made to wonder how the Philippians made out with the letter they received, without the one to the Romans and the Ephesians to flip over to and explain their own. There couldn't have been too much rustling of the pages when Onesimus handed Philemon the little note Paul wrote to him from his prison cell.

     I have said all of this because I want to ask my brethren who specialize in the practice, to give book, chapter and verse, for rending and dividing the family of God as a means of obeying God and as a step toward unity. Is there any scriptural authority for the jumbled disarray and hotchpotch which we have created? I confess that I am a little suspicious of doctors whose only treatment for any ailment is amputation, and who are walking to and fro in the earth waving the sword of the Spirit and seeking whom they may decapitate. And I hold no brief for those who fly off into space like splinters from the butt-cut of humanity. There is not much life in a splinter.

     4. I have done a lot of thinking lately about the last letters which Jesus dictated to the golden lampstands which his envoys planted in Asia Minor. By the time these were written the Enemy had gotten in his work and things were in a rather sorry state. A lot of the original luster had faded. "The silver had become dross, and the wine mixed with water." Accordingly, this provides a fine opportunity to determine how God would have us react in congregations composed of those who are cantankerous and contaminated. I want to make a few statements which may appear a little shocking to some in our day of warped thinking!

     One can be saved even though he is in a congregation where some hold to and advocate doctrines that are actually vicious and destructive. He can be victorious and receive the hidden manna, the life-sustaining food from heaven which is unknown to those who are agents of false propaganda (Revelation 2:14-17).

     One can be saved even though he is in a congregation which tolerates a woman who claims to have the gift of prophecy and uses this as a guise to encourage immorality and idolatry. Those "who do not accept this teaching and have had no experience" with the esoteric realm of black magic, can hold fast to what they have, and persevere in doing God's will to the end, and they can receive the morning star (Revelation 2:20-29).

     One can be saved even though he is in a congregation that is dead, while it has a reputation of being alive, although it has never completed any work it ever planned or attempted. He can keep his own garments free from stain and pollution, and walk with Christ in white, because he is deserving (Revelation 3:1-6).

     One can be saved even though he is in a congregation which is so proud and arrogant as to think it has it made, when it is actually like a pitiable wretch, poor, blind and naked. The secret is to listen to the knock at the door, and when you hear the voice of Jesus, to let the Savior in. One can sit down with Jesus in pleasant company even in a congregation which nauseates God with its tepid condition.

     Some of the congregations in Asia, in whose midst Jesus stood, were so far out and so bad off, they would make our worst ones look like they had a mild case

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of measles. But not once did Jesus recommend that "the good guys" grab their white hats, pull out and start a rival institution down the street. God's lamp-stands in Pergamos, in Thyatira, and in Laodicea, might be tarnished and the wicks untrimmed, but they were his and they were all he had. He made no provision for some crusader to split them open for the sake of oneness.

     5. There is another reason why I shall not abandon the institutional church. In a very limited way and in a very restricted sense, I helped to make it what it is. I contributed to its factional stance, and aided and abetted its tragic resort to legalism which has made it rely upon externals rather than upon "the righteousness which comes from faith in Christ, given by God in response to faith."

     My influence was limited by a lack of opportunity and not by desire, for I would no doubt have made the situation worse if I had gained a greater influence. I sincerely thought that our movement was the people "and wisdom would die with us." While this is somewhat frightening when it is recognized how thoroughly one can be brainwashed, it also holds forth the greatest hope. If a partisan so thoroughly saturated with a sense of factional self-righteousness can come to know the meaning of grace and the extent of brotherhood, others may certainly do the same.

     With all of the faults attributed to it by those who mature in a sense of personal relationship to Christ Jesus, the institutional church contains the best people on earth. Their very dogmatism is an overt demonstration of a desire to be faithful to God, even though they are sadly deficient in a knowledge of the divine nature. They have fragmented themselves into rival tribes, but their motivation has been a fierce determination to preserve what they mistakenly regard as "the faith." But the Spirit can do wonders with the great smouldering backlog of apathy if enough splinters catch on fire and snuggle up close to it while aflame. Separation may extinguish both the splinters and the backlog.

     This does not mean that I propose to become a mere constituent of the great mass of unconcerned and indifferent ones who are entangled in "the system." Instead, by God's grace I shall seek to be a humble tool with which He can crack the shell. I regard the institutional church of our day as a vast mission field, an area of fallow ground which needs to be broken up by the plow of the Spirit. It must be penetrated with the dynamic of concern and melted in the blast furnace of God's white-hot purpose. It is not my intention to write aimlessly about how this can be done, but to develop a strategy of involvement and to outline a campaign for the conquest by our King.

     Foy E. Valentine thinks that our institutionalism may be the result of a deep fear that the church's power and glory are slipping away and that we must build boxes in which to keep these qualities, or we may lose them entirely.

     Elton Trueblood declares that the church is the hardest problem of Christianity, and that we cannot live with it or without it. Many other writers in our generation are wrestling with the paradox which we are compelled to face, after divesting ourselves of the colored glasses which have been gratuitously furnished to us. Some will never take them off because they do not want too much light.

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     It may be easier to define the institutional church by what it does and does not, than to give a satisfactory dictionary definition. That is, we may describe it easier than we can define it. One of its outstanding characteristics is the preoccupation with forms, structures and power bases designed for its own preservation. These take a hundred varied shapes.

     There are written creeds, and what is worse, unwritten creeds. There are the traditional headquarters, the radial centers of influence and judgment where doctrinal emphasis is decided and where a top echelon of recognized human authorities exercise control in subtle ways, effectively and piously destroying those who do not "play ball" under their coaching.

     There are the supporting agencies, the vested interests, which draw their substance from the party and then furnish the pap upon which the party feeds. For these the party fights with the ferocity of a mother animal whose cubs are attacked or threatened. All of these are woven into a complex machine in which there is an interchange of supervisory personnel so that a pressure upon one area is felt throughout the whole system.

     There are the huge cathedral-like piles of brick and stone, glittering palaces of modern architecture which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and enhance the image. It is always these temples which are photographed professionally to adorn the covers of the institutional catalogs and appear on the pages of the orthodox journals. In conjunction with these has grown up peripheral businesses hawking various kinds of commodities and services, urging that you purchase your soap and paper towels from faithful Christians and thus help to channel the profit back into the party treasury.

     This is "the System" which is repeated in every rival party in the land in a major or minor fashion. And it is always introspective and selfish. It proposes to thwart the dictum of Jesus that life is gained by losing it, and that the cross is the key to glory. It regards men as potential cogs in the development of greater wheels and serves humanity not so much from a sense of sheer compassion as with a view to its own gains and interests.

     When all of this is said it appears that "the church" needs to be saved, not so much from its sins, which are many, but from itself. The attitudes which it possesses are the same as one finds in the world, but they are much more dangerous because they are sanctified and maintained and justified under the banner of Christ. This makes it much more difficult to change the church. It is always hard to save those who do not know they are lost. It is even harder when that which is lost suffers from the hallucination that it is in "the saving business" and has an exclusive franchise on the territory.

     The reason that a lot of glittering idealists "wash out" is because it is easier to encounter the evil that is not entrenched or glorified. One hears upon every side the statement, "I'd rather try to plant 'a church' in a heathen country than to try and get an old dried-in-the-shell congregation to start serving Jesus." It is altogether possible that it is easier to slay a dragon in the open field than to attack one in his cave, but statements such as the one we have quoted may tell as much about those who make them as about the "hard-shells" among us.

     If we have enlisted in "The Light Brigade" to fight the forces of darkness we must oppose darkness regardless of where it is found. We cannot just choose the easy spots. It is true that by going into an area which has never seen the light at all we can shine brightly with relatively low wattage, but we may also end up in that species of mediocrity which only sharp, incisive encounter can overcome. Real combat troops are not averse to clearing up "the trouble spots." Sometimes these are behind the lines.

     It is quite obvious that the royal army cannot continue with its "business as usual" attitude. We are losing the war. To continue on our present course is suicidal. A genuine reformation is long overdue. But people do not like reformation. They especially dislike it when it involves revolution. Reformers are always

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denounced as heretics and traitors. In spite of this, and regardless of the consequences, I am going to plead this year for a complete tactical change. Among other things this will include the following factors.

     2. An utter abandonment of the idea that the war can be won by a group of professionals hired to pamper the enlistees and entertain them by public dissertations. No group of recruits can ever be trained to fight a bloody battle of hand-to-hand encounter merely by the lecture method. The soldiers must learn discipline under fire. We must develop a "get tough" policy or we have had it!

     3. A complete re-assessment of the purpose of buildings and structures maintained as property holdings by the armed services, and a re-evaluation of the kind of meetings held on these premises in an effort to determine whether such meetings contribute materially to the equipment and morale of the troops.

     4. A recommendation that we train commandoes as a part of a well-designed strategy for regaining those areas from which we have withdrawn and which have been occupied by the opposition. This cannot be done by a haphazard, trust-to-luck program. It must be the result of a plan involving proper procedures on a long-range basis.

     5. A renunciation of fellowship in the ranks on a vertical basis with its consequent divisions and animosities, in favor of a recognition of fellowship on a horizontal level, cutting across the vertical lines and involving the concerned ones who sincerely regard Jesus Christ as Lord.

     6. The formation of cell groups composed of those who want to share a deeper experience with one another and The Eternal, and who will meet in homes for the purpose of exchanging accounts of encounters and experiences, and to pray for doors of witness to be opened unto them by the Spirit. In this "church in thy house" approach there must be no thought of abandoning the institutional church. Instead there must be an earnest entreaty to God to be sent into it as kindling wood aflame to light a fire in the great bulky backlog of apathy and indifference which mark the church in our century.

     7. A stubborn insistence that we relinquish our sectarian jargon which contributes to the unhealthful state in which we find ourselves, and recapture the vocabulary of the Holy Spirit so that we communicate the will of God in and to our generation. This will mean the complete abandonment of a lot of our pious pet phrases.

     8. A bold approach to the task of infiltrating our culture in this secularistic age, making full use of the technological and scientific discoveries to speak meaningfully to men where they are about God as He is. This will involve the employment of every legitimate skill in confronting modern man with the claims of God. It may require a complete transformation of our ideas of worship and service.

     9. A realistic translation of the word of God into living letters composed of men and women, so that in a post-literate age the once-born will see history being made before they read about its roots, and will be driven to the Book by an insatiable curiosity as to the motivating force behind the kind of moral integrity and spiritual transcendence which they observe in the lives of the twice-born ones. This is the new translation most needed in our day, not a new volume to hold in our hands, but a new life to be held in His hands.

     10. An honest rejection of the sectarian stance as having any potential or possibility for the fulfillment of the divine kingdom concept among men. This means the surrender and giving up of our own brand of crazy-quilt sectarianism

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and not merely calling upon others to cease being sectarian, or to adopt our brand. It means the re-affirmation of the one body as composed of all who are joined to Jesus as Lord by the indwelling Spirit. It further means the removal of barriers which hinder the functioning of any member while he moves in meaningful and decisive fashion toward a mutual sharing with others.

     These ten points represent areas of exploration and stress for the coming year. The magnitude of the task which we have assigned to ourselves neither frightens nor staggers me. I am resolved to press relentlessly on in the battle to win men's minds and bring all of their thoughts into captivity unto Him "whom having not seen we love." It is our intention during this year, if our Lord wills, to show that we can win this battle if we have the daring to get into the fray.

     Arthur O'Shaughnessy, the Irish poet, has said, "Every age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth." I embrace no dying dream. I cherish the living faith that a dream is being born and I covet the hope that I may help in the delivery.